good morning, i'm ali velshi, it is tuesday, june 28th, this is your a.m. wakeup

call, joining us from new york. let's take a pictures coming out of greece right now, live shots from greece where workers in that country have begun a 48-hour general strike as the parliament there debates a decision to raise taxes, to cut government spending, to cut wages for government workers. it's something they have to do in order to get a bailout to keep their banks alive. if their banks fail, we're looking at another credit crisis around the world. christine romans will be with me momentarily to tell us what it means to you. anna coren is joining us from hong kong to tell us what the effect is on world markets. we'll be keeping a close eye on what's going on live in greece. here's a quick rundown of other news. starting with a wildfire getting uncomfortably close to los alamos national laboratory in new mexico. look at these incredible pictures. we're talking about an inferno

moving toward one of the federal government's top national security research facilities. hazardous and radioactive materials are stored in there. the facility is closed again today, about 10,000 people have been evacuated from the area. firefighters have a battle on their hands. the winds and heat -- are conspiring to make their jobs a little bit tougher. government officials are saying, however, that the dangerous material there is safe. now to nebraska, you're looking at it now, the flooded missouri river has been threatening a couple of nuclear power plants. one plant has been shut down since april for refueling. officials say protective measures are working. the other plant is still up and running, a few feet above the waterway. a reactor operator there says everything is going to be fine. >> i'm 100% confident we're not going to have an issue here. if the river level continues to rise, we'll follow our procedures, shut down the plant, we'll do whatever is required to maintain our safety.

and here's a fantastic piece of news, congress won gabrielle giffords made a public appearance a few hours ago. it marks the first time that she's been before a crowd since the shootings in tucson, these pictures were released by her staff about a week ago. we don't have pictures of the new event. she was with her husband, astronaut mark kelly. our affiliate in houston ktra reports that giffords got a standing ovation she stood up from her wheelchair and kissed her spaceman husband. how do you think rod blagojevich is sleeping right now? he could be sleeping on a prison bunk for a long time, for prying to sell barack obama's senate seat. he was found guilty yesterday. >> patti and i were very

disappointed with the outcome, i, frankly am stunned. there's not much left to say other than we want to get home to our little girls and talk to them and explain things to them. and then try to sort things out. and i'm sure we'll be seeing you guys again. >> cnn's jeffrey tuben thinks blago could spend up to ten years in prison. why would anybody need ten pipe bombs? that's what authorities in louisiana want to find out. he crashed his truck yesterday. police say they found the bombs during the crash investigation. now your casey anthony murt trial update. the trial was stopped over the weekend, but it is moving forward now. the meter reader who found anthony's daughter, caylee's remains, might testify today for the defense. not one, not two, but three psychologists examined the defendant over the weekend, and then the judge made this

announcement. >> based upon the reports that the court has reviewed, the court will find that the defendant is competent to continue to proceed. >> so we move into week six of the most notorious murder trial in america. we'll have full coverage of it on cnn today. our other big story in athens, greece, huge protests against anticipated austerity measures, that's government cuts, tax increases, let's gets to it. cnn's diana magnay, live on the phone from athens. what's different from what we've seen in the last couple of weeks? >> well, there's a 48-hour general strike that started a few hours ago. and already, as you've seen in those pictures there are thousands of people on the streets, you can expect them to grow in number. the two main private and public-sector unions are out. the communist union also. tens of thousands of people who

are complaining at these austerity measures that are a condition of the eu and the imf giving greece further loans. when you talk to these people, they say, we've suffered enough. we've had a year of this already, we've had our wages cut, we've had our pensions cut, we can't cope with higher taxes. we feel as though we're bankrupt already. but of course, there is a very real possibility, if greece doesn't get this money, if it does go bankrupt, as early as july, that the people will have to suffer even worse austerity than they've experienced already. ali? >> we've watched it closely with you and we'll check in with you frequently throughout the morning. diane magnay is in athens. let's go to hong kong where anna coren is watching the markets. good morning. diana said if greece doesn't pass these austerity measures, we could be heading toward a crisis for greece, a crisis for europe. and we all know that that could

catch on around the world. how are markets treating this? >> well, it's quite interesting, ali, because despite all of this volatility in greece, it would seem that the uncertainty in the markets is easing. there's a belief that perhaps the these austerity measures that currently being debated will be pushed through. let's pull up the markets around the world. certainly here in asia pacific they've been in positive territory for most of the day. japan's nikkei has been the highest performer, up .75%. u.s. markets up almost 1% overnight. and european markets now that are open for business, they're mostly following those gains that were made on wall street. the german dax, only slightly down. but relatively flat. quite volume tile there. so ali, you have to say that confidence as far as the markets are concerned, is building, that agrees will actually get through this debt crisis. but i think someone needs to tell it to the tens of thousands of protesters due to take to the streets of athens. >> you make a good point.

there's a remarkable disconnect between the people in the streets who are very worried about their taxes going up and cuts to the rest of the services and the rest of the world who think that's what needs to happen. the beginnings of a 48-hour strike. anna, you'll watch it closely and i'll check in with you later this morning. anna coren in hong kong. let's bring it back to the united states, rob marciano in atlanta. any flight delays for travelers? >> i think we'll see some in the bigger cities this afternoon. especially a slow-moving front will bring some showers and thunderstorms. not seeing a ton on the radar now. but as we go through the day and heat things up, we'll start to get the atmosphere percolating a little bit. a little rain heading into the i-95 corridor in through the beltway as well. and from d.c. to baltimore, up through philadelphia, you'll start to see some thunderstorms that will not all should be rough and tumble, but there will be enough to create some problems. in general, new york metro will

see delays, more likely in the late morning to early afternoon. philadelphia, same deal. d.c. metro will see thunderstorms and you saw those on the radar as will atlanta. so a lot of big cities, especially on the east coast are going to see some air traffic problems. so plan ahead, give yourself an extra ten or 20 minutes and that should doed trick. >> i walked out this morning and i felt that sort of humidity in the air, the summer new york things thing that says rain is probably coming. rob, stick around for this. watch the next story. you've got to see this video. folks at home, come over to the tv and look at this clip. that is willie. >> come on. >> willie, the amazing dancing chihuahua. ♪ >> i don't even know what to say about this it's nine minutes after 5:00 in the morning. and you and me are watching a dancing chihuahua named willie. it doesn't look natural, does it?

>> no. and that's the first chihuahua i've ever seen that's not yapping. >> he seems very still. he's not struggling to keep his balance. he seems quite normal. >> we'll think about that. rob good to see you, my friend. remember the story we told you about yesterday, the 95-year-old cancer patient whose adult diapers were apparently creating some red flags in the airport security area. how do you forget something like that? i've got an update. since then this is what we've heard. i'm going to read you a quote from a newsmaker. quote just like john wayne, i've got an update. this is an update -- a different story. just like john wayne was from waterloo, iowa, that's the kind of spirit i have, too. who said that? i'll tell you on the other side of the break. 11 minutes after the hour. ♪

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happy tuesday, it is 14 minutes after the hour. here's the newsmaker quote i told you about just before the break. here's the person who said it as she said it the. the quote was, just like john wayne was from waterloo, iowa, that's the kind of spirit i have, too. >> what i want them to know is, just like john wayne was from waterloo, iowa, that's the kind of spirit i have, too. >> michele bachmann, just one problem, the duke was from winterset, iowa, 150 miles away. some critics said michele bachmann confused john wayne with john wayne gazy. john wayne gacy, who was from chicago, but lived in waterloo for a little while. whatever, don't think that story

will be michele bachmann's waterloo or her winterset. time to talk to our good friend, tim farley, the host of morning briefing on sirius xm. potus. live from washington. >> it's all about jobs today. >> it is all about jobs. it is all about iowa and jobs. the president is going to be in iowa as well, talking about jobs. with a company that's creating them. >> as a matter of fact, it's alc alcoa, he's going to betancourt, his arch program, alliance of manufacturing partners. and sarah palin is in iowa, there for the premiere of her documentary, "undefeated." it's not hers, but about her, the life and times of the former alaska governor. and also on the campaign trail, the former governor of minnesota, tim pawlenty is going to be making his big pitch, speaking to the council on foreign relations on what his advisers are saying is a response to the president's

flawed may 19th speech about the middle east. >> what's your sense -- talk about this for a second, the foreign policy stuff. we've got john huntsman in the race, who is somebody with a lot of foreign policy experience, obviously, he was the ambassador to china, he speaks chinese. tim pawlenty, while he's polling very low, he's being taken serious by many people on a policy front. so he's trying to beef up his idea of foreign policy and his strength in that area? >> exactly. he's trying to be taken much more seriously and get more attention. he's not exactly a charismatic individual. he's very serious, he's actually delivered more policy speeches than anybody else, but at this point he's hard to get noticed in a field that includes michele bachmann and her comments on john wayne gacy. the senate talking about libya, the military action as it's been called by the secretary of defense and how the president should relate to congress, the war powers

resolution. senator john kerry taking it up today. >> good morning to you, you have a great show and we'll talk to you again tomorrow, tim farley, morning briefing, sirius x xm potus. the gay marriage bill. >> it's a perfect time to roll out my new jon stewart brand, tux speedos. >> anybody here for the gay pride parade yesterday? i went dressed as michele bachmann. >> anything goes now. bigamy, polygamy, trigonometry. the ancient greeks invented it, it's got to be gay. >> i want to update you on the most controversial story at the tsa we told you about yesterday. this is the transportation security administration, i told you about a 95-year-old cans certificate patient, whose depends ran afoul of the tsa agents in florida.

the tsa said quote, no our people did not make this woman remove it for security reasons. end quote. now the lady's daughter tells cnn that's true, it was her idea for her mother to take the diaper off so the security could take a closer look. the next story is all about the spotlight. multi-grammy winner debee onsay knows a thing or two about that. listen. >> why don't we get one of these, here. >> winning. >> this is the perfect t-shirt. >> cnn's piers morgan with beyonce. she tells him what she's done that's made her mother the proudest. and do you remember the day honoring the mathematical formula for pi? pi day on march 14th. today is tau day, the holiday, the math holiday that celebrates tau. if you're a tau fan, you believe

that the mathematical theory of pi should be doubled in order to be correct. i agree. in honor of tau day. i have two slices of pie. i'm doubling my pie today. and in this coming up break, i'm going do attempt to eat them. i'll be back in a minute and a half. it's 19 minutes after the hour.

almost 22 minutes after the hour. here are three things you need

to know today. have these on your radar. first of all, president obama is going to be in iowa today, talking about manufacturing jobs. and how crucial they are to the american economy. that's at 2:05 p.m. eastern. he'll be at alcoa, a company that is adding manufacturing jobs in the united states. the international monetary fund board is expected to vote today on a new managing director to replace dominique strauss-kahn. and nasa will talk about final preparations of the final launch of the space shuttle. zain verjee live with us from london. good morning to you, the amanda knox murder conviction appeal is under way. so many of us were riveted to the initial trial of the american girl who went to study in italy and got confused and convicted of a murder along with her boyfriend and another man. and now that is all coming back to play out. >> yeah, ali, it continues to be

really dramatic in court. and pretty explosive. just to update you on the latest. a man by the name of rudy guerde, got on the stand, and testified that amanda knox and her ex-boyfriend, did kill meredith kir cher. he was placed at the scene of the crime when it happened. amanda knox was totally pale as described by various reports and visibly upset. when he left the room, she got on the stan and she said, she was pained and anguished and it was just not true. she said he knows we were not there. and we had nothing to do with it. this is an appeal trial. it continues to take all sorts of twists here. but we're going to continue to follow it. and what the defense is hoping is that when there's this reexamination of some of the forensic evidence, that they say was mishandled, it could work in their favor. >> we'll continue to follow that.

hey, zain, yesterday you showed me something about protesters in chile dancing. now you've got something about a chinese cheerleader? >> this is my favorite video, ali, got to show it to you. it is making the rounds on the internet. it has gone totally viral. check out this guy, all right? this is chinese guy. doing a cheerleading diva dance routine. and it is an absolute hit. it was uploaded on ucu.com. and there were hundreds of thousands of hits, he's doing a pret i goty good job. he's apparently a major at a chinese university. but nobody knows his identity, exactly. he's doing a pretty good job. his name is nicknamed extremely coquettish brother. i think that's probably accurate. regardless of his sexuality, it

takes a man to wear a sequinned top. >> he's moving, i've got to say, that's pretty good. >> i think we're going to have zain is going to have a dance of the day on the show. we'll check in with you a little bit later. >> you might be next. >> no, that's not going to happen, zain verjee in london. take a look at this video, this is the view from china's sweet new bullet train. it zips along at 186 miles per hour. that's more than twice the speed of the fastest train in the united states. i got to tell you, if we can see that shot out the front again, i would have thought 186 miles per hour would look faster. this looks less like a bullet, a little bit more like a beebe. but it's early. doesn't that -- it looks fast, it doesn't look like 186 miles per hour. it's great for china.

the train is going to get travelers from beijing to shanghai in fewer than five hours, they serve chicken sandwiches from kfc on board. kfc? if that's not a reason to take the bullet train, what is. imagine this, if you can, more than $1 billion sitting in a vault apparently because nobody wants it. nobody wants $1 billion, i'll tell you why on the other side. if you got paid on friday, congratulations, you survived. i'm going to tell you why payday can be hazardous to your health. 26 minutes after the hour. happy tuesday to you. [ doctor ] here's some health information for people over 50.

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good morning, it is tuesday, june the 28th, this is a.m. wakeup call, i'm ali velshi, joining you live from new york this morning. 30 minutes after the hour. let's get you caught up on what's going on around the world. right now, protests under way live in greece. this is look at these pictures. this is phenomenal. this is in athens, we're a few hours into a two-day strike, protesting a debate going on in the greek parliament right now that is aimed at increasing taxes and cutting government spending. something that the greek government has got to do in order to get its bailout. its second bailout. otherwise, greece gets into a lot of trouble and so does europe. look at the people in greece protesting what's going on. we've got diane magnay live for us and i'll get to her in a moment after i tell you what else you have to have on your radar today. let me tell you great information overnight we learned

that congresswoman gabrielle giffords made her first public appearance since being shot in the head in jan. giffords received a standing ovation after accompanying her husband, astronaut mark kelly, to an awards ceremony last night in houston. we don't have video of that event. these pictures were released earlier by gabrielle giffords' office a couple of weeks ago. but our affiliate, ktrk, reports to us that giffords stood up from her wheelchair and kissed mark kelly after he received a space flight medal. meanwhile there's a legal tiff over the man accused of shooting the congresswoman. jared loughner is at a federal prison hospital in springfield, missouri, doctors want to give him medication to treat his mental illness. attorneys representing loughner say wait a minute, forcing him to take mind-altering drugs violates his constitutional rights. they filed a legal challenge. a federal judge ordered the government to respond by later today. we'll keep you up to date on

that story. a new push to get the dream act through congress. that's the proposal to allow students who came here illegally with their parents, to stay in the country. or children of illegal parents, to stay in the country. it passed the house in december, back when the dems were in control. but it fell short in the senate. today a high-profile senate hearing puts it front and center again. democrats say passing the dream act will help the country economically. republicans say they will not even consider it, until the borders are made more secure. the nation's highest court, the supreme court has taken up cases that could affect your kids' video games, that could affect gps tracking and what you watch on tv. first, the supreme court handed a big win yesterday to the video game industry. striking down a california law that would have banned selling violent games to kids. so your kids still get to play those games. next the court decided to hear a case about whether police need warrants to track your car, including with gps. and finally, when it comes to

profanity and sexuality on tv, justices say they'll take another look at what you can say and do on broadcast television. there are greater limitations on broadcast tv than what you can do on cable tv. $1 billion that no one wants, you know those sakajawea coins? congress has required the u.s. to mint them, the problem is, no one uses them. $1.2 billion worth of coins are stacked away in the federal reserve vaults, and a report said it could hold more than $2 billion coins by 2006. our big story this morning is happening right now in greece. protests against anticipated austerity measures, cutbacks in spending, increases in taxes. cnn is live from athens. diana, the parliament has been given an ultimatum, they've got

to pass this in order to get assistance. clearly the people of greece, where you are, are not that interested. >> they're very angry and they believe that the eu and the imf basically blackmailing them and blackmailing the parliamentarians so they can get the $17 billion they need to stop defaulting as early as the middle of next month. that's why people are out on the streets to protest. they've had already a year of austerity. this isn't the first bailout they've needed. they now need a second, because the first bailout didn't suffice. and so the eu and the imf is saying, look, we want to see you actually make good on those promises. we want to see you as a country start privatizing, as much as $1 billion worth of assets. we want to see you make progress on taxes. about a third of the taxes aren't actually declared.

and they haven't seen enough progress on that and they want to see cuts in public spending, cuts in the public sector. so many people say my pension has been cut, my wages have been cut. the v.a.d. is up and i can't afford any further austerity measures. that's why they're out today. >> i point our viewers to the right side of the screen, this is as you said, a few hours into a 48-hour general strike. the numbers are astonishing. it looks quite ordererly and peaceful. about a week ago we were looking at pictures from greece that included water cannons and what looked like it could have been tear gas. we're covering the market side of thing as well. let's go to christine romans, she's got her eye on the financial side. >> good morning, ali, so what happens in greece with the vote and how orderly this is and whether there's problem with greece on the debt problems will probably affect the u.s.

u.s. stock index futures are down, the dow is down about 24 points, but it's early. the problem here or the issue i should say, is money funds now in the u.s. you've got traders and fund managers closely eyeing european debt held in those money market funds, this is the safetiest of the safest investments, there is european debt exposure, bank debt exposure, those banks exposed to greece and a potential default there. that's what we're watching right now. >> this is the important part, that it does actually matter to viewers in the united states that the bill passes in greece, because if greece doesn't get its bailout, we got problems all across europe with credit, with banks and that can affect your money market funds here in the united states as well as other financial matters. >> and it's also the contagion -- you've heard them called, people call this the lehman brothers of greece. and lehman brothers was the domino that hurt the u.s. in the financial system. some are saying that's a little bit overly dramatic. there's not a run on a country

like there's a run on a bank. but at a time in the global economy that it is still nervous, the financial system is still fragile. greece getting its act together is incredibly important for the contagion for portugal, italy, ireland and others. so greece matters, what's happening in europe matters. these pictures matter to your money and the u.s. stability as well. >> i'll see you in 25 minutes on "american morning." we try to find the special nugget of business news every day. we call it our businessman's special. if you got paid on friday, congratulations you survived. why would i say that? a new study shows that people are more likely to die on payday or shortly thereafter than on other days. the direct deposit of death. why is it? researchers say you tend to do more risky things once you have money in your bank account. like road trips, drink or do drugs. it only looked at people on social security or with government jobs. what the l.a. dodgers

bankruptcy means. and. bill clinton talks about nightmare moon. it's not a national security code word, it's a "my little pony" term and it's our word of the day. find out after the break. ♪ ♪ ♪ my little pony y one. for toys, say two. toys ! the system can't process your response at this time. what ? please call back between 8 and 5 central standard time. he's in control. goodbye. even kids know it's wrong to give someone the run around. at ally bank you never have to deal with an endless automated system. you can talk to a real person 24/7. it's just the right thing to do. yo8% every 10 years.age 40,on we can start losing muscle -- wow. wow. but you can help fight muscle loss with exercise and ensure muscle health. i've got revigor. what's revigor? it's the amino acid metabolite, hmb

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it is 41 minutes after the hour. exactly before the break, i told you our word of the day, two words, really, "nightmare moon." a pegasus unicorn from the npr series. turns out that the former president is a rhodes scholar, got a perfect score. >> the pony's most powerful enemy is which of these, crystos the glue-maker, b -- >> if he's not, he ought to be.

>> b, the evil postpony, nightmare moon, or c, the cynical grown up, chester. >> b. >> b, you're going to go for the evil postpone in, nightmare moon? you're right, mr. president. [ cheers and applause ] >> i can't see his face, i can't tell if he was, if he was guessing or he really knew the answer. but whatever, he won. it doesn't matter. let's go to the political ticker. let's find out what's going on in politics today. political coverage manager steve brusk is on the phone in atlanta. steve, good to talk to you, my old friend. >> you knew the answer to that, right? >> of course. nightmare moon. whatever that was. let's talk about things i might actually know the answer to. talk to me about the sarah palin movie premiere. >> it's not every day that the president of the united states goes on a road trip on a major political trip to a state like iowa and risks being overshadowed as the big political story. but that could play out today. sarah palin has decided to go to iowa, this movie is about her,

this is a $1 million movie made by conservative filmmaker, a very flattering movie about sarah palin's career. being premiered tonight in the small town of pella, iowa, a picturesque campaign setting. sarah palin has decided to attend it in person. she'll be there in the audience. and do a little cookout with the folks in town afterwards. not a campaign trip per se, but this is one more of those things that has everyone wondering exactly what is sarah palin up to. is she looking at a campaign? is she in the process of trying to make herself a king-maker? sort of end up in a powerful position in the party and raise her stature again? anyone who tells you they know what she's up to right now are flat lying. i don't think anybody knows what she's doing. 152 miles to her east, president obama will be in iowa today, he's going to bettandorf,

to visit a factory plant where employment levels have risen. they've gone back to the level these were before the recession started. the president will try to run a national message at that event. we'll see hill there this afternoon. part of his busy political day in iowa. sarah palin may not be a candidate at this point, but two people who are, ron paul and rick santorum will both be campaigning in iowa today. tim pawlenty, who is struggling mightily in iowa, where he absolutely has to win, he won't be in iowa today. but he's got what for his campaign is a very important event. he's in new york city, addressing the council on foreign relations. he's going to deliver an address there, that is going to both target president obama, criticizing him for flawed foreign policy, for being timid and slow in his response to the arab spring. but he also is going to deliver a very pointed message towards some republicans who he says are going down a path today's isolationism. what is thought to become a pointed comment towards mitt

romney and jon huntsman, he's going to say that the party should not shrink from the challenges of american leadership. it will be a closely-watched speech. >> we're watching sarah palin, we're watching barack obama and we're watching tim pawlenty today. good to hear from you, steve. and steve brusk is in d.c. for us today, i said atlanta, but he's in d.c. let's go to sports right now. pablo torre is a reporter for "sports illustrated." l.a. dodgers filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. to a lot of people, that means shutting down, game stopping. but in reality, bankruptcy for a baseball time is a lot like bankruptcy for a company. how rare is this, first of all? >> it's pretty rare. a couple of teams have done it. the texas rangers did it, most notably last year. what's different in this case, is its historically acrimonious and embarrassing, it started with the divorce proceedings of frank mccourt.

a divorce that opened up all the books, as we know divorces can do. we had hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. we had spending of team assets on lavish lifestyles, the hiring of a psychic to send positive energy to the dodgers. a perfect hollywood tell-tale story. all of the cautionary ingredients you would want for a horrible, horrible sports tale gone bad. >> all right. what happens to fans? do games get affected by this? >> well the games go on. i think if you're a dodgers fan, you're pretty depressed right now. this is one of the great american brands in sports that's been almost completely tarnished really since they moved to l.a. it's been a model franchise until the mccourts took over. so the players will be paid, contracts in mlb are guaranteed. you'll see the games, but it's hard for this not to seep out into the field. the team with the loosest purse strings tends to win in baseball. you won't see big trades or moves for the dodgers, so the fans won't be happy about that.

>> i saw this coming across yesterday afternoon -- news that both venus and serena williams both had upsets at wimbledon, knocked out. what's the deal? >> well this is something that sports fans aren't used to. we're trying to chart all of this on si.com right now. the bottom line that serena and venus have both been knocked out. that hasn't happened in a very long time. they've been in nine of the past 11 wimbledon finals. so really, that's an epic collapse for the americans. something we don't get a sense of how dominant the william sisters has been until they're both gone. now we have a field that's devoid of big names. and shamaria sharapova probablye best name 20 come out of this thing. and venus and serena, you wonder if the dual reign is over.

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it is tuesday, june the 28th, this is a.m. wakeup call, i'm ali velshi joining us this morning from new york. it's 50 minutes after the hour. let's go around the world to zain verjee live in london.

zain, the amanda knox murder conviction appeal is under way. what's going on there? >> it has been pretty dramatic and pretty explosive, ali, it's all centered around this guy, an ivoirian guy, named rudy guede. he got on the stand and testified that amanda knox and her ex-boyfriend did commit the crime. he was also convicted at the killing and was also put at the scene of the crime. when he took the stand, he said it is absolutely true knox was watching all of this. she was in the courtroom. she was pale. afterwards, when he left she got on the stand and said she was really shocked and really anguished and then she said this -- he knows that we were not there. and that we had nothing to do with it. so there are a lot of twists and turns happening in this appeal hear. she continues to maintain her innocence. she's been sentenced to something like 26 years in jail for the murder. the defense team is hoping that when they look again at some of the forensics that were

mishandled according to the law there, that it can work in their favor. but we'll keep watching. >> all right. i was in paris last week as you know, the air show was on there and that's where everybody goes to see the buy planes and they go to see what manufacturers are building for the future. and there's something that was unveiled there that was quite revolutionary. >> yeah. you know, if you don't want to fly your private jet any more, ali, there is something else that you could look into. an electric passenger jet of the future. it's by volt air. this is an airliner that is zero emissions, it's cool, right? just look at that, it's really aerodynamic there and it's got the wings turned up like the boeing designs. but what's interesting about this picture is that they have superconducting motors that don't actually waste electrical energy so when you take from the plane you won't see the fume s belching out.

they have a battery mound mounted in the cargo hold. all they have to do is keep swapping it rather than plug in the plane for 16 hours. >> so the problem is that the electricity conducting wires have to be cooled so it takes more mechanism, it takes more equipment to keep it cool, but there's no loss of electricity. so it would be not only would it be electric, but it would be highly, highly efficient. when do we think we might see something like this? i think we're talking decades? >> decades away. at the paris air show, there were all of these cool designs that said you can fly halfway around the world in two and a half hours. and there's a design like this. decades away. nice to talk about it, but it's hugely expensive to execute and also to make commercially viable. if they could have done it, they would have done it by now. but it's good to vision. >> all right. zain, good to see you as always. i'll see you on "american morning" in a little while. i want to tell you about a lault against abercrombie and fitch. a young muslim woman in the san francisco area is suing the company. she worked at their hollister

store in san mateo. she claims the store fired her because she wouldn't take off her religious head scarf at work. >> growing up in this country where the bill of rights guarantees the freedom of religion, i felt let down. >> no worker should have to choose between their religion and a job. >> be aer com bring is not talking about the lawsuit. this is a company where a lot of their staff don't wear too many clothes at all and they prided themselves on creating a catalog that some say borders on being soft porn. the company said it complies with the law when it comes to quote reasonable religious accommodation. let's go to rob marciano live in atlanta. any delays right now at the airports? >> thunderstorms are popping up across the eastern section of the country. and those areas where there's going to be rough weather this morning across the tennessee valley. that's where the severe thunderstorm watch is in effect right now. where we expect to see the most travel delays, the highly most

traffic we see across the new york metro, low clouds and rain eventually. right now it's fairly dry, but the visibility is low. philadelphia, d.c., atlanta, and san francisco. all are on the list. and there's some big cities on the list, obviously of seeing some airport delays. but once the front is through, ali, a lot of us will get rid of the humidity. get rid of the soup. get rid of the heaviness that's in the air that's making you schvitz on the way out the door. >> rob, good to see you as always, i'll see you on "american morning." it's a story in 1997 that had everyone talking. mike tyson bit off a piece of evander holyfield's ear in a asr vegas fight. it was 14 years ago.

just a minute away from "american morning." we've been watching the live protests taking place in the streets of greece. let's go to hong kong. anna coren is following world markets reacting to it. what's it looking like? >> well, in fact markets seem to be behaving themselves. if anything they're showing confidence that the greek austerity measures currently being debated will in fact get through. here in the asian pacific markets ended in positive territory. japan's nikkei was the highest, closing at almost .75%. in your part of the world, u.s. markets were up almost 1% overnight. european markets seem to be following, on wall street's gains. they're all up except for the german dax. it's down slightly. so there certainly