our economy has been through incredible things. ton employment is not as high as it was in the 1980-'82 recession. we need confidence all across the board. we have adults in charge in wachlt people can live by them and make decisions by them. the real trick going forward is please don't let us have this argument on all the little things. let them come to an agreement and step aside and get the economy going again. >> well, let's hope that we see that happen. and we look forward to the job. terry savage, thank you very much for your perspective. >> thank you, randi. thank you have a rough are job? what it takes to hund for ieds in the heart of afghanistan. [ melody ] the bar is raised for everybody in an ap class,

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that happen. yesterday we looked at the stark physical tran formation of one young soldier experiencing war for the very first time. we go out with his company as they search for ieds. jason, these guys have an awfully dangerous job, no doubt about that. what was it like being in the war zone with them? >> you know, i should tell you, it was tense. it was really tense for a first-timer such as myself being out with these combat engineers. to put it in some perspective for your, randi, one report shows some 268 troops were killed by ieds last year. the combat engineer's job is to go out and find those bombs before they can do in harm. so we got a first-hand look on

how they try to accomplish their mission. >> what we do is we make sure that our route is cleared before we step off. >> reporter: on mission with combat engineers in a remote area of southern afghanistan. these soldiers hunt for ieds, those roadside bombs insurgents use to injure or kill. >> they watch us and wait to see what we do, and then they act. >> reporter: but they also search for the people who plant them. on this particular day, it wasn't long before they found both. >> they came out positive for some of the compounds that we think could be involved in suspicious activity out here, making explosions. >> reporter: during a checkpoint, they find five men and the car they're driving tests positive for explosives. >> this one is military-grade plastic explosives. >> reporter: the men say they're builders and farmers and offer a

credible story to these trained is soldiers. one man carrying 2 million rupees, two others found with questionable passports. >> they both say they're going be a tourist in asia, america, and europe. >> reporter: then off camera -- >> they found suspicious bomb material behind us that prevents us from going back over and getting exploded on. >> someone knew we were going to be turning around and coming back in that direction and they plant add bomb so we would hit it. how big was it? >> six jofbs homemade explosives which is roughly 300 pounds of explosives. >> just so you know 3rks 00 pounds is like a typical suv, like you say, a tahoe. it would break into about two million people and kill everybody inside the vehicle. >> reporter: finding the bomb,

finding the men, these engineers say it all adds up. >> we're putting two and two together here. today's events aren't looking good. >> it's hard to believe we found an ied behind us, five games that came up with explosive residue on their hand and they're walking around with 2 million pakistani rupees. we were able to catch five of them. do you think it was luck or do you thing there's a lot of them out there? >> today might have been our lucky day. >> no one got hurt and let's score one for america. >> wow. those guys are certainly brave, jason. you as well go out with them. how often do they find the ieds? >> well, you know, it's an interesting question. if go to certain parts of southeastern afghanistan and some of these remote areas, it is not uncommon at all, randi, to either find an ied, get blown up by an ied, or find insurgents

who may have allegedly planted some of these ieds, depending on the remote areas of thanksgiving you go to. so it's still very much a problem. >> all right. jas jason carroll, thank you so much for bringing us that story. time right now, just about 25 minutes past the hour. time to check our top stories. president obama has signed the debt ceiling agreement. that news coming just a short time ago from the white house. no grand ceremony. just the signing. the bill was passed in the senate by an overwhelming margin a little while before the president signed it. today is the 32n't straight day of 100 degree temperatures in dallas. many parts in the south and central plains continue to endorse extreme heat. the heat wave is blamed for dozens of deaths. the fifth named storm of the atlantic hurricane season tropical storm emily moving over the caribbean sea. current maximum sustained winds are only 40 miles an hour but emily is expected to gain

strength over the next couple of days. it could hit haiti tomorrow and could skirt the coast of florida by saturday. all right. take a look here. remember this? we awe know it is the miracle on the hudson. the plane lands on the hudson on one of the coldest days of the year. everybody gets out and it's all caught on tachlt it's a big day for cnn's ireport and we're celebrating by showing you some of the best pictures and videos. thin squares of crispy granola layered with creamy peanut butter or rich dark chocolate flavor. lightly toasted for a delicate crunch. 90 calories. 100% natural. and nature...approves. ♪ granola thins. from nature valley. nature at its most delicious. excuse me? my grandfather was born in this village.

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they have transformed the way we cover big events from the virginia tech shooting to the explosion in the gulf. cnn wouldn't be able to cover the big stories in the same way without ireports, videos and photos sent in by you, the viewer. now ireports have been around for five years and to celebrate, we're taking a look back at some of the most memorable submissions. take a look.

>> we've got some frightening images coming in from the ireport. he was able to capture those pictures of the va tech students. >> today i say to you that the challenges we face are real. they are serious and they are many. they will not be met'dly or in a short span of time. >> the iran government has decided to ban all members of the foreign meady from covering protests and demonstrations. >> that didn't stop the iranians from spreading the word about what's happening in their country. >> every step i saw a house collapse. every two steps i saw people bleeding. >> well, here's a way where you can find out. at least one -- if one is alive, or, two, put the information out there so if someone has seen them, we can figure out if someone did indeed survive the earthquake. >> you used the ireport, the website and -- >> exactly, exactly h.

>> you got a phone call and it was the good news. tell me. >> i received a call from my father. >> heading to work right after len. . the palace, baghdad, iraq. >> this is trujillo city in peru in south america. >> hello. this is juan comes to you live from the nectar lands. >> welcome to belgium, wisconsin. >> thank goodness you were near enough to respond as quickly as you could. what did you see when you first arrived at the scene? >> we arrived on location around 2:30 that morning. at that time it was still dark, but you could pretty much see the blaze. i mean it -- it sort of resembled, i guess, the sun coming over the horizon.

>> so excited. i'm so proud to be an arab today. for the people of egypt who wanted freedom, who wanted to be there. who wanted to have a better life. >> it is still going. oh, my god. the billing's going to fall. >> the whole ground was shaking so much. it was -- it was unreal. i can't describe it. it was -- it felt like someone was just pulling you back and forth like side to side as hard as they could. >> if you have a story to tell, you can become an ireporter. just sent your photos and videos to cnn.com/ireport. well, if you're going to throw pie, you'd better be ready to do the time. that's what the protester who threw a time in rupert murdoch's face. his punishment, straight ahead.

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from unhappy liberal democrats and tea party republicans. the white house has announced president obama's plans for observing the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. white house press secretary jay carney said a short while ago that mr. obama will travel to three sites that were attacked, new york city, the pentagon, and shan shan shanksville, pennsylvania. if you're going to throw a pie, be ready to do the time. it took place at a british par la manhattan hearing last month while murdoch was testifying about the phone-stacking scandal. he's known by his stage name johnny marbles will pay a fine and a victim's surcharge. murdoch was not hurt in the incident. challenging alabama's new immigration law less than one month before it's to take

effect. various provisions of the law undermine immigration priorities and objectives of the federal government. the law is also the target of a class action lawsuit. the alabama crackdown on illegal immigrants is scheduled to go into effect september 1st. after a lifetime of pushing the benefits of freezing dead people in the hope that they can someday be revived. roger died last week and fittingly he was frozen. considered the founder of cryonics movement he joining others including a mother and two wives, frozen in liquid nitrogen at a michigan institute he founded in 1976. now that there's a debt deal lr , will the u.s. lose its debt credit rating? what's this optio? that's new. personal pricing now on brakes. tell us what you want to pay. we do our best to make that work. deal!

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signed the new debt deal but they're not out of hot water yet. fitch said it's not enough for u.s. to maintain its top-notch aa debt rating. fitch says it wants to see a credible plan to reduce the budget deficit. fitch says it plans to finish the review of the u.s. rating by the end of the month. but the credit rating agency in china has already taken achlkts stan grant, beijing, has the

story. >> reporter: he's pored over the u.s. financial books and doesn't like what he sees. he once worked for an caught aunt but he's lost faith in the american economy and its political system. >> translator: the two political parties acted in a very irresponsible way and quickly exposed the negative impact of the system on the economy. >> reporter: he heads up dagong, china's only independent national credit rating. while the big three, moody's, fitch, standard & poor's watch and wait, they downgraded them once and now on the back of the dead.net crisis, he says he's marking them down again. >> translator: it simply reflects the u.s.'s inability to pay back the debt. >> reporter: they pride themselves on being independent. dagong says night controled by the chinese government and will make the hard calls where other

international credit ratings agencies will not. >> translator: people are used to credit ratings by the big three but a financial crisis has proved them wrong. they can no longer shoulder the responsibility of rating the world. >> reporter: downgrading the u.s. could hurt china. any damage to u.s. financial credibility could cost china billions of dollars. analysts say china with deep reservings of cash and committed to low currency and high export growth is tied to the u.s., like it or not. >> there aren't that many other markets that are as deep or as liquid as treasuries. in fact, there are none. so when they accumulate reserves, this is really the only place that they can put them. >> reporter: dagong has a warning. china needs to start looking elsewhere to put its money. >> and as we mentioned, president obama has signed the debt ceiling bill into law. dan lothian joins us now in from

the white house. dan, let me ask you. the president and the white house aides have talked about a divided congress that wasn't elected to be dysfunctional as they say. and now that the bill has been signed into law, what is the president saying about the process? >> well, you know, they do believe at the white house this was a very messy process but in the end it shows that they were able to find compromise. but you also heard from the president lamenting the fact that it took sort of this ticking clock, the specter of having the nation going to default to get everyone reach agreement. listen, there's enough motivation out there. there are a lot of americans who are struggling, who are unemployed, who are trying to stay in their homes, and na enough, the motivation of trying to make the life better for american people out there should be enough to get folks up on capitol hill to get on the same page, compromise and get things done, randi. >> the message right away after the passing of this bill, dan,

seemed to be jobs, jobs, jobs. >> reporter: that right. in fact, we've been getting indications from the white house even before today that this would be the big turn or pivot as they like to call it here once this thing was taken care of to start pushing the jobs and the economy. you heard from the president this call to congress once they returned from their break to really focus on job creation. take a listen. >> the parties share power in washington, and both parties need to take responsibility for improving this economy. it's not a democratic responsibility or republican responsibility. it's our collective responsibility as americans. and i'll be discussing it in the weeks ahead. >> reporter: those are the things that the president will be talking about. extending cuts for middle-class

americans, provided loans for employers to hire some of these construction workers who have been out of work and things like patent reform, getting rid of some of the red tape that's been holding some of the investors out there. these are some of the themes on the economy that the white house will be pushing i hart, pushing ahead. >> dan lothian at the white house. dan, thank you. ever wonder how today's business tycoons made millions of millions of dollars off one simple idea? [ waves crashing ]

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what does it take to make an idea a booming success? take a simple or seemingly insane concept and make millions. a recent cnn.com article broke down success stories of 100 million dollar companies started by everyday people like you and me. they included the boston beer company. you may know them from samuel adams beers. chipotle. burt's bees, 1-800-flowers.com and curves, the female-friendly fitness club. all of these making hundreds of millions of dollars? what is the story behind the success. steve was a chef. he wanted to open his own restaurant. he borrowed money from his

parents. opened the first chipotle ten years ago and the rest is history. the company reported $500 million in revenue for the first quarter of this year alone. in 1984 roxanne whimly and burt teamed up to make candles from bees wax to sell at craft fairs. they branched out. they sell more than 100 skin and hair care items. they've made more than $250 million in 2007 and clorox bought them for under $1 billion. jim mccann bought a flower shop. he branched out over the years and added the telephone number and.com to his name. the company reported almost 668 million last year. it's also where one of my producers goes every time he's in trouble at home, i'm told. you can tell he wrote this script. visit