0 half of the usual price. >> that was nice of them. >> yeah. they were big in the '80s. >> yeah. they were huge. great stuff. thanks for watching "around the world." that will do it for me. i'll see you tomorrow. >> all right. you got it. >> you carry on. >> "cnn newsroom" starts now. a suspicious letter sent to president obama. we are live at the white house with the very latest. plus, speaking out for the first time, this mom of seven begs for her freedom from inside a mexican jail. >> i need to be back with my family. i need to be out of here. i need help. >> and prisoners in new jersey received unemployment benefits while they were behind bars. inmates were mistakenly given more than $23 million in benefits. this is "cnn newsroom" and i'm suzanne malveaux. here's what we are working on. we begin with breaking news. this is out of washington now. authorities have intercepted a suspicious letter that was sent to the president. a law enforcement official says that the letter looks similar to two threatening letters that were sent to new york mayor michael bloomberg. those letters to bloomberg apparently contained the deadly poison ricin. i want to bring in our jim acosta, he's covering the story from the white house. we've got deborah feyerick who is in new york. jim, let's start with you. what do we know about the suspicious letter sent to the president? >> well, we know that this letter was intercepted within the last 24 hours, suzanne. it was intercepted at an offsite mail sorting facility where letters that go to the white house are typically screened for this sort of thing. and i can tell you from talking to a law enforcement official in the last hour that because of this heightened sense of awareness that is related to the bloomberg letter that was received, i guess in the last several days, in addition to that letter that was also sent to the mayors against illegal guns group, that because of that heightened sense of awareness, officials were able to spot this additional letter that was mailed to president obama. and at this point it is too early to say according to these officials whether or not ricin was found in the letters sent to the president. that letter is going to be screened for analysis by the joint terrorism task force, as is always the case. and keep in mind a lot of times these letters can test positive at the screening facility, but they have to be sent through, i guess the laboratory that is used by law enforcement officials with the fbi, to make absolutely sure that there was ricin in that letter. from what we understand at this point, the president is still making his way back from chicago. he wasn't even here when this letter was intercepted. and there was never any threat to the president, suzanne. >> real quick here, jim. is there any connection, do we know, from the letter that was previously sent to the president that was believed to be laced with ricin? >> no. at this point law enforcement officials are fairly confident that this case is not related to that mississippi case last month where a man was charged with sending threatening letters that were tainted with ricin, not only to the president but mississippi senator roger wicker. they do believe that this letter that was sent to the white house just in the last 24 hours is connected to the letter that was sent to mayor bloomberg. and, again, as i said a few moments ago, mayors against illegal guns, all three of those letters were postmarked shreveport, louisiana. so that is one red flag at this point that they're looking at. but as i've talked to one law enforcement official about this, they're starting to believe -- investigators are starting to believe that there are copycats at work. in the words of this one law enforcement official, people are just getting some bad ideas. >> jim, thanks. i want to bring in deb from new york. deb, you are learning more about the letters sent o e to mayor bloomberg as well as the president, specifically that the threatening language inside the letters. what do we know? >> well, what we do know is the letters appear to have been written by the same reason. and the reason, the motive behind it, apparently anger against efforts to create gun control. a source who was told in the content of two of the letters, one sent to michael bloomberg and his organization, say that the letter lashes out at those he perceives is going to confiscate his guns. that's a big fear among certain gun owners. the person writes "you will have to kill me and my family before you get my guns. anyone wants to come to my house will get shot in the face. the right to bear arms is my constitutional god given right and i will exercise that right 'til the day i die." all letters were postmarked shreveport, louisiana. they were sent to three individuals at the forefront of the gun control debate, president obama, new york city mayor michael bloomberg and the head of the group he founded mayors against illegal guns. the third found today at the offsite white house mail processing facility, only the one letter sent to the gun control group was actually opened by the intendsed target. president obama and new york city's mayor never in any immediate danger. suzanne. >> and, deb, real quick here. do we have a sense of whether those responsible for these letters, are they in custody? do we know anything about the individuals or the organization? >> no, we don't. we know the jttf, the joint terrorism task force, is investigatoring. we're told they are on their way to shreveport, louisiana, where the postmarks are. otherwise i don't know. i've been inquiring to try to find out whether any one of interest has been questioned, not just sort of random people but somebody maybe at the center of all this. but right not not getting any information on that, suzanne. >> deb, we'll get back to you as soon as you have more information on that. obviously a developing breaking news story out of washington. deb, jim, thanks very much. we're also keeping a close eye on the stock market. it really has been on a roll. the housing market hot, the economy grew just a little more slowly during the first quarter than actually a lot of folks thought. i want to bring in alison kosik at the new york stock exchange with what is the story behind the numbers here? you look at the gdp, gives us the big picture. are we doing any better? >> we're not doing any better, we're pretty much holding steady. we're taking growth in the first three months of the year january through march. what the government says is the economy grew at a 2.4% clip. that came in a bit weaker, a bit worse than the first estimate of 2.5%. keep in mind this figure comes out three times. this is the second time the figure's come out for the first quarter. i want to show you what made this number worse. government spending cuts, remember those? they're still the biggest drag on the u.s. growth for the economy in the first three months of this year. those automatic spending cuts that took effect at the beginning of the year. interestingly enough consumer spending was actually revised higher, but part of the reason for that was that we had to spend more money on our household utilities, heating our homes. not such a huge surprise since we look at the month of marnl, it was actually the coldest march since 2002 which drives up heating cost, suzanne. >> we see there's a poll, a new poll shows a lot of folks a lot more concerned about the economy than the political controversies folks have been talking about in washington. this is a quinnipiac university poll. 73% say dealing with the economy is the higher priority than all those other controversies out there. specifically, what should we be focusing on? what are americans focusing on when they look at that number? >> so when you look at these numbers, you see wlast important. so these scandals that we talk about that president obama's in whether it's the irs scandal or benghazi, they tend to gain more attention, this survey basically says, these scandals tend to gain more attention when there's less concern about the economy. but right now with the economy kind of muddling along and high unemployment sitting on us at 7.5%, people say to heck with the scandals, to heck with the controversies, no matter who's in the white house, no matter which party is there, we care more about the economy than the scandals. it's all about, you know, what matters in americans lives. for many of us average people the scandals don't touch us as much as difficulty getting a job or paying the bills. bottom line with this is that the economy is still issue number one, especially when it's not doing well. although we are seeing improvement in the u.s. economy, it's not going gang busters. there are still a lot of people out of work and a lot of people having trouble paying the bills. suzanne. >> alison, well-put. to heck with all the other stuff. a lot of people really focusing on how they're doing in their own lives. >> right. >> alison, thank you. appreciate itd. investigators in new york, they are looking into a tragic accident that left seven people dead including four young children. this happened near syracuse. police say a minivan that was carrying eight people on a rural highway when a tractor-trailer heading in the opposite direction had a major malfunction. listen. >> the trailer became unhitched from the tractor. it struck the minivan. we have multiple fatalities. in the 13 years i've worked with the sheriff's office, i'm on the accident investigation team, i've never seen an accident this awful. >> that is so sad. there was one survivor in the minivan. he's hospitalized. two people in the tractor-trailer, they were actually not hurt. arizona mother jailed in mexico on drug charges. she is now making an emotional plea. yanira maldanado spoke to cnn from a jail cell in nogales, mexico. authorities are accusing her of smuggling marijuana. listen to what she told our own rafael romo about what happened. >> they mentioned that it was drug on the bus under the seat, but then they never accused me like that. they told me that my husband was in trouble. that he needed to stay. and i said, okay, i'm not going to leave him. i'm going to stay. and then the soldiers said, okay, you both are going to stay. and the bus driver. >> and in the meantime you're thinking to yourself -- >> yeah, this is just a process. they're going to let us go, you know. maybe they're going to do a report or something. i never knew that i'm going to be here a week later behind bars. >> what do you want people to know about you? >> that i'm innocent. that i'm innocent. and i'm a good mom. i'm very -- i love the gospel. i'm lds. and we work hard to have what we have. we're not rich, but we're very honest. and we also do our best to help other people. i'm not a criminal. i'm scared because people are not doing -- this is not right. >> casey wian is following this case. and he's joining us from goodyear, arizona. casey, you can see her emotional plea there. i imagine her family also is seeing that. have they had any kind of reaction to her being in her cell crying and just pleading for mercy? >> they certainly have, suzanne. i spoke with several members of her family this morning. and all of them expressed a lot of emotion over seeing that interview, but also a lot of them said they were encouraged because it appears she's in good health and treated well while in custody in mexico. they were also very concerned yesterday when they learned that she spoke to cnn. they were very afraid she might say something that could jeopardize what they believe will be her ultimate release from a mexican jail. but after seeing the interview, they don't think she said anything that could do that. obviously they're on pins and needles. it's a very sensitive, delicate situation at this point. but all of the family members we've been able to speak with say they're very encouraged by what they've seen and heard from yanira so far, suzanne. >> casey, is there any sense that perhaps her attorneys or her legal team believes that that was a good idea, for her to go forward on the cameras, to tell her story, to be emotional about this, that this will sway anybody, any mexican authorities in this case? >> well, i'm not sure about that. they did express some reservation about her doing on-camera interviews. but now that it's happened, they don't think it has done any harm. what is more critical from their attorney's perspective is the evidence that they are going to introduce in court today. and this information is just coming to me from my colleague rafael romo who spoke with yanira's attorney a short time ago. he is going to introduce evidence in court today that first shows video surveillance of yamenira and her husband gary boarding that bus in mexico. they were carrying nothing according to the attorney but her purse. her purse was too small to carry the marijuana that was allegedly found underneath her seat. so they do believe that that is a very important piece of evidence that they are going to be able to bring before the judge today. the attorney also telling rafael romo that the judge will have to make a decision tomorrow. tomorrow is the deadline for him to decide whether she will be held for a formal charge of drug trafficking, or if there's not enough evidence and her family is adamant that there's not enough evidence, they must release her tomorrow. suzanne. >> and, casey, if she is held, could she be held for weeks or months before a formal trial? >> that's the worst case scenario here, is if in fact that judge does find that there's enough evidence to charge her with drug trafficking, she could be held under mexican law for between three and four months before there's a formal trial. family's hoping it doesn't come to that obviously. >> all right. we're going to be paying close attention. obviously developments going to be happening tomorrow to see whether or not that happens. thank you, casey. appreciate it. here's also what we're working on for this hour. we're looking at hail, wind, possible tornadoes. that is a severe weather threat again today. we are chasing the storms, that's in the midwest. plus, they are locked in prison, but some new jersey inmates are collecting millions in unemployment benefits. and, remember the hero who helped rescue the three women who were held captive in cleveland? charles ramsey, he's got a new job. the day my doctor told me i had diabetes,