of the 21st century. >> we begin with stunning new details in the home invasion and murders of a florida couple known for adopting special needs children. a source telling cnn the suspects tried to get their hands on a second safe in the home of melanie and byrd billings. seven men now facing murder charges. one of them, leonard gonzalez jr., identified by a fellow suspect, as the gunman and police say that there may be more arrests to come. cnn's susan candiotti has been following the latest developments for us in this disturbing case. >> reporter: good morning. cnn has learned there was a second safe in the billings' house and this is what the suspects were really going after. it was called the mother load. according to the source familiar with the investigation, this safe contained at least $100,000, but for whatever reason, the suspects were unable to get to it and did not get the money. on tuesday night, esambia

sheriff david morgan was asked about this development on "ac 360." >> the source familiar with the investigation telling us there was a second save -- safe in the house containing $100,000. can you confirm that for us, sir and tell us about it. >> i can only confirm the items that we have recovered or excuse me, we know have been removed from the billings' home, a mall mid-sized safe and a black briefcase. >> you're saying there was not a second safe or you can't confirm that, sir? >> i'm saying, sir, i'm not at liberty to address that issue. >> reporter: an attorney for the billings' family also said she had no comment. now, the reason this second safe is significant, is because up until now we only knew about one safe, one safe that the suspects did get away with, but the sheriff's office has said it contained only some jewelry, some family papers and medication for the billings' children. there are other new developments in the case. according to court documents,

one of the suspects charged with murder allegedly told investigators that suspect leonard gonzalez jr. is the man who shot and killed byrd and melanie billings. now the sheriff has said he has tried to talk to at least three other persons of interests and that he could be making more arre arrests. john and kiran. >> susan canndiotti for us, thanks. police say the suspects trained extensively for at least 30 days and there was also a report they staged a dry run of the crime at the billings' home. john? >> president obama addresses the nation tonight in a prime time news conference. he will try to convince the public and skeptical lawmakers his big plan to cover the uninsured and remake america's health care system will work. susan malveaux is live at the white house for us. the president optimistic he can get it all done? >> he certainly is portraying that. this is going to be his fourth prime time press one frens in

the -- done frens in his presidency. today we will see president meeting with nuri al maliki to assess the progress there. what we're going to hear tonight is a real push for his number one domestic priority and that is health care reform. >> reporter: president barack obama is raising the stakes, using a prime time news conference to throw all his weight behind health care reform. >> make no mistake, we are closer than ever before to the reform that the american people need and we're going to get the job done. >> reporter: facing skeptical lawmakers, including members of his own party, the president's strategy consists of private arms listing and public scolding. >> time and again we've heard excuses to delay and defeat reform. >> reporter: using his popularity and political capital early in the game. >> i don't want you to -- >> reporter: with town halls, tv interviews and prime time aimed at building momentum and creating a sense of urgency to

get health care legislation on his desk by mid-august. >> we have traveled long and hard to reach this point. i know we have further to go. >> reporter: some say a risky strategy. >> i think from his point of view, there are many in the public who would like to hear from him, but they would also like to see him sitting down, negotiating out the plan. what they look for is a leadership ta says here's where we're going to go, not a leadership that says, i'm encouraging congress to make more progress. >> reporter: the effort comes amid recent polls showing approval for mr. obama's health care plan dropping below 50% and americans now split over his handling of the economy. republicans are seizing the moment. >> we want to fundamentally reorient one-sixth of our economy in two weeks. that makes no logical sense to me. >> reporter: john, the timing, the high-profile nature of this press conference is meant to push members of congress along to about give the president some good news to announce to the american people as it stands

now, still very much negotiations behind the scenes. the health care reform very much in flux, even white house press secretary robert gibbs yesterday saying that after the august recess, they'll still have much work to do. john? >> see if he can get something going in the next 14 hours. thanks so much. the president's address is just part of our special prime time coverage tonight. starting at 7:00 eastern our "black in america" reports kick off with "moment of truth" the president's address at 8:00 eastern, at 9:00, soledad o'brien reports "black in america 2." we've heard the president trying to sell his health care plan in five of the six days now. on saturday the president pushed congress on the issue in his weekly radio and video address. sunday the white house went dark, but on monday the president held another roundtable. yesterday he spoke from the rose garden and then, of course, tonight that prime time news conference. your reaction to the plan lighting up our am fix hotline this morning.

>> since when is it a crime to be rich? i'm not rich. but a lot of these well-to-do people have worked very, very hard to get where they are today and they really shouldn't be paying for health care for a bunch of people. >> why not more time and do it right as they said when it comes to the health care bill. >> the thing about this health care, this is socialism. >> why don't we tax the people that jeopardize our health? but then again, nobody makes anybody eat all this stuff. >> keep those calls coming on this or any other topic that you're interested in. let us know what you think. call 1-877-my-amfix. >> other stories new this morning, more legal troubles for outgoing alaska governor sarah palin. a preliminary state report says she may have violated ethics laws letting supporters set up a defense fund. palin cited the time and money needed to fight the ethics

complaints as the reason why she's stepping down. oakland, california, has a new cash crop. not what you might think. the voters there giving overwhelming approval to a landmark special tax on proceeds from medical marijuana. 80% of people voted yes. oakland is facing a massive deficit and city officials estimate the new pot tax will generate nearly $300,000 in its first year. a new report just out this morning says that federal government is at risk of being unable to fight off cyber attacks against the nation's computer networks. the report named cyber insecurity says the nation could be in jeopardy because there aren't enough workers who are properly trained to protect computer systems from hackers, terrorists and from foreign governments. if you're just waking up this morning or happen to live on this side of the planet it's safe to say you missed last night's total eclipse of the sun. >> but if you happened to see it, boy, did you get a treat. people in india and china had a chance to see the longest solar eclipse of this century.

this is a shop from beijing at the exact moment that the moon completely covers the sun. here's what it looked like from some of the other hot spots as well. >> here's video from south korea sent in by an i-reporter shows a spectacular view from a buddhist temple. another cool shot as blackness begins to cover bhutan. this is from india and see the outline of the sun as the clouds pass over. here's a look at our emily chang doing a live report from shanghai during that moment of totality just a few minutes of totality as the moon completely covers the sun. the very first shot we got an amazing, amazing photo of what they call the diamond ring. as the moon crosses the sun, flashes so brilliant like that. >> they said india is a place that was gorgeous, where they had a clear view. some of the other areas where hundreds of thousands came out, there was a lot of cloud cover so people didn't get to see it as brightly. eclipse chasers. >> weather ruins picnics and

eclipses. >> there you go. we will be speaking to a couple people weighing in about the situation we first brought you on "american morning." the harvard professor basically arrested after trying to get into his own home after his door was broken. we'll bring you that coming up. nine minutes past the hour. the classic flavors of tuscany inspiration for... dinner bell sfx: ping ping ping fancy feast elegant medleys tuscany entrées restaurant inspired dishes with long grain rice and garden greens is it love? or is it fancy feast?

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good choice. only meineke lets you choose the brake service that's right for you. and save 50% on pads and shoes. meineke. . good morning to atlanta, georgia, this morning a pretty shot where it is partly cloudy, 66 degrees right now. later on it's going to be sunny and 88 degrees. welcome back to the most news in the morning, the mac is back. apple is reporting a 15%

increase in third-quarter profits over last year thanks largely to strong mac computer and iphone sales. it's the best non-holiday quarterly earnings in the company's history. apple sold 5.2 million iphones during the quarter, that's a whopping 626% jump in unit sales from the year before. they made a couple changes and tweaks and people are happier. senate committee approving a bill that would require airlines to let passengers get off planes trandsed on the tarmac after a period of three hours. airlines oppose the measure saying it would cause more delay. the legislation now goes to the full senate. charges against a prominent african-american scholar have been dropped but henry gates is still angry over his arrest at his home. the harvard professor was taken into custody last week when an officer responded to a report of a burglary. gates was locked out of his house. he had returned from a trip to china and actually forced his way in. gates claims that he was arrested because he was black and he wants a face-to-face

meeting with the arresting officer. he wants that officer to apologize and says he will forgive him. was professor gates a victim of racial profiling or were police simply doing their job? we're digging deeper on this issue. we have a political report for "the root" the black prospective on-line magazine. she interviewed gates yesterday and joins us from new orleans. and rod wheeler is a former homicide detective and training officer with the metropolitan police department in washington, d.c., and joins us from washington this morning. dia, let's start with you. when you interviewed professor gates yesterday he said he was outraged by what happened. what specifically about how this unfolded from the beginning made him believe that he was being racially profiled? >> right. well, you know, the charges have been dropped, the conversation is going to continue as you mentioned, but when i spoke with professor gates at his martha's vineyard home he talked about the officer getting into his home, the officer, once he had provided him with identification saying he was, indeed, a harvard

professor, he did have his driver's license that said he lived in the home, the officer then still started to harass him about the way he had been behaving him, accusing him of being loud and disorderly, escalated to the point where they were in conflict, yelling at one another, and felt ambushed when he stepped out his home. his lawyer and a few other professors said stepping out of the home was sanction for the officer to arrest him. once he got out there he described seeing six different police officers who cuffed his hands behind his back, he has to use a cane, he's handicapped, couldn't walk to the car, and so really, just felt physically violated as well as having someone come into his home. >> let's get the law enforcement perspective on this. rod wheeler, weigh in for us, from what you know of this case, do you believe that the officer who was investigating this report of a potential break-in at the gates' home did anything wrong from the outset? >> after reading the actual police report submitted by this officer, john, it appears the

officer did, in fact, what he was probably trained to do. now it doesn't appear on the surface as if the officer did anything when it comes down to discrimination. however, there was an issue here, i believe, of class. you got this harvard law professor or harvard professor who can really do no wrong and then this police officer who was actually doing his job. i think at the end of the day, we will see that this officer probably was just simply operating according to protocol and was doing his job. >> that raises the issue, then, of training which we'll get to in a second. let me ask you first of all, rod, the question a lot of people want to know is, if henry gates was a white harvard professor would he have been treated in the same way? >> you know, i actually would submit to you, john, he probably would have been treated the same way. the real profiling, the real race profiling this country is not against african-american men that's the age of mr. gates, it's actually african-american young men between the ages of 18 and 28 years old, which mr. gates doesn't fall into that

category. now, was it -- this a case of racial profiling based on the information that we know at this point, i would say no. >> dayo, you mentioned something about this a second ago. let's dig deeper on it. in the police report officer james crowley as you pointed out claims gates was engaging in, quote, loud and tumultuous behavior. did professor gates indicate to you how heated the situation came? >> he described the situation escalating almost immediately. this happened in the span of 15 to 20 minutes. it really did go from a sort of can i help you, sir, very quickly, describes feeling the hair go up on the back of his neck, feeling he was in danger. from his perspective, sort of a he said, he said with that in the police report, it did become heated very quickly and as soon as gates brought up race, as soon as he said you're treat me this way because i'm a black man and you're a white police officer that is when things went south. i do think to a certain extent, you know, it was about power

relations but about class as well and who has the power. >> rod, it now comes back to the issue of training. because the charges have been dropped, what this boils down to is an argument between professor gates and the officer. you say that you believe he was acting according to the training protocol which brings up a couple issues. a, is the training protocol adequate, and b, do police officers receive some training in how to diffuse a situation when tempers begin to run high? >> yes. that's an excellent question, john, and a lot of people have been asking that same question. police officers go through a lot of extensive diversity training, first of all. that's not to say that racism doesn't exist in a police department. yes, it does. however, i think based on the training and the experience that officer has, will dictate the outcome of that particular situation. in this case, you're talking about an officer that was experienced on the job, an officer who was responding to an actual call from a complaint. so i think based on the training and the experience of this officer it appears right now, as if the officer did act

appropriately. i can understand as an african-american male myself, i can clearly understand the feeling that professor gates had, although i must tell you from being a police officer, no one really understands the position of that officer unless they're really on the scene of that incident. >> i think anybody surprised when the police show up on your door step, no question about that. >> lawrence bobo a professor root on root.com if skip gates can be arrested in his front porch and end up in hand cuffs in his police cruiser, there for the grace of god goes every other black man in america. it should be enough to end all of this post-racial hogwash. what does professor gates think this says about the state of race in america? >> he emphasized in my interview this is not about him. he describes being humiliated in jail, the whole process of going through the criminal justice system, new to him. he's an academic and brought into the realm of politics, policies, policies that

adversely affect african-american men and going to use all the resources at his disposal to make sure this doesn't happen to other people. he said very well there are 1 million african-american men in the criminal justice system and he became one of them. there's a fight to carry on. >> he's going to use his talents to produce a documentary on the state of race relations in the justice system. thanks very much for being with us. we appreciate it. >> thank you, john. stay tuned, tonight for cnn special prime time coverage at 7:00 eastern, our "black in america" reports kick off with "moment of truth" where soledad will interview henry gates exclusively this evening. the president's address and his press conference at 8:00 eastern, and at 9:00 soledad o'brien is back with "black in america 2. ."

. wake up, capitol hill. the day's beginning. >> got a lot of work to do. >> got to go around and knock on a lot of doors and get folks up. mostly sunny and 70 degrees. later today, partly cloudy high of 86 and when it gets hot like this in the middle of the summertime a risk of a thunderstorm popping through. >> some people like those in washington like to stay in bed. would like them to stay in bed so they can't do any damage. >> upset at the august recesses like the ones coming up, at least they can't hurt me. >> it's true. talking about ben bernanke, speaking in front of the hill yesterday, he will again today. no fewer than three congressional hearings yesterday on capitol hill about your money and all the rescues to try to fix the economy and ben bernanke, the fed chief, the mild-mannered college professor, really coming out swinging defending the fed's actions over et past few months saying

essentially they helped avert a global calamity, the feds and the central banks. many of the improvements can be traced in parts to policy actions taken by the federal reserve. he's defending the independence of this central bank and defending everything they've done and saying there is an exit strategy. there are concerns among people on capitol hill that all of this that the fed has done could lead to inflation, hurt the dollar down the road and he said we have an exit strategy. in terms of how you're going to feel we have a long haul here because even when the economy starts to recover, he said that we will have elevated unemployment through the year 2011. and this is what he said about how americans are changing their behavior. >> there has been a big change in behavior in the private sector and that's -- that's fine. it creates problems in the macro economy because without consumer spending the economy doesn't grow as fast. but i wouldn't advise families to worry about that. i think people need to get their balance sheets in order and their budgets in order and that's a positive that will come

out of this whole crisis. >> we've been saying here for months, you know, on "american morning" minding your business saying look, your economy is the most important thing here. you've got to get your balance sheet in order. yes, that hurts the consumer spending part of the bigger equation. people worry about yourself this morning. we'll hear more from him again today and i think you're going to hear him defending again, the independence of the fed and what they've done so far. >> when he says there is an exit strategy did he outline that? >> he did not outline when and that's what everybody wants to know, when are they going to get out. the situation is too fragile for them to pull out completely but he did start to say how they were going to do that. >> you mentioned ron paul, we will talk to him later, his biggest concern he feels the federal reserve doesn't have to answer to anybody. >> and ben bernanke's concern if you start answering to congress that's politics and politics loses their credibility. >> nobody wants to answer to anybody, that's the problem. >> minding your business, thanks so much. a story that probably a lot of you can relate to. a telemarketer calls, trying to eat dinner, maybe late at night,

for us that's 6:00 p.m., and you want to go off. a guy in ohio did just that and now he's facing four years in prison. charles tappenfought called a st. louis marketing firm after receiving a junk male asking him to renew a bogus car warranty. we told you about those car warranty calls earlier in the year on this show. according to court documents he allegedly told a sales representative he would burn down the firm's building, kill all the complete and their families. the better business bureau says sometimes consumers are pushed too far by telemarketers. >> someone could become so frustrated by the misleading tactics that these companies use, so that a consumer could feel pushed to the point of doing something that they wouldn't normally do. >> the man's wife says the outburst was unusual for her husband, describes him as cool headed. he remains in jail because she says it's $45,000 to post bail and she doesn't have it. so now he's there. >> that's quite a reaction.

i just hang up. >> i think a lot of people might be able to sympathize with him. >> a little fun going to get him out. you never know. 26 minutes past the hour. (male announcer) if you've had a heart attack caused by a completely blocked artery, another heart attack could be lurking, waiting to strike. a heart attack caused by a clot, one that could be fatal. but plavix helps save lives. plavix, taken with other heart medicines goes beyond what other heart medicines do alone to provide greater protection against heart attack or stroke and even death by helping to keep blood platelets from sticking together and forming clots. ask your doctor about plavix, protection that helps save lives. (female announcer) if you have stomach ulcer or othp$ condition that causes bleeding, you should not use plavix. when taking plavix alone or with some other medicines including aspirin, the risk of bleeding may increase so tell your doctor before planning surgery.

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29 minutes after the hour. some mayors around the country, about 400 of them, are fired up over a new gun proposal that could allow near national use of concealed weapons permits. our carol costello is standing by in our washington bureau with more on a proposal to make gun permits more like driver's licenses and it's certainly not sitting well with everyone, carol. >> it's not. but you know, john, gun rights advocates are having a banner year. congress has already passed a law that allows guns in national parks. washington, d.c.'s attempt at gun control have been thwarted by lawmakers and now, the senate is considering a law that would allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons across state lines. plenty of people are upset at

that. holland godard is a survivor, a student at virginia tech the day sun which cho bub burst in and opened fire. he was shot four times. 33 other students died. goddard is in washington to tell lawmakers even if he had a gun that day it would not have stopped him. >> when i smelled that gun powder that's when i knew what was happening. to be able to effectively respond to someone coming through a door like that, gun blazing, you need milli second response times and even the most trained police officers can't do that. >> reporter: goddard is lobbying against republican john thune's proposal which would allow people to carry concealed firearms into other states. the longest they have concealed carry permits from the states they reside. goddard argues the proposed law would make it easier for unbalanced people to carry guns anywhere they chose including states with more contrin gent gun laws.

he isn't the only critic. mayors from 450 cities took out an ad in "usa today" urging senators to vote down the amendment. >> it would put an enormous number of guns on the streets and it takes away state's rights. >> reporter: the national rifle association says carrying a gun is a constitutional right and a matter of personal safety. >> at the scene of the crime there's only two people there, the criminal and the victim and the victim always ought to have a right to own a firearm and have a firearm to protect themselves if they choose. >> reporter: last year a bank customer legally carrying a concealed weapon near detroit thwarted a bank robber who claimed to have a bomb. >> i told him i don't care but you're not robbing the bank today. >> reporter: critics say for every hero there are many more villains like richard pa play ski who legally owned guns and used them to kill three pittsburgh police officers and sung wi cho who killed 33 at

virginia tech. . >> the proposed amendment is expected to go to a vote later today and democrats are scrambling to get the votes they need to defeat this measure but remember, republicans have twice this year forced significant pro gun victories with substantial moderate democratic support. so it should be interesting to watch later today, john. >> yes. a lot of controversy about this. coming up in our 7:00 hour we're going to have our own duel of sorts, we're going to be joined by new york mayor mike bloomberg a fierce opponent of this measure and one of the sponsors of the amendment john barrasso who says they should be legal everywhere. health care will be front and center tonight when the president meets in a prime time conference at the white house. while the president is stepping up pressure on congress to deliver health care reform before the august recess is he is trying to win back support of a key voting group. jennifer don know hu, joins us

in new berry, new hampshire, this morning. >> good morning. >> in studio is john avalon columnist for the daily beast.com and author of independent nation. good to see you as well. >> good to see you. >> the president invested a lot in this debate. the latest polling by gallup shows 50% when asked disapprove of the president's handling on health care policy. what does he need to say tonight to win people back over? >> well, a lot of this is now in the packaging of it. because i think what's happened is the polling popularity and especially among independents who have a less vested interest than democrats in seeing this move forward, are starting to question it as it gets closer to reali reality. it's one thing to like the idea of health care, universal health care, and to believe in that idea. it's another to see the costs associated with it and to see the details. the devil is always in the details. as we get closer to the possibility of this, the president has to amp up his case. and he is smart to take it on in

prime time, not to have harry reid or nancy pelosi deliver this message, particularly when congress is at odds over how to do it, but to brand it himself as really the best order of this issue and to try to sell those people on the fence on this idea that this should be, in fact, an sbiltsment. >> we talked about independents and how important of a voting block they are. they helped president obama win the election. >> no question. >> when it comes to how they feel about health care policy they're also showing a little bit of signs of cracking i guess you could say. 57% approval proved of health care policy in april. what is worrying them the most about what is going on? >> it's costs. on fiscal issues independents are closer republicans than democrats. here's where president obama is suffering from a bit of bailout backlash. an exhaust with the spending we're seeing. when they see health care come down the pike with a trillion dollar price tag they say hold on. what he has to do is move on, he has to bring them back in. this needs to be a bipartisan

plan. it's not a matter of style. he has to put substance to it. he knees to reach out across the aisle to win over and adopt some republican proposals like medical malpractice preform. bringing entailment reform back into the package as well. he has to control the costs or independent skepticism will continue and that's going to be a problem not only for the administration but the legislation. >> do you think that republicans are on board in any way, shape, or form to get this across even if he gets things like malpractice reform in there. >> they're going to do a party line vote but it's important to have substantive outreach to say i adroptsed these proposals in good faith. it's a different situation than it was in 1994. but he cannot pass this legislation the way that unites a nation without winning over independents again. >> jennifer, you brought up an interesting point where you said he wants to take this out of the hands of harry reid and nancy pelosi. one of the interesting things we've been laerg, one democratic senator told cnn that congressional democrats some of them claim they're baffled, why

there's not more involvement and more detail about what exactly they should be doing when it comes to this. how does that get sorted snout. >> yes. i mean i think part of the dynamic of that is that president obama said that this would be senator kennedy's legislation. he said that during the campaign. what they need to avoid at all costs is a bad outroll like in '93, '94 when hillary clinton offered legislation in some ways similar to some of the proposals on the table but it was withheld from the republicans. there was no compromise effort. if obama doesn't look like he's reaching out to the middle and if republicans look like they are the party of no, republicans will face a really difficult re-election prospect in 2010 and potentially 2012, which what is the parties are thinking about right now. more than half the country wants some reform. you have to give them something. you give them too much, they will reject it. based on the heels of two

stimulus packages and high unemployment. >> the timing is everything. one of the things a lot of our callers and writers to our blog who identify themselves as independents are saying why the rush? why does this have to get shoved through in the august recess? in the political world we know why. >> they shouldn't rush, yes. >> and john, why -- >> if they were to rush, if they rush through, i think what's going to happen really is that the -- the backlash that's going to be so huge, that the legislation is going to get killed. >> john, if it doesn't happen by august is it not going to happen. >> i don't think this is the end of the world. setting an august 7th deadline was ambitious, maybe too ambitious. getting this ball down the field that resonates with independent in the center that's the important thing here. doing a party line vote that rushes through by august 7th won't be a victory that's sustainable politically or practically for this administration. >> we'll see what he says tonight as he takes this to the people. john, great to have you, jennifer great to have you as well. a reminder the president's address is just part of our

special coverage tonight starting at 7:00 eastern. our "black in america" reports kick off with "moment of truth" and the president's address at 8:00 eastern and at 9:00, soledad o'brien reports "black in america 2." it's 38 minutes past the hour. .

good morning, sacramento. where it's clear and 58 degrees. later today, sunny and a high of 96. welcome back to the most news in the morning. it appears that california is a step closer to being able to pay its bills with real money instead of ious. >> that's a good thing. the cash strapped state has been doing that nearly three weeks paying with the ious. as cnn tells us, the agreement to close california's $26 billion budget gap is still not a done deal. >> reporter: california governor arnold schwarzenegger compared the state's latest $26 billion deficit reduction deal to a hollywood movie. >> i want to thank the legislative leaders for hanging in there and negotiating all this weeks and especially the last few hours. it was like a suspense movie.

>> reporter: california's lawmakers already are applauding. >> i want to congratulate the governor and my fellow legislative leaders. >> reporter: but the credits have yet to roll. legislative leaders must persuade two-thirds of their rank and file to approve a plan that avoids new tax increases but makes dramatic reductions in critical state services. they include nearly $9 billion from education over two years, $1.6 billion from health care for the poor, children, and the disabled, and more than a billion dollars from prisons. $1.3 billion would be saved by requiring state workers to take three days off without pay each month. the state also plans to divert $4 billion from cities and counties with a promise to repay half of it. los angeles county may sue. >> what's taking place in sacramento today is really highway robbery of local government's resources. >> it stinks. it smells. it is bad public policy. >> reporter: california is one of eight states that failed to reach budget agreements by the start of the current fiscal

year. five still haven't. new york's legislature was gridlocked in a political power struggle for five weeks this summer. now there's another delay that's threatening the finances of new york city schools. mayor michael bloomberg wants drastic action. >> the governor can call back the state legislature every single day in albany and he can -- and he can send the state troopers to drag them back unless they're out of the state. and he should do that. >> reporter: in california, parts of the budget deal are clearly accounting gimmicks. lawmakers agreed to shift a payday for state workers from june 30th to july 1st, push morgue than a billion dollars in salary to the next fiscal year. the plan also accelerates personal and corporate tax collections to bring money into the state treasury sooner. those provisions combined with speculative measures such as savings from state asset sales and new revenue from offshore oil drilling could mean lawmakers will need to repeat their deficit reduction performance in the

not-to-distant future unless the economy rebounds so quickly that state revenue increases faster than expected. casey wian, cnn, los angeles. coming up in our next hour we will be talking about that controversial proposal now before the senate that would allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons across states lines. michael bloomberg is strongly against it. he will be joining us at 7:30 eastern. it's 44 minutes past the hour.

pretty picture of chicago, illinois. mostly cloudy right now, 68 degrees and some showers a little bit later, 77. our rob marciano is keeping track for us of weather around the country. boy, it doesn't feel like july still at least around these parts. >> about a month ago, you and john were saying, you know, when is summer going to get here and i said -- >> we're still saying it. >> about now. you guys are still in the wet stuff. today looks okay. i think you're going to enjoy some sunshine today. at some point. but chicago seeing a couple of showers and then really the midsection of the country where we're going to see most of the action. the radar scope, north of chicago where we're seeing a lot of rainfall especially the u.p. of michigan. this will begin to fill in later on today as we go through the afternoon. most of the action down towards louisville in through northern parts of alabama in through

central parts of louisiana. that's where it starts to get a little bit more treacherous as far as the thunderstorms. this will get a little bit more active as the day rolls along as it typically does in the summertime. 81 in new york city, a lot warmer than yesterday. 86 in d.c. this will be your day where it's dry. tomorrow will be another shot of seeing some wet weather. 85 degrees. still continuing cool in atlanta and 87 expected in chicago. delays at the airport, check them out, cincinnati and nashville, 32 minutes to 60 minutes. houston and birmingham and san francisco will also see some low clouds and a quick check, i know you showed some video of the eclipse in asia, this is out of india. there were clouds, that was an issue in a lot of spots but they could see the entire full solar eclipse in india. i didn't know this but they're a little more superstitious over there. pregnant women are not supposed to be outside because this is supposedly supposed to make for birth defects and all sorts of other problems. any pregnant women that were in india at the time, probably

didn't see this. if you're watching now, you can watch it from the safety of your living room. won't see another one like that in probably 100 years or so because the sun is so far away and the moon is that close and, of course, here in the u.s., we didn't get to see it. >> no. we just had to see the pictures. these eclipse chasers, people that spends thousands of dollars and go anywhere the eclipse is so they can get the best vintage point possible, it's very interesting. >> you have to buy some cloud insurance next time. >> very true. all right. rob, thanks. 49 minutes past the hour. .

welcome back to the most

news in the morning. we have a developing story that you have to see to believe. jeanne meserve shows us how lost luggage is helping us fly safer skies. >> reporter: john and kiran, i'm in a warehouse surrounded by thousands and thousands of pieces of luggage. because a bomb can be hidden in a suitcase, these are valuable tools in devising better aviation security. airplanes, blown to smither renes, all in the name of science and security. but wait. this story really begins a the the transportation security laboratory in atlantic city. where patrick o'connor builds bombs for the government. >> this is a real explosive that i have here in my hand. >> reporter: o'connor has built hundreds of improvised explosive devices disguised as electronics, footware even a stack of dvds. the designs evolve based on

intelligence about the bombs terrorists are building. >> usually use a thief to catch a thief and that's what we do here. >> reporter: some of the bombs are detonated in old planes to test whether a similar device could bring down a flight. others are put in luggage and run through screening machines. if the bombs are not detected, scientists try to close the security gap to beat the terrorists. >> it's a game of cat and mouse. we understand what they're doing. they understand to some measure what we're doing and we counteract that with better improved technology. >> reporter: machines are not the total answer. >> at end of the day, the technology detects very specific threats. it does not detect a terrorist. >> reporter: but better machines would be a valuable tool. scientists do a high resolution cross-section stan of a peanut m and m to show us how they might be able to some day ferret out explosive material by examining its density and clarity. others are trying to detect the

problem of liquid explosives by capturing and measuring the vapors emitted from a homemade conconnection concealed in a bottle of cold medicine. >> it's something that's really bad that we need to keep off the airplane. >> reporter: not all the work being done here will lead to better bomb detection. but some might and could prevent something like this. researchers here practice something they call bagology. they will take a suit cacase li this and run it through a screening machine fully loaded to determine what source of ordinary objects set off false alarms that way they can eliminate them making aviation security more efficient as well as more effective. john and kiran, back to you. >> jeanne meserve for us. thanks so much. so health care, it's all the talk these days and is something going to get done or is it not. it's interesting harry and louise, remember them, they're back again, only this time they're on the other side of the issue. jim acosta has that story coming

up next. 55 minutes after the hour.

57 minutes past the hour. welcome back to the most news in the morning. you may remember back in 1994 the health insurance industry helped derail president clinton's plan for health care reform with the help of the "harry and louise" ads. as president obama pushes his plans for reform, harry and louise are back. but as our jim acosta reports the two actors have changed their story. >> reporter: president obama is urging americans to tune out the forces against health care reform. >> i know that there are those in this town who openly declare their intention to block reform. the familiar washington scripts that we've seen many times before. >> the paper says congress is moving ahead. >> reporter: one part of that script has changed as in the pages marked "harry and louise." in 1994 the fictional couples appeared in tv ads sponsored by the insurance company opposing

president clinton's plan for health care reform. flash forward 15 years. >> looks like we may finally get health care reform. >> it's about time. >> reporter: harry and louise are backp. this time in favor of democratic proposals to overhaul the system. turning the kitchen table on the issue. >> a little more co-op operation, a little less politics we can get the job done this time. >> we got the old band back together. >> they're singing a different tune this time. >> there are different lyrics. the lyrics make it clear that it's very important for our nation to actually get health care reform and to get it this year. >> reporter: health care reform advocate ron pollic with the groups family usa brought the actors back to the studio hoping for some harry and louise magic of his own. in a behind the scenes look at the making of one spot the actor playing harry, whose name is harry johnson, gives his own

take on health care. >> hardly anyone can afford to have health care. people are losing health care every day. >> reporter: the original spots were so powerful, spoofed by the clintons themselves. >> it says that eventually we are all going to die. >> under the clinton health plan? >> i've never been so frightened in all my life. >> reporter: the actors just got a pat on the back from michael steele who appeared unaware of the couples' recent role reversal. >> harry and louise helped save us from hillary clinton's health care experiments in 1994. this year harry and louise have been replaced by another couple harry reid and nancy pelosi. >> reporter: nowhere in the harry and louise spot is there a mention of the democratic proposal of giving americans the option of joining the government run health care program. that's because pharma says through a spokes person it's too

early to tell whether it will support the public option. >> jim acosta, pretty interesting, isn't it? >> absolutely. >> they changed their tune. it's coming up on 7:00 here in new york. good morning, it's wednesday, july 22nd. glad you're with us on this "american morning." i'm kiran chetry. >> i'm john roberts. the big stories we'll be breaking down in the next 15 minutes. was it murder for hire? a new shocking developments in the brutal murders of a florida couple. a source telling us there was a second safe in the billings' home with more than $100,000 inside it. our susan candiotti has the latest for us this morning. >> it's an all-out blitz from the white house pushing the president's plan for health care reform. president obama is taking his sales pitch to prime time tonight. does he have a new angle of attack for his critics and can he convince the american people? we're live at the white house just ahead. plus, you have seen the video filmed by terrorists after he was taken hostage and a town is hoping and praying for his freedom. who is private first class bowe

bergdahl. our ed lavandera is talking to people who knew him best this morning. dramatic new development in the case of the chilling home invasion and murder of a florida couple. they were people known for adopting special needs children. a report of a second safe now found in the home and police believe the killers knew it was there and according to court documents, two of the eight suspects in custody, are pointing fingers at one another. susan candiotti is in florida and has the latest on the investigation. >> good morning. cnn has learned there was a second safe in the billings' house and that this is what the suspects were really going after. it was called the mother load. according it a source familiar with the investigation, this safe contained at least $100,000 but for whatever reason, the suspects were unable to get to it and did not get the money. on tuesday night, esambia sheriff david morgan was asked about this development on "ac

360." >> the source familiar with the investigation telling us there was a second safe in the house containing cash, $100,000. can you confirm that for us, sir, and tell us about it? >> i cannot. i can only confirm the items that we have recovered or that -- excuse me that we know were removed from the billings' home and that was a small mid-sized safe and a black br f briefcase. >> you're saying there was not a second safe or you just can't confirm that, sir? >> i'm saying, sir, that i'm not at liberty to address that hish shoo. >> reporter: an attorney for the billings' family said she had no comment. the reason this second safe is significant is because up until now we only knew about one safe, one safe that the suspects did get away with, but the sheriff's office has said it contained only some jewelry, some family papers, and medication for the billings' children. there are other new developments in the case. according to court documents, one of the suspects charged with

murder allegedly told investigators that suspect leonard gonzalez jr. is the man who shot and killed byrd and melanie billings. now the sheriff has said that he is trying to talk to at least three other persons of interest and the he could be making more arrests. john and kiran. >> susan candiotti this morning, this case seems to get more complicated and bizarre with each new development. we'll stay on top of it all for you. with costs mountsing and around 46 million americans uninsured president obama is taking the health care debate to the air waves, a prime time news conference, part of a full-court press from the white house on this issue. republicans say he's just pushing a plan for government run health care. the president is accusing them of playing politics. what more can the president add to this debate? let's bring in our white house correspondent susan malveaux, she joins us live this morning. and susan, one of the interesting things is the independent support eroding, dropping 13 points on the president's handling of health

care since april. what does he need to say tonight to convince people it's still on the right track. >> you're absolutely right here. this is the fourth prime time press conference in the six months of his presidency. he has to convince those independents he is going to in the right direction. we're going to see president obama meeting with iraq's prime minister nuri al maliki to talk about how things are going there, but clearly tonight is going to be very important, focusing on his number one domestic priority, that's health care reform. president barack obama is raising the stakes, using a prime time news conference to throw all his weight behind health care reform. >> make no mistake, we are closer than ever before to the reform that the american people need and we're going to get the job done. >> reporter: facing skeptical lawmakers, including members of his own party, the president's strategy consists of private arm twisting and public scolding. >> time and again we've heard excuses to delay and defeat reform. >> reporter: using his popularity and political capital

early in the game. >> i don't want you to feel all like you might be alone on this. >> reporter: with townhalls, tv interviews and prime time aimed at building momentum and creating a sense of urgency to get health care legislation on miss desk by mid-august. >> we have traveled long and hard to reach this point. i know we have further to go. >> reporter: some say a risky strategy. >> i think from his point of view, there are many in the public who would like to hear film from him but they would like to see him sitting down negotiating out the plan. what they look for is a leadership that says, here's where we're going to go, not a leadership that says, i'm encouraging congress to make more progress. >> reporter: the effort comes amid recent polls showing approval for mr. obama's health care plan dropping below 50% and americans now split over his handling of the economy. republicans are seizing the moment. >> we want to fundamentally reorient one-sixth of our economy in two weeks. that makes no logical sense to me.

>> reporter: now kiran, the timing, the high-profile nature of this news conference meant to push lawmakers to give this president some good news, some announcement to make this evening. as things stand there's still negotiations taking place, health care reform very much in flux as the president secretary robert gibbs says said they're going to come after the august recess and they're still going to have work to do. kiran. >> we'll see, we look forward to hearing more about what he says, suzanne, hear from you tomorrow as well and cnn will be the only place to watch the president's prime time news conference with the best political team on television, 7:00 p.m. eastern join us for "moment of the truth" the countdown to "black in america 2." the president speaks at 8:00 p.m. followed by "black in america 2" starting tonight on cnn. when it comes to health care reform the president has been on message as suzanne told us for days. on friday he spoke from the diplomatic room at the white house, saturday he pushed congress on the issue? his weekly radio and video

address, sunday the white house went dark and monday the president held another roundtable discussion from the rose garden and tonight the prime time news conference. we are hearing a lot of reaction from you our viewers to our am 6 hotline. >> since when is it a crime to be rich? i'm not rich, but a lot of these well-to-do people have worked very, very hard to get where they are today and they really shouldn't be paying for health care for a bunch of people. >> why not more time and do it right as they said when it comes to the health care bill? >> the thing about this health care, this is socialism. >> why don't we tax the people that jeopardize our health? but then again, nobody makes anybody eat all this stuff. >> we want to know what you think about the debate. leave a comment on our blog cnn.com/am fix or call our hotline that number is 877-my-am fix. more on a developing story a hometown praying for a captured

soldier with an adventurous spirit. you have seen private bowe bergdahl paraded on television by the taliban. today we're getting a better idea of who he really is from the people who know him best. our ed lavandera joins us from bowe's hometown of hailey, idaho. you found this soldier is anything but timid. >> what you hear over and over from people who know bowe bergdahl the man they see in that video is not the young man they know here in idaho. all over town you see signs like this, bring bowe home. he's described as a young man who is just beginning to find his way in the world. >> reporter: this is bowe bergdahl on a high seas adventure. that's him in the green jacket. before joining the military, bergdahl found a job fishing for salmon off the alaska coast. it was on this adventure that dillon fullmer first met his hometown buddy. >> he was a good kid. strong as an ox.

>> reporter: he spent almost three months on this boat with bergdahl sleeping in a crammed cabin. at night he says bergdahl dreamed of riding his bike around the world, hopping on boats carrying only the bare necessities. >> he's telling you about wanting to bicycle around the world, what do you think of that? >> this kid is crazy, you know. there's no land all the way around the world. he explained the whole boat process. but i just -- biking around the world, that's one heck of a feat right there. >> reporter: those who know bergdahl talk of his adventure russ spirit. he worked for sue martin at this coffee shop where "get bowe back" signs hang in the window. >> he captures you. bowe is not somebody in the corner. yes engage and he engages very well. >> reporter: he's a ren know sans man in the making, learned ballet at this dance studio took up fencing and an avid outdoorsman, learned to ride motorcycles and sail on an expedition to sail from the atlantic to the pacific by the age of 23. >> seems like he was fascinated

by the world out there. >> wanted to go see it. >> reporter: bergdahl waited tables and worked construction jobs to pay for these adventures which sometimes involved long rustic bike rides through the idaho wilderness. >> bowe never owned a car. he doesn't like them. >> reporter: bergdahl's parents live a quiet life along this dirt road. they live in this home nestled here in the mountain valley and it's here, we understand, that private bergdahl was homeschooled growing up. what sue martin says she loves most about bergdahl is the man who displayed quiet chivalry. >> i have go out to my car after a long day and a snowfall and bowe would be out there and scraping the snow off my car. i would walk out there, it was like, bowe's been here. he would never say anything. >> reporter: that's the bowe bergdahl the people in his hometown can't wait to welcome home. john, residents here in hailey, idaho are planning a candlelight

vigil for later tonight and the sheriff here in hailey has urged people to show up on their bicycles like bowe probably would have done. >> ed lavandera for us this morning, thanks so much. new this morning it was a landslide voters in oakland, california, okaying a city tax on medical marijuana. it would be the first in the nation. the 1.8% tax on medical marijuana facilities means those businesses will have to pay about $18 in taxes for every thousand dollars in marijuana they sell. there was no formal opposition to the effort, but some said that the tax sends the wrong message. a new study shows the number of mexicans immigrating to the i need has dropped sharply since 2005 by about 40% but the number going back to mexico remains steady. the study from the pugh hispanic center says it's too early to say if this is a new trend or reaction to a bad economy. before you see president obama's prime time pitch for health care reform we're going to check in with republican

congressman and also dr. ron paul. we're going to hear what he has to say about it. does it boil down to two different philosophies on who should get health care coverage? does some people believe not everyone should get covered or is there a better way? 12 minutes past the hour. toffee into a business.turr my goal was to take an idea and make it happen. i'm janet long and i formed my toffee company through legalzoom. i never really thought i would make money doing what i love. robert shapiro: we created legalzoom to help people start their business and launch their dreams. go to legalzoom.com today and make your business dream a reality. at legalzoom.com we put the law on your side. .

welcome back to the most news in the morning. president obama is getting ready to push his health care reform plan in prime time tonight. he's hoping to win over the american people as well as members of congress who are skeptical about the plan. congressman ron paul has been a very vocal critic and he's with us this morning from washington. congressman paul, always great to have you with pus. you're a physician as well and i'm sure that you have a lot of thoughts on this issue as we debate health care. you oppose president obama's health plan. you favor giving americans control of their health care. does it boil down to two different philosophies over who should get health care coverage? do you believe not everyone can expect free or low cost health care? >> yeah. i think there's a lot to that, but i come from the viewpoint that the most important thing we do is preserve the

doctor/patient relationship which we do not. for the past 30 years or so we've had a lot of government involved. we have veterans care, we have medicare, we have medicaid and we also have a lot of people getting private insurance. people having private insurance are not all that unhappy. what are we doing now or at least obama is proposing that we turn the people that have service on insurance and make them join the governmental programs that everybody is unhappy about. it doesn't make any sense. it's a total failure to run anything by a bureaucracy, it always costs more and the services are always less favorable. so for us to pursue government solutions to a problem the government created is sort of reminds me of the t.a.r.p. bailouts. you know what we do financially. medical bailouts by more government when government created our managed care system of 35 years will only make things much worse. >> one of the things we've talked about is whether or not independents are backing this.

there seems to be some eroding concerns about whether or not we can afford it, whether or not the timing is right. even though there is that yap hennion right now about whether or not we can afford it most do agree that we need to do something about health care. is there a republican alternative out there that makes more sense in your opinion? >> oh, yeah. i think so. i think we should pursue the idea that the patient get control through the medical savings accounts and deductions so that you can deduct everything. the biggest problem is that the misunderstanding about insurance. they talk about we need to give everybody insurance. you can't give people insurance you don't expect from your car insurance to be able to buy gasoline and do all your repair bills and that's not insurance. and this is not insurance either. insurance would be major medical to take care of the big problems. that is the -- one of the basic problems. as far as costs goes, estimating 1 trillion or $1.5 trillion in the midst of this crisis no wonder people are starting to

wake up a little bit. money just isn't there. the one thing for sure, is if you look at every other previous program by government, it's a proposed say the prescription drug program would cost $49 billion, well, it might turn out to be $150 billion. it's always much more so if they're saying $1.5 trillion for this, be sure it's going to cost two or three times that much. >> what do we do, though, about this problem with, you know, uninsured children, many people uninsured. your state according to the united health foundation ranks 46 out of 50 in terms of overall health. and one of the biggest challenges for your state right now is that there's a high percentage of children in poverty and big uninsured population. there you are opposing this, your state seems to be in dire straits when it comes to this situation, what's the solution for texas? >> well, one thing you have to do is say, why do people come up short and why is the cost so high?

it's inflation and it's a government management of the health care system is at fault. even though i have my ideal system i would like to see with the government out completely because that would be a much better system, that's not going to happen. one thing we shouldn't do is pay for it with money created out of thin air. i've talked about this a whole lot, cut spending somewhere and take care of the people you're talking about. because you don't want to cut under these conditions medical care from poor people who have been dependent or the elderly. i would cut from overseas spending i would cut from these trillions and trillions of dollars that we have spent over the years and bring our troops home so that we can finance it. a first very minor step was done yesterday by cutting the f 22. i applaud obama for that. we don't need one system removed, we need to change our foreign policy and then we could afford the health care that is necessary to tie us over until we have come to our senses and believe freedom can deliver

medical care much better thatten a bureaucracy in government. you have to deal with the problem of inflation as well because that's why people find that medical care costs too much. >> i have to ask you about this. we are -- our producers came across this today. a website called ronpaulsingles.com. the fastest growing relationship site on the web where like-minded libertarians get together. a singles site but with you as their inspiration. what is this about? >> i don't know a whole lot. i haven't looked at it. i've been told about it, and my immediate response to that was, well i guess that sort of fits a famous slogan once before that i liked, make love not war. so maybe that's what they're thinking about doing. but, you know, it can't hurt anything and people find it amusing, so i guess people shouldn't complain about it. >> here we go. so for -- you guys have to tackle health care in the meantime you're helping people find love across the country.

>> that's what we need more of. >> maybe -- >> less war. >> maybe -- always great to have you on the show. thanks so much. >> thank you. and in the town of paris, texas, racial tensions have reached a boiling point and threatening to tear the town apart. about 100 black protesters clashed with white supremacist groups. tension stems from the murder last year of a 24-year-old african-american man named brandon mcclellan. police found his body on the side of a rural road and concluded he was run over, dragged and killed. two white men were initially charged with murder but the charges were dismissed last month due to a lack of evidence. don't forget to join us tonight for the premier of a prime time event months in the making, soledad o'brien reports "black in america 2" begins tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern after the president speaks and part two airs tomorrow at 8:00 eastern. coming up on 21 minutes after the hour. )d)d)d)d)d)d)d)d)d)d)dd

it's now 22 minutes after the hour. christine romans here minding your business tracking stimulus dollars. >> there's so many stimulus dollars. >> you love doing this. >> i love it. look i found some more contracts i want to tell you about. $9,000 for liberty mesh chairs, your stimulus money going to mesh office chairs. say that ten times fast. from a company called human scale corporation. the labor department has this contract, it purchased these chairs for up to 20 employees in an assistant labor secretary's office on the website of the liberty mesh chair, unlike any other mesh chair you've ever experienced or seen, the most

beautiful office chair ever created. your stimulus cash at work. another one, a bathroom remodel and door replacement in wisconsin, $198,000 for this one. the company that's doing it mcneil west says that they've actually been able to not lay off people. they've prevented laying off people doing this. it's not just a toilet project. we dug into it, about four bathrooms for a forest service office space. so about $200,000 there. finally, $18 million, this one is for the redesign of a recovery.gov, where you can find all this stuff. you can find everything you ever didn't want to know and did want to know. your own investigation of how we're spending the stimulus cash is there on recovery.gov. see one of the contracts is $18 million to upgrade the website so you can see it all. >> we were eating lunch yesterday in the caf tear ya sand said what did you think about the jenny turkey. she loves this. >> never has so much money gone

out the door so quickly and never have i felt so passionate of keeping track of it. >> it's time for the romans numeral. >> $250, a number that's going to make some of you out there richer. your stimulus contract. this is your one-time stimulus payment for veterans, railroad retirees and ssi recipients. about 54 million of the checks will go out. if you haven't seen this you need to call your social security office or the railroad benefits office or where you think that check is coming from, june 4th, june 8th and july 10th were the deadlines for those. if you haven't seen it yet, might be a little glitch, no big deal, call and get your check, $250. >> thanks so much. christine romans minding your business. >> 25 minutes past the hour.

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bringing you the first and only wireless 4g network. get the palm pre from sprint. only on the now network. deaf, hard of hearing and people with speech disabilities access www.sprintrelay.com. 26 minutes past the hour. tracking several developing stories this morning. the federal government could be powerless against cyber attacks according to a new study out this morning. it reviewed 18 federal agencies

and found national security could be in jeopardy unless the feds hire more people with the knowledge to handle threats from hackers, from cyber terrorists as well as foreign nations. secretary of state hillary clinton is telling asian nations the united states is back. she says the u.s. wants to get more involved in the region and also said washington is worried about a military alliance between north korea and me yan mar. she is meeting with leaders from southeast asian nations in phuket, thailand. she's back in washington tomorrow. charges against a prominent harvard university african-american scholar have been dropped but henry louis gates is still angry over his arrest at his home in cambridge, massachusetts. he was taken into custody last week when an officer reported to reports of a burglary. he was locked out of his house and forced his way in. he says he wants a face-to-face meeting with the arresting officer and an apology. >> it's one of those issues considered a third rail in politics, gun control, and it's

taking center stage on capitol hill. after some really heated debate senators scheduled to vote today on a measure that would let people carry concealed weapons across state lines. it's known as the thune amendment and introduced by republican senator john thune. we want to get opinion from both sides of the debate this morning. we're going to speak in a moment with new york mayor mike bloomberg against the proposal, but first bring in a co-sponsor, senator john barraso of wyoming. we know this is a popular measure in wyoming, you are a lifetime measure of the national rifle association. but as a practical matter can you tell us why it's good public policy to allow people to carry concealed weapons across state lines? >> right now people in 48 different state cans have a license to carry a concealed weapon but people travel, we have truck drivers on our roads, people traveling for vacation in their vehicles, and if you have a license you've gone through the process, you should be able to use that license in other states. it should apply like a driver's license. the people that are getting concealed weapon permit those

are basically the law-abiding citizens. the criminals are not in any way going down to the courthouse, getting fingerprinted for the purpose of getting a license to carry a concealed weapon. these are the best citizens, not the worst and i think in keeping with our second amendment rights to own and bare arms. >> here's one of the issues. the requirements for a concealed carry permit vare fri state to state, 19 states that require a gun safety program, but under this measure you could, say, get a concealed carry permit in the state of mississippi that requires no training at all and travel to dallas where permit applicants must go to ten hours of training. you're taking different requirements and kind of leveling the playing field at the federal level. isn't this a matter of states' rights here? >> you have different requirements for driver's licenses as well in terms of what age they get them and if they need drivers education and those sorts of things. certainly we want to make sure that there is safety involved with people carrying concealed weapons. training is a very important part of that. but the law of the state where

that person happens to be at the time are the laws that apply in terms of if you're allowed to carry a gun into a bar or restaurant. it's the home state law that applies. state rights continue to apply there. >> there are also concerns, though, that the, you know, states that ban concealed carry by people who have committed certain crimes might have to accept permits from states where they don't have those restrictions. senator charles schumer from the state of new york said, quote, right now you walk down the streets of new york or nassau or west chester you can have the solace of knowing if someone has a gun on them they've gone through a rigorous background check because new york has strict laws. after this law you could have no such comfort. what do you say to that. >> the department of justice has shown criminals will avoid committing crimes if they think the victim may be carrying a concealed weapon. is armed. so i think that carrying a concealed weapon is a sign of self-defense, self-protectionion and i think it lowers crime.

people are afraid this is going to have blood in the streets and everyone is going to be armed and the wild west all over again. you're not going to see any of those things. i have a concealed weapons permit in wyoming, had it over a dozen years and have it with me now and i will tell you this is the way to go. the vote is going to be at high noon today. it needs 60 votes to pass in the senate. and for people that have for gun control they're going to be against this. people for the second amendment constitutional rights of american citizens to own and bare arms, they should support this. >> senator from wyoming, it's good to talk to you this morning. thank you very much. one side of the story there. to mayor michael bloomberg of new york, one of hundreds of mayors totally against this. you took out an ad today in "usa today" against this amendment. what do you think of what senator ba ras so said? >> i think the senate is wrong. the second amendment has restricti restrictions. the supreme court ruled clearly that reasonable restrictions by states are perfectly constitutional. number two, there's no evidence that if you have a gun, you're safer. quite the contrary. if you have a gun at home,

something like 20 times pore likely to have somebody in your house killed, you or one of your family members. that's not true. the other thing that the senator i think is wrong on, and hopefully i get a chance to try to convince him, wyoming shouldn't be subject to new york state laws and we're going in that direction. if you trammell on states rights in this the next thing is one of the laws we have, we think is appropriate for our citizens is going to be forced on the people of wyoming. i don't think the people of wyoming want that. what this law is all about is trampling on reasonable regulations. and if the senate's position was well thought out and accepted by all the senate, they would have a straight up and down vote on this. what they're doing is they're holding hostage our young men and women's safety, the young men and women overseas in iraq and iran -- iran and afghanistan, fighting for our country. and what the senator and his people have done is put this as a rider on the defense bill and

said, you can't vote against our -- the defense bill. >> soldiers. >> the defense bill, therefore this comes along. >> let me ask you this question, mr. mayor. new york city has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. obviously there is still problems with guns in this sti. if you buy a gun in vermont you don't need a permit to carry a concealed weaponp. that person could come here to new york city with a concealed weapon. >> the practical aspect is it makes it easier for traffickers of weapons. right now, if you bring a gun into new york state, we can arrest you. if you -- you don't have a license here. if you have a license in another state now you will be able to bring in a gun and resell it here. it's much more dangerous -- >> as we said in vermont you don't need a permit to carry a concealed weapon. >> the trouble is you're going to get a lot more guns in the streets and we have police officers in this state, in our city, who put the lives on the line to protect us.

i'm going to have a meeting later on this morning, laurie house, a woman -- from virginia tech, her daughter was shot at virginia tech. we're going to have jeremiah healy there, the mayor of jersey city. today would have been the 38th birthday of the police officer yesterday passed away, shot by a gun. we just got to stop this chaos. what's right for the people of wyoming isn't necessarily right for the people of new york and vice versa. but we have to protect our policemen, protect our citizens. we can't have all these guns. and it's reasonable to have each state make their own laws. >> this year we seem to be seeing a political shift in terms of gun legislation. this year guns were allowed into national parks. do you think you're going to be able to defeat this measure? as we said, you and some 450 other mayors across the country took out this ad in the "usa today." senator schumer admits the vote is going to be tight. do you think you can -- >> it's the mayors that have to explain to the loved ones when the police officer is not going to come home and say your daddy

or your spouse or your son or your daughter is not coming back. mayors understand what guns do. senators seem to be in an ivory tower and don't quite get it. what's appropriate in urban areas is very different than what's appropriate in rural areas. we have to make sure that we can each pick for ourselves. that's what the constitution is really about. when they argue constitutional protections, the constitutional protection of the people of new york to set their own rules, is just as important as the constitutional protection for the people of wyoming to set theirs. but you just can't have this continuous battle again and again of trying to get more guns in the hands of people who probably shouldn't have them there. there are states that allow habitual drunks to get licenses. states that have -- allow people with lots of misdemeanors to get them. there are states that allow people -- the federal government says can't fly, too dangerous to let them on airplanes, but states will give them carry permits. those people are going to go to

your state wherever you live and this is wrong. >> we'll be watching this vote closely today. mayor bloomberg, good to see you. thanks for dropping by we want to know what you think about all this, should congress allow people with a concealed carry permit take them across state lines. leave a comment on our blog at cnn.com/am mfix or call 1-8-77-myam fix. 

it's now the top videos on cnn.com. south carolina governor mark sanford says he is moving forward and urging his state to follow suit. he told reporters yesterday i made a mistake in my life i've apologized for my mistake. one thing missing is sanford's wedding ring. the governor deflected questions on the state of his marriage. cnn's ivan watson traveling with marines in southern afghanistan explains the concept of sock water. the heat in the afghan desert is so intense storing water bottles in wet socks keeps them cool. any way to keep them cool, of course, is much needed in that heat. ransacked by baboons?

employees of a state park in england said you could be in your pajamas if you pack them in your roof top luggage. the demo meant to explain why the park is pushing visitors to pack their bags inside the car. check that out. looks like every year when, what is it, harrods has the sale on the wedding gowns and everyone goes running. filings. rummages around for their size and hoping for the best. bab booms. >> how do you beat a terrorist at their own game? by thinking like them. this bomb, this bomb you're going to see here, was born in a homeland security laboratory. >> look at the damage it can do. federal officials are trying to build explosives, even they can't detect, in hopes of closing gaps in homeland security. jeanne meserve takes us inside the operation. >> reporter: john, kiran, i'm in a warehouse surrounded by thousands and thousands of pieces of luggage. because a bomb can be hidden in a suitcase, these are valuable tools in devising better aviation security.

airplanes, blown to pieces, all in the name of science and security. but wait. this story really begins at the transportation security laboratory in atlantic city. where patrick o'connor builds bombs for the government. >> this is a real explosive that i have here in my hand. >> reporter: he has built hundreds of improvised explosive devices disguised as electronics, footware, even an innocuous looking stack of dvds. the designs evolve based on intelligence about the bombs terrorists are building. >> usually use a thief to catch a thief and that's what we do here. >> reporter: some of the bombs are detonated in old planes to test whether a similar device could bring down a flight. others are put in luggage and run through screening machines. if the bombs are not detected, scientists try to close the security gap to beat the terrorists.

>> it's a game of cat and mouse. we understand what they're doing. they understand to some measure what we're doing and we counteract that with better improved technology. >> reporter: machines are not the total answer. >> at the end of the day, the technology detects very specific threats. it does not detect a terrorist. >> reporter: but better machines would be a valuable tool. scientists do a high-resolution crosssection scan of a peanut m and m to show us some do you how they might ferret out explosive materials. others are trying to crack the problem of detecting liquid explosives by capturing and measuring the vapors emitted from a homemade conkukion concealed in a bottle of cold medicine. >> i can't tell you what's in the nyquil bottle but it's something really bad we need to keep off the plane. >> reporter: not all the work being done here will lead to better bomb detection, but some might and could prevent something like this.

researchers here practice something they call bagology. they will take a suitcase like this and run it through a screening machine fully loaded in order to determine what sorts of ordinary objects set off false alarms. that way they can eliminate them, making aviation security more efficient as well as more effective. john and kiran, back to you. >> jeanne meserve for us, fascinating story. >> as you said it takes a thief to catch a thief. they're changing and evolving as they discover new tactics in the cd case. 43 minutes past the hour. we'll be right back. some lunch.

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hazy day in new york city today. it's supposed to be sunny. 66 degrees right now. a little cool after the rain that came through yesterday. today, beautiful day. partly cloudy with a high of 81. 46 1/2 minutes after the hour. rob is monitoring the extreme weather across the country. anybody in the crosshairs for anything today? >> there's a little sliver of severe weather from the ohio valley slicing across the tennessee valley back through parts of the deep south. but this is where they're trying to squeeze out the cold air. check out some of the low

temperatures yesterday. these kind of echo through the past weekend. 54 in crossville, tennessee. nashville hit 58. muscle shools alabama, 58. 60 in tallahassee. i think those numbers will be gone because we're going to start to get into a more humid air mass, something that's a little more typical for this time of year. chicago you're not seeing rain right now, but this may fill in later today. a 50/50 shot of seeing thunderstorms develop in that part of illinois and parts of michigan as well. a line of thunderstorms we're talking about, mostly very garden variety at this point. it's just not -- only just some rain. back through louisiana, that's where more heavy thunderstorms are occurring. it will be 80 degrees in memphis. 91 degrees in dallas and 85 degrees in atlanta, georgia. one last peek at the eclipse that we didn't get to see here in the u.s. this is out of india, a little cloud cover but the total solar eclipses, one of the biggest and longest, it will be in this 21 centu

century. i'm not sure when the next one is visible in the u.s. back to you. >> places where it was clear it was quite a show, rob. >> yeah. >> thanks, rob. we've been talking about the health care debate all day today and tonight the president will be giving a prime time news conference on the issue. we will bring in our own doctor, dr. sanjay gupta, what's at stake and what needs to change the most from a doctor's perspective. 48 minutes past the hour. at first i was afraid. i was petrified. kept thinking that each meeting meant... that i would have to fly. but then i spent so many nights... reading e-mails way too long. then i grew strong. network video came along. ♪ and so i'm back ♪ no time to waste ♪ just click the mouse and get things done ♪ ♪ see people face-to-face ♪ i should have changed things long ago ♪ ♪ this technology saved the day! ♪ [ female announcer ] more collaboration,

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president obama's feeling intense heat from both sides of the aisle in his health care reform plan. but before he takes his pitch directly to america right here on cnn tonight at 8:00, we want

to shed some light on the fight that he faces and what the stakes are so we're "paging dr. gupt gupta", our chief medical correspondent. sanjay's here to clarify it all. something that caught our eye was this recent opinion research poll finding that only 20% of americans think they'll be better off under barack obama's plan, and 44% think that they're going to be about the same or -- 35% think they'll be worse off. >> well, in some ways it sort of fits of message. he's been saying all along for those of you that have insurance you're happy with, nothing's going to change. what's sort of interesting -- people are starting to draw these parallels between now and back in 1993. as i've told you in the past, i used to work at clinton white house. people thought of that plan as dead-on-arrival. it was pretty popular at least initially back during that time. but by april of that year, the sort of approval of this was around 51%. and by august, around 44%. again, back in '93. that's very similar to what

we're seeing now, something important to keep in mind. what is different -- a lot of people have talked about this -- the consensus among lots of different groups including the insurance industry now. you just didn't have that back in '93. the harry and louise ads, those are something people think ultimately sunk the clinton plan. yet the insurance industry is sort of backing this up now. back during the clinton administration the initial thought was that congress was going to draft something, then give it to the white house for approval. ultimately those roles sort of reversed. the white house ultimately drafted something that was large and eventually picked apart by congress. president obama has been very careful this time around to say, look, i'm going to draw broad messages but i'm going to let the legislators sort of draft this all together. that's what we're sort of seeing play out right now. >> interesting thing about that, the white house enjoys higher approval ratings and higher confidence according to polls on who's best to tackle health care than congress does right now. in some of that polling people

say perhaps they aren't buying into -- they realize the health care system is broken but they don't know if it will necessarily make things better for them. >> exactly. that goes back to the polling you showed at the beginning. tonight it will be interesting. you're going to hear probably one after few different things from president obama. one thing you can say about him, he has been consistent with that one message. for the vast majority of people who have insurance, are happy with it, nothing is going to change. we'll hear that message even more emphatically tonight? or are we going to hear a little bit more nuanced. as we start to parse down those polls a little bit, a lot of people do believe in reform, even if they don't necessarily think it is going to affect or improve for them. so i think that that's something that you might see as well tonight, this idea of sort of appealing to the broader methods -- look, this is something that's good for the country, it is good for our nation as a whole, it is something that's good for the ages. we just need to get through this. that might be something you hear tonight as well. >> you'll be listening of course when he speaks tonight.

i'll be interested to get your take tomorrow when you hear more of what he says. sanjay, as always, thanks. so the united states has got its first african-american president. i jumped the gun on that. my apologies. the united states has got its first african-american president, philadelphia, mississippi has got its first african-american mayor. is alabama ready for its first african-american governor? our jason carroll takes a look at that next. 54 minutes after the hour.

president obama made history as the country's first black president. it was part of our special series "black in america 2." jason carroll joins us with the story of a man who wants to be alabama's first black governor. he told you it's time. >> yeah. he said at the time, the clock is ticking. we'll have to see if he's right. it is not just wishful thinking on his part. one state poll shows arthur davis running neck-an hnd neck. if wre to win the democratic nomination and was nachd up against the leading republican challenger. davis said that is proof voters are ready to do something

they've never done before. >> thank you, ladies and gentlemen. >> reporter: to supporters, he's the symbol of a new alabama. a figure showing the state has passed its segregationist history. congressman artur davis trying to make history by becoming the state's first african-american governor. do you really think you can win? >> no question. >> reporter: our interview taking place at a church where four little girls were killed in a bombing during the civil rights movement. davis says he knows an believes in the people here today. >> i'm someone who was raised by my mother and grandmother, grew up in a relatively small town, montgomery, alabama. >> reporter: davis made his way through harvard law school, politics brought him home. >> decided to come back, i wanted to contribute something to this date. >> reporter: he lost his first bid for congress in 2000, but won a rematch two years later and has served four terms. but is alabama ready for a

democratic african-american governor? >> alabama needs artur. they just don't know it. >> reporter: peggy wallace has a unique perspective. her grandfather, former alabama governor george wallace -- >> segregation loud, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever. >> reporter: wallace later renounced his segregationist views. changing times. his daughter then supported barack obama during the 2008 election and supports davis now. >> people can't understand why we voted for obama and i'm sure will not vote for artur. some people are just not ready. >> reporter: to which davis says -- >> i think more of them know they're ready than some people think. >> reporter: political analysts like natalie davis say when talking politics and color, remember, alabama is a red state. president obama lost the state by a wide margin, capturing about 10% of the white vote.

>> in alabama, if you're a democrat running against a republican, white or black, you have to take 38% of the white vote. >> reporter: she says it's a tall order. but davis remains confident. >> break-through moments often aren't foreseeable. even just a short time before they happen. >> many political observers see davis as a moderate but his critics say he is too liberal for alabama. for example, he supports abortion rights. but again, davis believes the state has changed and its people have changed. how much they've changed? well, that's still a question mark. >> i guess we'll find out very soon. jason carroll, great piece. join us tonight for a special night of prime time event at 7:00 p.m. eastern. join us for "moment of truth," a countdown to "black in america 2." then at 8:00, cnn the only place to watch the president's prime time news conference with the best political team on television. that's followed by the premier of a two-night event, "black in america 2."

that's tonight only on cnn. that brings us now to the top of the hour. it is 8:00 eastern, wednesday, the 22nd of july. thanks for being with us. i'm john roberts. >> i'm kiran chetry. these are the big stories we'll be breaking down for you in the next 15 minutes. a new angle of from the wh attack for his critics? he sounds upbeat about his chances for pushing his plan through congress. >> i know that there are those in this town who openly declare their intention to block reforms. but there are many others who are working hard to address this broad crisis. i know that there is a tendency in washington to accentuate the differences instead of underscoring common ground. but make no mistake, we are closer than ever before to the reform that the american people need and we're going to get the job done. we's live outside the white house with the very latest today. iranian living in the united states beginning a hunger strike outside the united nations. protesting the iranian government's crackdown on opposition demonstrations after the country's disputed

presidential elections. we are live at the site of the protests. and new details emerging in the investigation into the murder of a florida couple who adopted 13 special needs children. we'll look at how the suspects were trying to get their hands on the "mother lode" of valuables at the couple's home. we begin though with president obama's push for health care reform. he's taking it straight to you with a prime time news conference he's holding tonight. some republicans say the plan are just create government-run health care, and even some democrats are against it. the president is accusing his critics of playing politics. our suzanne malveaux is live at the white house and as some of the support erodes from independent and even some conservative democrats, what can the president say tonight at this debate? >> the idea is just for the president to keep talking about this, even if it's repetitive, to keep pushing this forward. this is his fourth prime time press conference in the first six months of hifs presidency. we are going to see the president earlier today meeting with iraq's prime minister nuri al maliki to talk about the

progress there. but tonight it is all about his number one domestic priority, and that is health care reform. president brarack obama is raising the stakes using a prime time news conference to throw all his weight behind a health care reform. >> but make no mistake, we are closer than ever before to the reform that the american people need and we're going to get the job done. >> reporter: facing skeptical lawmakers, including members of his own party, the president's strategy consists of private arm-twisting and public scolding. >> time and again we've heard exs defeat his popularity and political capital early in the game. >> i don't want you to feel old. >> reporter: with town halls, tv interviews and prime time aimed at building momentum and creating a sense of urgency to get health care legislation on his desk by mid-august. >> we have traveled long and hard to reach this point. i know that we have further to

go. >> reporter: some say a risky strategy. >> i think from his point of view, there are many in the public who would like to hear from him but they'd also like to see him just sit down and negotiate out the plan. what they look for is a leadership that says here's where we're going to go. not a leadership that says i'm encouraging congress to make more progress. >> reporter: the effort comes amid recent polls showing approval for mr. obama's health care plan dropping below 50% and americans now split over his handling of the economy. republicans are seizing the moment. >> we want to fundamentally reorient one-sixth of our economy in two weeks. that makes no logical sense to me. >> reporter: kiran, the high-profile nature of this press conference is meant to push lawmakers here so that the president can deliver some good news tonight. but the state of play right now, still negotiations taking place. health care reform very much in flux. we heard from the press secretary robert gibbs saying

after the august recess when they come back, they'll still have work to do on health care reform. >> suzanne malveaux at the white house for us this morning, thanks so much. a reminder, cnn is the place to watch the president's prime time news conference with the best political team on television, 7:00 p.m. eastern. join us for the moment of truth, the countdown to "black in america 2." only on cnn. six months into president obama's term, a new associated press poll suggests great expectations have given way to some harsh realities. overall, 55% of americans approve of the job that the president is doing. but the president's poll numbers are down sharply in several key areas -- improving the economy, withdrawing troops from iraq, fixing america's image around the world and overhauling health care. in a few minutes, we'll talk about the special inspector general for the troubled asset relief program where all the financial industry bailout money

has gone. new details of a florida invasion and murder of a couple. the suspects tried to get their hands on a safe loaded with cash in the home of melanie and byrd billings. seven men are facing murder charges, one of them, leonard gonzalez jr., identified by a fellow suspect as the gunman. cnn's susan candiotti is following all of the developments for us this morning. >> reporter: john, kiran, good morning. cnn has learned there was a second safe in the billings house and that this is what the suspects were really going after. it was called the mother lode. according to a source familiar with the investigation, this safe contained at least $100,000. but for whatever reason, the suspects were unable to get to it and did not get the money. on tuesday night, escambia county sheriff david morgan was asked about this development on ""ac 360."" >> a source familiar with the investigation telling us it was a second safe in the house containing $100,000. can you confirm that for us,

sir, and tell us about it? >> i cannot. i can only confirm the items that we have recovered or that -- excuse me, that we know were removed from the billings home and that was a small mid-size safe and a black briefcase. >> are you saying there was not a second safe or that you just can't confirm that, sir? >> i'm saying, sir, i'm not at liberty to address that issue. >> reporter: an attorney for the billings family also said she had no comment. now the reason this second safe is significant is because up until now, we only knew about one safe, one safe that the suspects did get away with. but, the sheriff's office has said that it contained only some jewelry, some family papers, and medication for the billings children. there are other new developments in the case. according to court documents, one of the suspects charged with murder allegedly told investigators that suspect leonard gonzalez jr. is the man who shot and killed byrd and melanie billings.

now the sheriff has said that he has tried to talk to at least three other persons of interest, and that he could be making more arrests. john and kiran? >> susan candiotti this morning. police say the suspects trained extensively for at least 30 days and there are reports that they actually staged a dry run of the crime at the billings home. checking other stories new this morning, super bowl champion and pittsburgh steeler quarterback ben roethlisberger is now being accused of sexual assault. the casino host at harrah's filed a civil complaint -- not a criminal one, a civil complaint saying the assault happened last sumner lake tahoe while roethlisberger was staying at the resort for a celebrity golf tournament. it is claimed that eight employees at harrah's contributed to the woman's distress and some tried to cover up the incident. roethlisberger's attorney says that ben has never sexually assaulted anyone. more legal trouble for outgoing alaska governor sarah palin. a preliminary state report says palin may have violated state

ethics laws by letting supporters set up a legal defense fund to help her battle ethics complaints. palin cited the time and money needed to fight a flood of ethics complaints as a major reason that she's stepping down. the white house goes a little bit country. the white house, the president and mrs. obama, hosting award winning musician alison krauss and brad paisley. the president says country music tells america's story without pulling any punches. >> garth brooks said it's honesty, sincerity and real life to the hilt. dierks bentley called it the best shrink that 15 bucks can buy. >> there you go. 26-time grammy winner getting down with some blue grass last night.

pretty cool. >> the beauty of being president. nine minutes past the hour. welcome to the now network. currently, thousands of people are enjoying the new palm pre with its revolutionary web os. they're running multiple live applications at the same time. - ( thunder and rain ) - 3 million are using the simply everything plan. each is saving $1200 - over an at&t iphone plan. - ( cash register dings ) together that's over $3 billion. - enough to open a dunkin' donuts in space. - ( walkie-talkie sounds ) from america's most dependable 3g network. bringing you the first and only wireless 4g network. get the palm pre from sprint. only on the now network. deaf, hard of hearing and people with speech disabilities access www.sprintrelay.com.

welcome back. a group of iranian activists here in the u.s. making a powerful statement about their country's disputed election and the regime's violent crackdown on demonstrations by opposition supporters. they're just now beginning a three-day hunger strike. taking place outside of the united nations right here in new york. cnn's reza sayah is there for us. when we last checked in for you, you were at a concert, they were trying again to bring attention to the plight of those in iran. tell us now about this hunger strike. >> reporter: these types of activities continue to happen outside of iran. what's happening today is stars and celebrities going on a hunger strike. now you may not know these

individuals unless you're iranian. if you're from iran or are iranian decent, you probably know some of these people. we'll have movie stars, singers, songwriters, film makers, all going on a hunger strike in support of the opposition movement in iran. specifically they're calling for the release of these individuals. all these names are political prisoners detained after the vote. the names in red are individuals who have been killed, for example. the individuals here on this hunger strike are hoping to put enough pressure on the u.n. and international community to get these people released. will a hunger strike across the world have an impact? here is an award-winning filmmaker and what she had to say. >> we are here today believing the more noise we make on the

outside, they'll take us more seriously and they have to stop the bloodshed. >> reporter: rain is in the forecast during the next couple of days so the tent is already up. it's three days, they're going to go home at 8:00 p.m., come back tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. >> interesting to see the visual impact of all of those names lined up against that wall. reza sayah outside the united nations for us. also just a quick question about the impact they hope to make. are people aware of what's going on, diplomats inside the united nations, and others? >> reporter: well, this is a gathering of very influential people. and they believe that every bit helps. they're also calling for the international community. they've called on robert redford, people like sean penn, robert redford's daughter is coming here. it may not seem like much, but they believe any kind of pressure put on the obama administration, any kind of pressure put on the u.n. will help these individuals be released.

>> reza sayah outside the united nations, thanks. he's the sig t.a.r.p. what he does sure is awfully important. sig t.a.r.p. is special inspector general of the troubled asset relief program. he joins us coming up. 14 minutes after the hour.

a woman named kelly hildebrandt is going to marry a man named kelly hildebrandt who she met by searching her own name on facebook. yeah, upon hearing this story hundreds of men legally changed their name to megan fox.

welcome back to the most news in the morning. apple reporting a 15% increase in third quarter profits over the last year. based largely on the strong mac and iphone sales. apple sold 5.2 million iphones during the quarter. that's a whopping 626% jump in unit sales from the year before. court records show actor stephen baldwin is millions of dollars in debt and has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. documents show he has about $70,000 in credit card debt. he's appeared in several films. recently he was on the nbc reality show ""i'm a celebrity, get me out of here!." he did leave the show early last month. a new study shows the number of mexicans immigrating to the united states has dropped since 2005 by 40% but the number going

back to mexico remains study. study also says it is too early to say if this is a new trend or reaction to a bad economy. when neil barofsky, the special inspector general for the troubled asset relief program released his quarterly report to congress this week, some big numbers jumped up. the biggest was nearly $24 trillion. that's right. $24 trillion. it's a number that taxpayers could be on the hook for in a worst case scenario involving the bailout of big banks. barofsky says the treasury department needs to do more to make sure your money is not wasted in the financial rescue. neil barofsky joins us now from washington. neil, great to see you this morning. $24 trillion figure, lot of people choked on that. explain for viewers exactly where those numbers come from and what is the potential reality of that coming to pass? >> sure. the reality of that is slim. what we did in the report, and what we set out in the report, was we attempted to look not just at the t.a.r.p., which is our primary responsibility, but

the whole vast terrain of all the different financial support programs from the government and put them in one place so the american people, members of the media, members of congress could see it in one place. we did a brief description about the 50 other non-t.a.r.p. programs and described how much is outstanding right now on those programs, what the high water mark is and what the total is, basically what the total exposure, total support if you add up each of those programs. we explain, look, some of these programs have already been terminated. some of them the money's been paid back. full description to all of them at the same time is not necessarily likely. but we thought it was very important from a transparency perspective to put them all in one place so that the american people could see what was going on. the actual amount outstanding is about $3 trillion, not $23.7 trillion. >> still, $3 trillion is a big piece of change, too. this issue of transparency was a big one for you, too, at the hearings on capitol hill. you said more transparency and

accountability is needed in the t.a.r.p. bailout. to quote something you said, "t.a.r.p. has become a program in which taxpayers are not being told what most of the t.a.r.p. recipients are doing with the money and still aren't told how much their substantial investments are worth and will not be told the full details of how their money is being invested. you do say that the treasury department has become a little more transparent in terms of these t.a.r.p. funds but still lax accountability." how much are they lacking in that area? >> i think we've got a long way to go. those three things that you just listed, we should not be at this point in t.a.r.p.'s history, we should still be wondering -- the american people shouldn't be wondering how much the assets are worth, especially when treasury's receiving internal monthly reports. american people should not still be wondering did all this money go into a black hole, how are the banks using the money? these are things that are verifiable an things that can be obtained. we believe treasury's failure to act on this transparency is a significant failure.

>> what's going on here? it is almost like a split between the narnl transportation safety board and federal aviation administration where the ntsb is responsible for checking out accidents and making sure problems don't happen going forward. they give their recommendations to the faa and the faa says, yeah, thanks very much. seems to be a very similar relationship you've got here. >> this is our statutory authority and obligation is to make recommendations. we make them to treasury and the policymakers make the decisions. all we can do is bring transparency, if you will, to the lack of transparency. >> so why aren't they listening? are you and the treasury secretary not talking much? >> well, i speak to other people in treasury. don't speak much to the treasury secretary. >> when's the last time you talked to him? >> late january. >> wow. shouldn't there be a little more of a dialogue there? not blaming you, but shouldn't he be reaching out to you to say, hey, neil, what's going on with the money here? saw your report, let's talk about this? >> i suggested we have periodic meetings to his chief of staff

right when he came on-board. i'm still waiting to hear back. >> really. do you think we'll ever get the $700 billion back? >> i think it is very unlikely that we would get the full $700 billion back. some of these programs, there really is no expectation of return. the mortgage modification support is $50 billion where the way the program's designed, there's not going to be any money coming back. i think it is very unlikely weet we'd get the full $700 billion back. >> if taxpayers are saying, from what you've seen, has t.a.r.p. been successful? >> i think that really depends what your definition of success is. the original point of the t.a.r.p. when it was first announced was to take $700 billion of toxic assets off the books and records of banks. that obviously has not happened. one of the other goals was increase lending. i don't think that's happened either, though i think that there might be far greater decrease in lending absent the t.a.r.p. it depends on your definition of

success. if it was to avoid a complete class of the financial system, t.a.r.p. along with other programs may have achieved that goal. >> give me an overall grade. >> i hate to do letter grades. i'll maintain my optimism that treasury will adopt my recommendation. i'll just give them an "incomplete" for now. >> we'll see if the chief of staff gets back to you on that meeting with the treasury secretary. >> sure. >> neil barofsky, thanks for joining us. appreciate it. >> he really laid it out there in english for all of us. all those zeros. >> the fact that he's still waiting to hear back on this idea of periodic meetings. 23 1/2 minutes after the hour.

here's a story that many of you can probably relate to. a telemarketer calls during dinner or late at night and you're really wanting to go off on the person. well, a guy in ohio did just that, and now he's facing four years in prison. >> yeah. oops. he called st. louis marketing firm after receiving junk mail asking him to renew a bogus car warrantee. according to the court documents, he allegedly told a sales representative that he would burn down the firm's building and kill all the employees and their families. the better business bureau says that sometimes consumers are pushed too far by telemarketers. >> someone could become so frustrated by the misleading tactics that these companies use so that a consumer could feel pushed to the point of doing something that they wouldn't normally do. >> there you go. maybe the better business bureau should help bail him out. >> i think there are probably some people out there who may in

fact get a defense fund going. the man's wife said the outburst was unusual for her husband. she described him as being cool-headed. he remains in jail. his wife can't post the bond. 27 minutes past the hour. we're tracking a lot of developing stories this morning for you. the federal government could be be powerless against cyber attacks. according to a brand-new study that's out this morning, it reviewed 18 federal agencies finding that national security could be in jeopardy unless the feds hire more people that are able to handle threats from hackers, cyber terrorists, as well as other countries. secretary of state hillary clinton is telling asian nations that the united states is back. she says the u.s. wants to get more involved in the region and also said that washington is worried about a military alliance between north korea and myanmar. secretary clinton meets today with leaders from southeast asian nations in phuket, thailand. she's back in washington again

tomorrow. it is a first for the nation. in a landslide, voters in oakland, california passed america's first tax on medical marijuana. 80% in the city voted for that tax which is being supported by federal marijuana clinics in the city. disorderly conduct charges against a prominent african-american scholar have been dropped but henry louis gates is still angry over his arrest at his home in cambridge, massachusetts. an officer responded to a report of a burglary after gates was locked out of his house and forced his way in to the front door. gates claims he was arrested simply because he was black. he is demanding an apology from the arresting officer. in big cities across america, black kids are often surrounded by poor schools, bad choices and high crime and it is difficult for children growing up in that kind of environment to believe in their own abilities and also to develop big dreams. >> one woman has found a way though. as part of our "black in america" series, soledad o'brien joins us with a story of extraordinary inspiration. good morning to you. >> good morning to you. thank you.

one of the things we wanted to focus on this time around was success. kind of deconstructing what works in the communities so that you could take someone's success and take it across the nation really. the woman who's doing that, the wife of chris rock. she decided to take a bunch of kids, some had never left brooklyn, take them 8,000 miles to show them that the world is big and their opportunities are even bigger. take a look. >> and we're walking. my name is la toya. this is my hood. i have friends that live here. we party and stuff. >> my name is jeremy baker. this here is where i just hang

out. i take to the basketball court. >> reporter: la toya and jeremy live around here, bushwick, brooklyn, just five subway stops from manhattan. bushwick weathered lootings in the '70s, then crack in the '80s. the neighborhood is improving, but wrong choices still litter the streets. allure to many teens. one right choice is the bushwick salvation army. it's where activist malock compton rock, the wife of comedian chris rock, has come with a big, bold plan. >> cheese! >> reporter: she's going to select 30 kids, age 12 to 15, and take them to south africa. she calls it journey for change. why did you focus on bushwick?

it has crime, has drugs, entrenched poverty. >> 50% high school graduation rate. >> is that why? >> no. these kids come from the bushwick salvation army community center and it is a community center that my husband attended as a child. he really always talked about it being an amazing place. >> reporter: malaak believes that the children on these streets limit their dreams and their futures. she wants to expand their horizons. not by exposing them to a better life, but exactly the opposite. the plan -- two weeks of volunteer work in south africa's shantytowns where the poorest of the poor, the country's aids orphans, survive. >> these kids have always been on the receiving end of aid. they've never been on the giving end of service. i think that's going to open up their world. >> reporter: what's your goal for them? >> our dream, the goal is to come back and these kids are going to be our next leaders, our next civic leaders.

>> what malaak rock is doing is really what the rest of our leaders are doing. we're going to focus on people who are making a difference in their communities by saying -- she could write a check and a big check to make a change but she's saying, it's the one-on-one mentoring that really matters. the check helps but people have to commit to changing a kid's life. >> and the kids knowing that there is so much interest and that so many people care. you've got them in on the film making. >> we did. we posted a lot of their videotape on our website, go to cnn.com, click on the black in america little icon at the top. you can see their stories. we had them shooting when they went on safari, they shot their own personal stories. we handed out cameras. we followed their stories, they've blogged. they've gone since then to advocate for themselves in washington, d.c. before lawmakers, rebuild homes in new orleans and tour college campuses.

>> it's wonderful. you guys shine the light on a lot of challenges and things that are going on. it is interesting to see "black in america 2" go to see things that worked. >> i want to know can your program work across the nation? that's what people want to know. thank you for laying out the issues, how do you fix them? >> thank you. you can watch the kids' journey and change for "black in america 2." the big premier is tonight after the president speaks. right here, 9:00 eastern time on cnn. if you've got a driver's license in new york state, can you drive across the country. right? so if you have a concealed weapon permit from, let's say wyoming, should you be able to use that in any state across the nation? well, that's the debate that's under way right now because there is a measure before congress today that would allow you in 48 states in the nation to do just that. our carol costello takes a look at the controversy coming right up. 34 minutes after the hour.

welcome back. there are strong emotions and powerful arguments on both sides of the gun debate in this country. playing out right now in the senate, in a few hours lawmakers will vote on a new proposal that could make a license to carry good just about anywhere in the country. with the exception of two states. carol costello's standing by live in our washington bureau. carol, the proposal up for a vote. high noon in the senate today. what's it looking like? is it likely to pass? >> well, they need 60 votes for this amendment to pass. don't sell them short because they just may have those 60 votes, because gun rights advocates are having a banner year. congress has already passed a law that allows guns in national

parks. washington, d.c.'s attempt at gun control has been thwarted by congress, and now the senate is considering a law that would allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons across state lines. plenty of people are angry about that though. holland goddard is a survivor. he was a student at virginia tech the day a gunman burst into the classroom and open fire. goddard was shot four times. 32 students were killed before cho turned the gun on himself. goddard is in washington to tell lawmakers even if had he a gun that day, it would not have stopped the gunman. >> when i smelled that gun powder, that's when i knew what was happening. to be able to effectively respond to someone coming through a door like that, guns blazing? you need millisecond response times. >> reporter: john thune's

proposal would allow people to carry firearms into other states so long as they have concealed carry permits from the state in which they reside. goddard argues the proposed law would make it easier for unbalanced people to carry guns anywhere they chose, including states with more stringent concealed gun laws. he isn't the only critic. mayors from 450 cities took out an ad in "usa today" urging senators to vote down the amendment. >> what it would do is it would put an enormous number of guns on the streets and it takes away states' rights. >> reporter: but the national rifle association says carrying a gun is a constitutional right, and a matter of personal safety. >> at the scene of the crime there's only two people there, the criminal and victim. the victim always ought to have the right to own a firearm and have a firearm to protect themselves if they choose. >> reporter: case in point -- last year a bank customer legally carrying a conceal weapon near detroit twathwarted bank robber who claimed to have

a bomb. >> i told him i don't care, but you're not robbing the bank today. >> reporter: critics say for every hero, there are many villains like a man who legally owned guns and used them to kill three pittsburgh police officers. and the gunman who killed 32 at virginia tech. we've asked our viewers to comment on my blog at cnn.com/am fix. we're getting hundreds of responses. i'm just going to read one for you now. this is from dan. he's against the amendment. he said "i say massachusetts, connecticut, iowa, vermont, maine and new hampshire all get together and tell the gentleman from wyoming that they'll recognize their law on concealed weapons as soon as they recognize they're legalizing same-sex marriages. should those couples choose to move there. in other words, if you're going to trump state laws and allow people to carry concealed weapons from state to state, then why not trump state laws and allow same-sex marriage everywhe everywhere?

>> another viewer writes -- in response to something i said when we interviewed mayor bloomberg -- i said in the state of vermont you don't even need a permit to carry a concealed weapon, then you can take that weapon and come to a place like new york. dave says i live in vermont. you are allowed to carry a weapon, this is true. but we are also screened, checked before we legally purchase a weapon. the amount of people killed by personal weapons in the state is, at best, about 2%. it is not the guns that kill people, it's people that kill people. that's my two cents. the point mike bloomberg was making, carol, in new york state, you've got to go through a rigorous check to get a concealed weapons permit. then in new york city, you have to have another level above that. it's extraordinarily difficult to get a concealed weapon permit in this city. but you can ostensibly go to a place like vermont, buy a gun, you have the right to carry a concealed weapon without even a permit there, then that right would apply here in new york city. that's what the mayor is really worried about. >> the rub there is states have

different laws concerning concealed weapons. some are much more stringent than others and that's upsetting some people. then again, some people say if you're licensed to carry a concealed weapon, you should be able to carry it whenever you wish, wherever you wish. but keep the comments coming. cnn.com/am fix. >> if you have a concealed weapons permit, should it be valid in every state? give us your thoughts online. 4 minutes after the hour.

beautiful shot of the river today in new york city. it's partly cloudy, 71 degrees right now. it is going to be partly cloudy and 82 a little bit later but that will be much better than yesterday where it was just a total washout here in new york city. we've been getting a lot of rain. >> it was a terrible summer day. looks a lot better today. rob marciano's tracking this all for us. my hubby was looking to see if we even broke a record. we were about 30 degrees cooler. >> the rain's gone, new york is greener than it normally would be this time of year. >> that's true. >> that's one way to look at it. >> it's been incredibly wet. new york has seen almost a foot of rain since june 1st. unusually wet summer, that's for sure. check out some these records. newport, arkansas, five inches of rainfall. north of little rock, three inches. new haven, connecticut, got

almost three inches of rainfall. it was a washout across the tri-state area yesterday. had some rain squall lines moving through parts of the south. these aren't too serious. we might see back-filling of some rain in parts of chicago. a 50%-50% shot of that. temperatures in the 70s across parts of the great lakes. the eclipse, this is the best shot i found out of china. they got a good can be clear shot of it in parts of that country. there was some clouds that shrouded it at times. some people would get in front of the camera. to see a total lunar eclipse like that is a spiritual event, no doubt. but it can do some weird things. some monkey things. check this video out of richardson, texas. a plant store -- this is a surveillance camera out of a plant store. this little guy right here, he's on the move. there's been a rash of robberies, stealing plants and flowers and things. they set up security cameras. it ended up being a monkey taking 30, 40 plants at a time

out of this, also figurines that apparently look like monkeys. there was a human accomplice on the other side of the fence. monkey well trained obviously was the monkey burglar. >> that's confusing. because we just showed you in the last hour the monkey's like ripping through the -- that rooftop carrier, ripping out clothing. i thought it was the same monkey. >> no, different monkeys. different crimes. >> all vandalism. >> all under a total solar eclipse. >> this guy trained the monkey to go in, steal the plants and bring them back to him. >> seemingly so. the owner of plants not pressing charges because she thinks it's kind of funny. >> it is funny for the monkey, not so much for the guy though. >> have a good morning, guys. 48 minutes after the hour.

a disturbing statistic connecting health and race. life expectancy is more than five years shorter on average for african-americans. the burden of many diseases is greater as well. the big question is why. our chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta is here now to explain. >> good morning, john. we've worked on this story for several months now. it really is relevant to a lot of discussions we're having about health care with regard to public options, private options, all of that. if you look at some of these disparities in health, is it because of environmental issues? is it because of access issues? even genetic factors play a role

to some degree. but as you start to scratch below the surface as we found out here in this report, john, race is a big part of all this as well. the reverend gary spears is the organist at this church in the southwest bronx. a few years ago, he got a paper cut that turned into something far worse. >> for a period of months, lost over 80 pounds. became nauseated at the sight of food. lost your energy. you were urinating every 0 minutes and had you a paper cut that turned into -- sound like a full-fledged infection. >> yes. >> and they said -- >> change the gauze, take antibiotics, you'll be fine. >> reporter: spears went to an emergency room, not once, but twice. both times he was sent to an outpatient clinic run by the hospital. he never got a diagnosis, he never got a single test. as we'll tell you in a moment, what happened to gary spears should never happen to anyone. that was it.

until a chance meeting with a doctor. the doctor told me he could see right away, gary spears had a severe case of untreated diabetes. a simple blood test confirmed it. >> he immediately began to run tests and told me for the first time that i was a diabetic and that the reason why my body was not healing was because i was a diabetic. >> reporter: spears had medical insurance and thought he had good care, sew wondered why his illness had gone untreated for so long. >> i believe now, after many years after this happened, that it had to be because of my color. the color of my skin. >> because you're black, you think they -- >> yeah. they did not take that extra step to give me the medical care that i deserved and was entitled to as a human being. >> reporter: the doctor says it is part of a larger pattern. >> it's been absolutely proven through studies that a black man

and a white man going to the hospital with exactly the same complaint would be treated differently. that's been shown through study after study. >> reporter: in one of those studies, cardiologists were shown tapes of people complaining about identical symptoms. the same symptoms. yet the doctors were more likely to order additional tests for the white patient. gary spears says dr. calman helped him regain some trust in the medical profession but he still believes he suffered too much, for too long, just because he is black. it is interesting, john, i was sort of thinking we were going to do a story on insurance discrimination, looking at is there a difference between people on medicaid versus people on private insurance. as we started doing these interviews, this issue of race kept coming up over and over again. i can tell you as we interviewed a lot of people, a lot of people are out there who feel that they've been discriminated

against with regard to their health care because of race, john. >> so why does this happen, sanjay? you're a doctor. you take an oath to help out everybody who comes along. why is there this inherent disparity? >> i don't know, john. as you can probably tell from some of those interviews, i was stunned as anybody else. sort of as i was hearing this over and over again, i don't know. it's not an access issue as far as we can tell. people with the exact same health care, the exact same symptoms can be treated very differently. we tried to talk to gary's doctors about this. we chose not to identify the hospital we were talking about in the piece but the doctors and health care people there flatly refuse to talk to us about this. there is a lawsuit looking at the sort of racial discrimination in health care currently taking place in new york. >> i'm watching your piece there and i say, he's diabetic. just before you said he's diabetic. if i can figure it out, a doctor should be able to figure it out. don't you think? >> exactly. he was up all night going to the bathroom, drinking water all the time.

he lost 80 pounds. he had an infection that wouldn't heal. a lot of people out there, you're absolutely right, would know diabetes is at least something that should be checked. >> sanjay gupta, thanks so much. join us tonight for a special night of prime time events at 7:00 p.m. eastern. join us for a "moment of truth a countdown to "black in america 2." then at 8:00, the only place to watch the president's prime time news conference with the best political team on television. followed by preet mere aftthe p "black in america 2."

welcome back to the most news in the morning. it is an all-out blitz from the white house pushing the president's plan for health care reform. the president's been on message for days. on friday he spoke from the diplomatic room in the white house. on saturday he pushed congress on the issue. during his weekly radio and video address sunday, the white

house was dark but on monday the president held another roundtable, yesterday he spoke from the rose garden and tonight is the big prime time news conference. we're hearing a lot of reaction already from you, our viewers, on our am fix hotline. here's a sampling. >> since when is it a crime to be rich? i'm not rich, but a lot of these well-to-do people have worked very, very hard to get where they are today, and they really shouldn't be paying for health care for a bunch of people. >> why not more time and do it right, as they said, when it comes to the health care bill? >> the thing about this health care -- this is socialism when we tax the people that jeopardize our health. but then again, nobody makes anybody eat all this stuff. >> joining us for tonight's special coverage, 7:00 p.m. eastern, "moment of truth," countdown to "black in america 2." then the president's news conference at 8:00 p.m. tonight only on cnn. tomorrow morning, catch a very

special "american morning." we'll talk with james carville, ben bennett, rudy giuliani, see what they have to say about the president's news conference tomorrow morning starting at 6:00 a.m. eastern. >> we hope you join us. continue the conversation on any of the stories you saw today on our blog, cnn.com/am fix. you can also find us on twitter.com/am fix, twitter.com/kiran chetry or twitter.com/john roberts. >> how many followers do you have these days on twitter? >> 3,000. >> wow! i got to catch up. i've only got 2,000. let's go! see you again tomorrow. right now the news continues with heidi collins in the "cnn newsroom." the president makes a prime time pitch for his health care reform. tune in tonight for what could be must-sell tv. a new twist in that killing of a florida couple k