>> people who believe in this as i'm discovering from reading e-mail this morning really believe in it. there's skeptics, as well. you have to think that, you know, whether or not you believe in, you know, creation or you believe in evolution, you'd have to be arrogant to think that among the billions and billions of stars and galaxies we are the only thing out there. >> maybe beyond our capacity to see them. who knows? but that's a conversation for another day. we'd love to hear from you go. to our blob. that's going to do it for us. thanks so much for being with us. >> meantime, the news continue on cnn with kyra fip lips. good morning. >> are you saying there's no e.t.? >> no. i'm not saying that. just getting myself in trouble again here. i just don't think e.t. visited earth yet. >> he doesn't know if he likes m&ms. >> stop e-mailing me. >> kiran and i love m&ms. that's for sure.

we are not putting those away. great day. good morning, everybody. here's what we're working on this morning. >> he pulled out one of his grenades, american grenade, you know, pops it and then tells me [ bleep ]. >> targeting civilians in a combat zone. american soldiesoldiers, our ow for the fun of it and then covering up the crime. >> organic. natural. you see the buzz words on food labels. you think you're eating well. well, we have a reality check for you. and surprising results on a religion iq test. atheists and agnostics score higher than christians. 9:00 a.m. on the east coast. 6:00 a.m. out west. i'm kyra phillips. you're live in the "cnn newsroom." i tell you what, we begin with a disheartening story out of iraq that's still developing at this

hour. one of our own sworn to protect and serve this country specialist plataro suspected of shooting two military comrades and wounding another fellow trooper and held in a pretrial detention for the shooting deaths of a specialist of california and private first class of connecticut. it happened last thursday but details are just now being released. as soon as we get more information, we'll bring it to you. new developments involving afghan president hamid karzai. the president broke down in tears making a very emotional comment during a speech that just wrapped up a short time ago. cnn's ivan watson joining us from kabul. bring us up to speed. >> reporter: that's right, kyra. hamid karzai, he was at a ceremony supposed to be celebrating achievements in

afghan developments. instead, in front of an audience of hundreds people, government ministers, foreign ambassadors, he broke down in tears when lamenting the fact there are more than 10 million illiterate afghans and making an appeal to the taliban to stop their war with the afghan government. take a listen to what he had to say. >> translator: i have pain in my heart. please understand me. i'm afraid, my countrymen. please, understand me. i'm afraid my son, my own son, would become a refugee one day. please. i don't want my son and your son to be a foreign citizen. i want him to grow up here and i want him to go to school here.

i want him to be taught -- >> reporter: kyra, this leader is under immense pressure. the taliban violence continues to spread. a deputy governor killed by a bomb in a providence that killed five other people in morning and hamid karzai's family under pressure. according to reports in "the wall street journal" and "the new york times" his brother, a prominent afghan-american businessman investigated by the national security agency and by federal prosecutors in new york on charges of possible tax evasion charges. he's denied in a phone call with us earlier today. kyra? >> now, you know, the -- one of the most shocking things that came forward yesterday, the taliban wants to meet with hamid karzai. they actually want to create a peace council so was that part of what got him so emotional or

specifically emotional about the fact that education system and the terrorism is affecting everyone including his children? >> reporter: not entirely clear. he told a long story about a russian doctor coming 130 years ago to afghanistan and treating the son of an afghan king who then died and i guess he drew a comparison to today and the fact that he sends his own son to foreign doctors and that afghanistan doesn't have the right specialists to treat its own people. there has been a development in the afghan government in the process of what some people hope could be a step toward reconciliation with the armed opposition here. a high peace council that the government anoubsed was formed today with 68 members, human rights groups coming out criticizing some of the members appointed to the high peace council because several of them are warlords from the civil war

period of the '90s accused of all sorts of war crimes and atrocities. this group is mandated by the afghan government to try to work out some sind of a peace deal with the taliban but as the government spokesman here says, the presidential spokesman, those normal negotiations have not even begun yet. kyra? tie headline of the taliban and hamid karzai working together catches your attention. we'll follow it. ivan watson, thanks so much. at least the president's right-hand man is closest adviser and known for corralling congress for the boss' agenda and not afraid to drop f-bombs along the way but now rahm emanuel trading in the post for the shot of the biggest job in the hometown. sources telling us that emanuel will announce on friday he's running for mayor of chicago. cnn's suzanne malveaux on the road with the president in albuquerque this morning.

what do you think of this news, susan san? we know he's caught saying the f-bomb plenty of times. people run scared of him. >> reporter: the president once joked at a dinner saying the toughest holiday for rahm emanuel is mother's day and couldn't imagine day after mother. that's the president's joke. not my own. he is known for colorful language. a huge character in the white house. obviously, some people called him rahm-bo. others say he's part of the chicago mafia, the inside group there. going to be missed. multiple sources saying that it is all but sure he's going to make a bid for the mayor's race there in chicago. we heard from the president just yesterday kind of giving him a tough time, pushing him a little saying you have to make a decision quickly here. we expect that announcement to come as early as friday and, kyra, he has a lot on his plate. he's got a lot to handle there. he's got to collect more than about 12,000 signatures by november 22nd for the february

22nd primary. there's a lot of paperwork. a lot of people jockeying for this position. the one thing that the president has to figure out is who can replace rahm emanuel and people say he's irreplaceable but a favorite is deputy chief of staff pete rous and one name that's floated out there but clearly this is a job that rahm emanuel is talking about for quite sometime. the dream job, if you will. making a bid for it. kyra? >> very interesting. do we have any idea how those in chicago -- we know how chicago politics how that plays out. i mean, it is no easy task as we know. do we know how it's playing out in chicago yet? you are getting all this information but -- >> sure, sure. well, it's very quidly expected. it's not a surprise. many people expected that he would jump into this just a matter of time. when he would make that formal announcement. he's been talking with his family, his wife, his young children about the possibility of really moving forward in this

kind of thing. you know, i mean, he is an experienced politician. a congressman. you know? i mean, he served before and this is something that's not completely out of the picture in a lot of people thinking, oh boy. this is going to add a whole other layer of color and commentary out of the white house. expect a lot of that in chicago. >> yeah. like we don't have enough of that already in chicago and the white house. suzanne, thanks. well, it's definitely an ugly part of any war. soldiers taking the lives of unarmed civilians. >> he pulled out one of his grenades, american grenade, you know, popped it, throwing the grenade and tells me [ bleep ] all right, you know killing this guy. >> cnn special investigation next. i didn't miss a premium payment for 10 years. the minute i got sick, i lost my insurance.

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iaiaiaiabetes. and i'm worried if i lose my job, i won't be able to afford insurance. not anymore. america's healthcare reforms change lives for the better. to see how it can help you, visit us at americasfairhealthcare.org military's painting an ugly picture of a band of rogue u.s. soldiers. carrying out murders of afghan civilians for sport. five of them now face murder charges.

interrogation tapes obtained by cnn describe gruesome scenes of what appears to just be cold-blooded murder carried out under the influence of illegal drugs. the army alleges three civilians were killed. all of the accused from the 5th stryker brigade. one man kept fingers and leg bones as souvenirs. investigative correspondent drew agriculture lo griffin looking into this. you hear the accusations and that's heart-wrenching to hear. >> it's tough to report on but the fact of the matter is the information which is so troubling is coming from the soldiers themselves who are telling the story of how they smoked hash at night, killed by day. and in some cases actually took pictures like trophies of the people they killed. in the tapes obtained by cnn, the soldiers accused in their own words are not denying anything. but trying to explain how highly

trained soldiers could become a band of killers. >> and so we identified a guy, and gibbs, gibbs makes a comment like, hey, do you guys want to wax this guy or what? and that he would set it up. he grabbed the guy. >> reporter: this corporal accused of killing three afghan civilian men, two by shooting, the third which is described to a military investigator was literally a set-up, he set by the platoon leader staff sergeant kelvin gibbs. >> what did he do? >> we had this guy by the compound. we walked him out and set him in place. stand here. >> was he fully cooperating? >> i mean, yeah. >> was he armed? >> no. not that we were aware of. >> where did he stand him? next to a wall. >> yeah, it was kind of next to a wall where gibbs would get, like, behind cover after the grenade went off and then placed the off over here and clean line

of sight for this guy. and, you know -- he pulled out one of his american grenades. you know, popped it. throws the grenade and tells me [ bleep ] and wax this guy. kills this guy, kill this guy. >> reporter: he describes two more killings, unarmed afghan civilians picked up, stood up and shot and gloen up with a grenade. >> present any weapons or was he aggressive to you at all? >> no. not at all, nothing. >> okay. >> he wasn't a threat. >> reporter: michael wattington is the civilian attorney. >> i want you to tell me that this didn't happen. that this isn't true. can you? >> that three people were not killed? >> reporter: that members of the u.s. military didn't go out and three afghan civilians were killed for sport.

>> you have the -- you have the -- from what i understand, the case file. you know what the witnesses of that file say. and what they say in their videos. but i -- that's what it sounds like. >> reporter: to defend the client, mike waddington will try to prove the corporal already injured in two separate ied attacks was suffering from brain damage. and instead of treating him, waddington says the army drugged him. >> so your defense is that your client was mentally incapacitated, that the army either knew it or should have known it and not put in that position. >> the army knew it because they were prescribing drugs to him to try to treat his symptoms. his symptoms involved nausea, vomiting, inability to sleep.

the army knew he was blown up in two ied attacks and chose rather than to treat him to take his weapon, give it back to him. because whatever reason and then load him up on drugs. >> reporter: the drugs here districted in plastic baggies were ambien and another which carry fda warnings with suicidal thoughts. the trouble man morelock says in 2009 with a new squad leader. calvin gibbs. >> when gibbs showed up at this unit, he bragged to the young soldiers underneath him including my client about killing innocent people in iraq. >> reporter: staff sergeant gibbs is charged in all three killings. and witnesses stated it was this new commander who orchestrated, coerced and threatened the stryker brigade to both kill afghan civilians and cover up their murders. and there is something else.

the u.s. army accuses staff sergeant gibbs of collecting teeth, leg bones and fingers as souvenirs. we have reached out to the attorney for staff sergeant calvin gibbs several times and, kyra, we have yet to get a call back from him. >> here's my question. the young kids. were these punks that got in the military just have no sense about them or were they influenced somehow? is it ptsd, too many tours? >> could be all of the above. quite frankly what we're seeing through the documents, the tapes, i won't call them confession tapes. interrogation tapes. all pointing the finger at the new commander, staff sergeant gibbs that came from iraq, apparently dragging according to the attorney you had there about doing the same thing in iraq so what the defense attorneys are trying to find out was there a history in iraq? was this man investigated in iraq? was he moved from iraq to afghanistan for some kind of a disciplinary reason?

you also have drugs. you have soldiers that have been injured in ieds and treated with prescription meds from the army so there's a whole cluster of things going on but what's not in dispute among the soldiers themselves is they did this. >> yeah. and they're right there where the drugs are all around them. >> right. >> we're going to keep following it. thanks. all right. well, apparently they're here and according to seven former members of the air force, well, that i're not very happy with us. a lot of jaws dropped yesterday at the washington press club, a group of air force veterans, six of them former officers, talking about ufo sightings through the '60s, '70s and '80s and convinced extra terrestrials visiting our nuclear facilities and even, well, deactivated missiles at a base in montana in 1967. >> i believe, these gentlemen

believe that this plan set being visited by beings from another world. who for whatever reason have taken an interest in the nuclear arms race which began at the end of the world war ii. regarding the missile shutdown incidents, my opinion, their opinion is that whoever are aboard the craft are sending a signal to both washington and moscow among others that we are playing with fire. that the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons potentially threatened the human race and the integrity of the planetary environment. >> well, if they do make a public appearance on this planet, the u.n. apparently wants to be prepared and set to an astrophysicist of malaiysia o coordinate man kind's response. rob marciano is also monitoring the nasa video coordination pictures.

>> i happen to knowow, you knowe you ready for this, as well? have you, you know, spotted any evidence of this, rob? >> no. i haven't. but i'm always on the lookout for green men, especially little ones that might help us out. i'm glad they were on a peace mission and want us to get rid of the nukes. >> maybe that's the way we deal with kim jong-il. >> not a bad call. >> yeah. okay. >> just, you know, if you're listening, next visit, drop us off new radars. that's always helpful in the weather department and i mentioned this because there's a radar indicated tornado. not spotted on the ground but radar indicated and switching to a serious town. eastern -- parts of maryland, the other side of the chesapeake. this is moving to the north at about 45 miles per hour. easton, fairly populated in this. be aware of that. stay indoors for 20 moneys or so. this is a radar indicated potential toshd.

no repo tornado. the aliens if you could bring me a new magic wall, that would be fantastic. all right. looking at this. this is our next tropical action. this is may very well be nicole before the day is done or at least tomorrow. 80% that this becomes a depression or storm in 48 hours and the forecast for this to develop and then head this way. okay? so, now, can't say for sure whether or not it's a hurricane but unlikely and bringing more rain into an area that's already been just slammed with rainfall. look at wilmington. 10.33 inches. that's in a 24-hour period. typically you need a hurricane to do that. well, they might gate tropical storm before the week is done, too. serious flooding threat across eastern parts of the carolinas as this system begins to roll its way up the eastern seaboard so watching that and also the record-breaking heat out west. and across parts of southern

california. roll the beautiful umbrella footage. not using an umbrella in north carolina, you are shading yourself across los angeles. when the temperatures 113 degrees, as measured in the shade, you need all you can get. they headed to the beach after really one of the coolest summers on record. fall is s.t.a.r.t.ing out like a scorcher. and today we might see similar numbers 689 is. measuredality 12:15, 113. at 12:00 the thermometer broke. not kidding about that. may have been higher than that. the good news is relatively low as far as humidity goes and so the 113 only felt like 113 and didn't feel like 120. that's a latest we have for you on what's going on both east and west coast. >> got you. >> back to you and your alien friends. >> sending out tweets to e.t. hoping to get a response. talk to you later. all right. what you do and don't know about a hospital could be the

difference between life and death. our senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen is teaching you how to become an empowered patient next. sweat every day to make an honest buck...month. and if you're gonna try and do this in anything other than a chevy... well, good luck...month. great deals on the complete family of chevy trucks all backed for a hundred thousand miles. it's truck month. during truck month, use your all-star edition discount for a total value of five thousand dollars on silverado. see your local chevrolet dealer.

in 2008 i quit venture capital to follow my passion for food. i saw a gap in the market for a fresh culinary brand and launched behindtheburner.com. we create and broadcast content and then distribute it across tv, the web, and via mobile. i even use the web to get paid. with acceptpay from american express open, we now invoice advertisers and receive payments digitally. and i get paid on average three weeks faster. booming is never looking for a check in the mail. because it's already in my email.

becoming empowered patient. senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen learned how important that is.

in fact, it's the title of her new book and a special cnn report this weekend, joins us with lessons to save lives and just the fact your book keeps getting printed more and more shows how much people really want to know how to do this. >> they do want to know, kyra, because they have learned that a hospital is not a hospital is not a hospital. there's differences between hospitals and you need to learn which to go to. i have a story of a man who likely would have died or become paralyzed if he'd gone to the wrong hospital. with the help of turner animation studios, here's his story. fair valley, california, is a mountain paradise. gorgeous skiing and loads of snowmobilers. after skiing down the slopes one morning, chuck stopped in at the local snowmobile center. and while he was inside, all of a sudden, he fell down.

>> you could draw a line down the center of the body. everything disconnected on the right-hand side. >> chuck had a massive stroke in the middle of nowhere. kathy snider raced him to the edge of town to wait for a helicopter ambulance. >> i just remember the rotors turning and the snow flying. and just waiting to go. >> time is of the essence and this helicopter doesn't move. why were precious minutes being wasted? the flight nurse wanted to take chuck to the nearest hospital, a small hospital. >> he had a cardiac problem. he had a stroke problem. he needed to go to a hospital where there were specialists standing by and these small hospitals don't offer that. >> you argued hard. >> i did argue hard. kind of got like this in each other's face. >> kathy convinced the helicopter team to fly to a hospital that was much further away. the flight took an extra 15 minutes. dr. christopher marcus knew he had a drug to reverse the stroke. >> we have three hours to give it.

we had to get the drug in in the next ten minutes. >> talk about under the wire. you must think if kathy didn't argue with them. >> i'm convinced it was a very high probability i would have been in a wheelchair. >> can anyone do this? i mean, if you feel like a bad decision is about to be made with your health care, can you put your foot down? >> you can change hospitals. everybody has that ability. and they should be aware of it. >> now, you need to know not everybody has a kathy snider waiting for them to help them get to the right hospital but there's something you can do. research hospitals that only takes a few minutes. for example, go to "u.s. news & world report." you can put in -- let's say i want heart surgery and i live here in atlanta, georgia. find hospitals and they'll tell you the one that has the best survival rating.

it is easy to do. takes few minutes. kyra, people think it's hard. it isn't. >> okay. what if it's an emergency you don't have time to do online research for? >> what you do then is you start thinking about an emergency before it happens. so obviously, i know where i live. i know where i spend most of my time. go to websites and find out who has the best success rates among the hospitals in your area. who has the highest nurse ratio. so what you can do is if you go to cnn.com/thechart, i have all the links you need to check out the hospitals in your area. >> great. elizabeth, thanks so much. we want to remind everybody of taking control of your health care, she put it all together. airs this saturday and sunday here on cnn 7:00 p.m. eastern. grandma just makes me happy. ♪ to know, know, know you grandma is the bestest. the total package.

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(voice 3) isolate... prevent damage... (voice 2) got 'em. (voice 3) great exercise guys. let's run it again. [ male announcer ] at ge capital, we're out there every day with clients like jetblue -- financing their fleet, sharing our expertise, and working with people who are changing the face of business in america.

after 25 years in the aviation business, i kind of feel like if you're not having fun at what you do, then you've got the wrong job. my landing was better than yours. no, it wasn't. yes, it was. was not. yes, it was. what do you think? take one of the big ones out? nah. all right. wall street, new economic

reports are rolling in and one of them looks at the value of your biggest asset. your house. home prices have been edging higher the past few months. so is the trend continuing? alison kosik with the details on that. >> the pace of growth is slowing. the latest report shows prices in the 20 biggest cities rose over half a percent in july compared to june. an analyst saying if you're looking for home prices to return to where they were before the recession you are in for a disappointment and good news is likely to see stability in prices. as for stock prices, they're standing still right now. dow industrials up about 1. nasdaq up about 2. finally, kyra, we have the job opening news for you. toys r us said they're hiring 35,000 seasonal workers on top of the 10,000 hires we told you about earlier this month for new stores opening.

managerial positions, sales positions and stock workers. they're temp jobs and sometimes you know how it is, that's what you need to get your foot in the door, show them what you got and hopefully notice and hire you for good. kyra? >> okay. alison, thanks so much. may consider yourself a person of faith but do you really know god? the pew research center actually found that most americans failed a quiz asking some of the most basic questions of religion and atists and agnostics did better than catholics and evangelicals. john roberts talked to the senior research we are the pew center that worked on this and religion professor of boston university. the one that caught our attention is the fact that atheists and ignostics know more than the rest of us. >> a kicker. no more than jews, no more than morm mormons, know more than catholics and protestants.

the argument for that is that if you're agnostic or atheist, you have to make an argument for why you don't believe in god and so you actually have to read the material. to form late an argument and debate with people. and have some facts at hand. so that is the reason pew researchers believe that atheists and agnostics do better but it's interesting, too, that the next highest scoring group are jewish people, mormons after that and then trips down the line. here's some of the questions. there was a series of 32 questions on this. atheists, agnostics almost 21 right. catholics and protestants, 13 to 14. what's the religion of maimonides. what religion do people in indonesia consider themselves to be? according to rulings by the supreme court, are public schoolteachers permitted to read from the bible as literature? 8% of people answered the first question right. 25% to 27% got the other two questions. are you ready for this?

>> give the answer. >> jewish. in indonesia, most people consider themselves to be muslim. according to rulings by the supreme court, the public schoolteachers permitted to read from the bible as literature? the answer is, yes. they are. >> okay. so, a lot of people got these questions wrong. so, what did our guest have to say about that? >> well, it's the idea that for many people, particularly christians, religion is sort of a feel it from the heart type of thing opposed to think it with the head type of thing. and it may be that you don't really need to know jesus to love him. here's what they said. >> those are relatively difficult questions and really easy questions on the quiz, for example, we didn't ask is the pope catholic and came close asking if the laly llama buddhist and most americans don't get that question right. >> wow. >> i think in terms of faith and

knowledge here, i think we have a gap, clearly, between faith and knowledge and what's going on is american religion particularly on the christianity side gravitated toward the religion of the heart and really all about feeling and loving jesus and having a relationship with him rather than knowing something about the tradition. i think that's one piece of it and another is doing a poor job in the public schools and of teaching kids about the religions of the world. >> do you think that's correct, greg? you don't need to know jesus to love him. >> i certainly can't speak to whether or not it's correct that knowing about these things is a prerequisite for strong faith. this is a nation of believers but as the survey shows, also shows major elements of religion and people's own faiths they're not aware of. no question about that. >> interesting. so, it kind of leaves you wondering, what's more important? knowledge or faith. that could be a whole other debate and study.

>> i guess if you need to argue your position, then knowledge is probably an important tool to have at your disposal but if you just want to be spiritual or you just want to have faith you might not need to know facts but does speak to the idea that people who are in the christian faith are not spending a lot of time reading about their religion or other religions either if they're failing this quiz. >> okay. >> by the way -- >> yes? >> we should point out, if you want to, go to the front page of cnn.com. there is a story there, says one nation under god. american's -- >> can you take the quiz? >> take ten of the questions. >> okay. >> i got ten out of ten. >> of course. >> so let's challenge you to see how well you do. >> we know you're the smarter one in the relationship. i'll move on from there. >> i didn't say that. >> religion is my thing but i'll take you on any day. >> answering the questions is not a debate. no question about that. >> that's true. all right.

>> i lose hands down to you in a debate any day. >> depends on the subject. talk to you later. and we are going to dive deep sbeer this conversation about faith. it is something especially my team and i are interested in and we want to talk more about religious knowledge and faith and so in the next hour of "cnn newsroom," religious leaders, spiritual leaders will join us to hash this out. deepak chop ra joining us, mary anne williamson and rev rand art cribps. it will be a great discussion. my job is to listen to the needs and frustrations of the shrimpers and fishermen, hotel or restaurant workers who lost their jobs to the spill. i'm iris cross. bp has taken full responsibility for the clean up in the gulf and that includes keeping you informed. our job is to listen and find ways to help. that means working with communities. restoring the jobs, tourist beaches,

and businesses impacted by the spill. we've paid over $400 million in claims and set up a $20 billion independently-run claims fund to cover lost income until people impacted can get back to work. and our efforts aren't coming at tax-payer expense. i know people are wondering-- now that the well is capped, is bp gonna meet its commitments? i was born in new orleans. my family still lives here. i'm gonna be here until we make this right.

in 2008 i quit venture capital to follow my passion for food. i saw a gap in the market for a fresh culinary brand and launched behindtheburner.com. we create and broadcast content and then distribute it across tv, the web, and via mobile. i even use the web to get paid. with acceptpay from american express open, we now invoice advertisers and receive payments digitally. and i get paid on average three weeks faster. booming is never looking for a check in the mail. because it's already in my email.

♪ bristol palin on "dancing with the stars" while her mom leads the cheers from the audience and more than cheers in the show. fortunately, there were a number of boos. >> you need to support them right now. call, text and log on. there's boo'g in the ballroom. we don't know why. >> why is there boo'g? >> speculation it was about sarah palin on camera for an interview. the show's executive producer tells "the washington post" the boos were the judges' scores for jennifer gray. you decide. more serious political news, paul steinhauser at the bureau there in washington. when's crossing the wires, paul? >> kyra, let's talk about the economy. by far as always the top issue with americans.

look at this, a brand new national poll and asked who's more to blame for the economy? more people say democrats than republicans. which party would do a better job fixing the economy? americans by a little bit say, yes, the republicans over the democrats. 47% say republicans in congress would have a better prescription. 41% say democrats. the president today in new mexico talking about the economy and then, kyra, later today the president is going back to school. yep, that's right. he is at the university of wisconsin. you know what the vice president is going to be at the penn state university in pennsylvania. and this is part of a plan for the democratic party to get the top two guys in the white house out the try to entergize the first-time voters in trait. a lot of them younger voters on college campuses and voted for barack obama in 2008 and the whole idea hoarer if democrats to get the people out to motivate them to vote in the midterm elections. one other thing to show you, this is brand new on the political ticker this morning. happening right around now, in

connecticut, listen. if the republicans take back the senate one of the places to do it is in connecticut and a survey says that the republican nominee in connecticut, linda mcmahon, the former pro-wrestling executive at wwe, poll indicates she's tied it up with richard blumenthal, the state attorney general and the democratic nominee. this is a seat the democrats trying to hold on to. it's chris dodd's seat. decided to year not to run for re-election and keeping a close eye on that race and a bunch of others. back to you. >> paul, thanks. your next update in an hour and reminder for latest political news go to cnnpolitics.com. all right. let's head cross country this morning first to nashville with a reopening of grand ole opri. about a dozen artists to perform. in wisconsin, floodwaters peaking again this morning.

the governor declared a state of emergency where the wisconsin river is at an all-time high. officials say at least a 100 homes are in danger. in california, pg&e, operator of the pipeline that exploded this month, reported that gas leaks, six times -- reported gas leaks six times a national average, rather. pg&e actually reported dozens of leaks in transmission lines near highly populated or environmentally sensitive areas since 2004. makers of a sweet treat haven't playing pretty fair with us. ben & jerry's ice cream isn't all natural like we all thought. we'll read the fine print for you.

ben and jerry shame on you. you guys haven't been honest

with us. the ice cream maker dropping the phrase all natural now from some of its labels on a request from the center for science in the public interest. look at what we found. we checked out a newsroom favorite, chunky monkey. cocoa and high fructose corn syrup. other flavors have synthetic vanilla. delicious, yes. all natural, no. so for all of you who think you've been making smarter purchase. here's a reality check. healthy sounding be labels don't translate to healthy foods. you have to translate. >> high fructose corn syrup. corn syrup. dextrose. glucose. these are code words for sugar. >> it's not just hidden sugar. here's some more of those code words that might trip you up. zero transfat doesn't mean zero. food makers can make that claim

as long as the product has less than half a gram per serving. also beware of those immunity boosting labels. in some cases food labels don't need the fda's permission to slap that on a product. but the ftc just filed a complaint against pomegranate juice saying it's making false claims about health benefits. going light seems like a good idea. sometimes you're cutting out more than calories. light juices, manufacturers replace it with water, artifacts fish sexual sweeteners and fillers. because you think something is natural or beganic, it's not. we can all be duped very easily. here's what we're working on. americans of faith flunk the religious test. atheists top the charts. the fact are fuzzy for a lot of

us. we're talking about why coming up at the top of the hour. a new safety warning about lasix surgery from an official who helped to prove it. he wants the surgery to be stopped. and the man who prmed the first lasix surgery is joining us. do you think lasix is safe and effective? go to my blog or my twitter page. i look forward to reading some of your comments in the next hour on the cnn newsroom. ♪ to find cleaner, more efficient ways to power flight. ♪ and harness our technology for new energy solutions. [ female announcer ] around the globe, the people of boeing are working together, to build a better tomorrow.

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cnn taking a cross country food journey this week. we sent reporting teams to every corner of america. our mission to get fresh answers about how our food is grown. how the choices we make impact our health and state of mind, budgets and pure joy of eating. we teamed up with the food destination to bring you

eatocracy, mind, body and wallet. neighborhoods with limited access to affordable fruits, veggies and whole grains. now these are places where it's tough if not impossible to actually find a grocery store. but convenience stores stock with candy and chips dot the street corners. fast food restaurants are every where you look. take detroit, for example. there's not a single chain grocery store within city limits or philly. it's rife with food deserts. the childhood obesity is large. in los angeles one neighborhood has bloomed into an oasis for healthy living. >> reporter: rosemary jones drives 12 miles to this weekly exercise and cooking class in south los angeles and shops for fresh produce at a farmer's market in the same neighborhood because there's nothing like this where she lives.

>> don't have health insurance so i get free exercise plus i'm exposed to fresh food and, you know, it makes a big difference in my life. >> reporter: she's lost weight and her back problems are gone. and enrique has lost 12 pound. he's struggled with his weight. how difficult was it to eat healthy. >> life in city is so fast. you get hungry you eat at a fast food restaurant. >> reporter: two years ago the los angeles city council passed a moratorium on new fast food restaurants in south l.a. because the county found 30% of the population here was obese. the farmer's market which accepts federal food assistance checks of another step. >> i wanted to respond quickly to tissues related to childhood obesity. lack of food choices. this was a fast way to come in, put together a farmer's matter.

reach out to people who require some form of federal assistance and those who don't and to bring fresh fruits and vegetables right in here at our neighborhood city hall. >> reporter: the bigger challenge attracting supermarkets to the area. the 1992 los angeles riots hastened and exodus of grossers. there's a lot of beer here and another store is advertising liters of soda for 99 cents. for years this was the only grocery shopping options. a 2002 study found an area encompassing five entire zip codes and more than 125,000 residents, there were no full service supermarkets. but since the city pass ad moratorium on new fast food restaurants in this area, two new supermarkets have moved in bringing healthy food options to this community for the first

time in decades. this fresh and easy market opened in february as part of a larger residential and retail development. >> we believe whether you live on the west l.a. side of california or in south l.a., you should have the right to the same types of quality fresh foods. >> stores that have the quality of food that you needed. i ended up gaining a bunch of weight because of the quality. >> they have more organic stuff. more healthier choices. so i think it's good for the community. >> reporter: and good for business. fresh and easy said it's pleased with the performance of its south l.a. store and considering opening more locations nearby. all right. we continue next hour and i'll talk to a working single mom on a very tight budget. she's actually got two teenage boys that apparently eat her out of house and home.

she's changing her shopping habits to keep her sons healthy and she has an interesting story to share with you. cnn.com/eatocracy. you can learn more about how to unlock the cnn healthy either badge on four square. people of faith may know god but knowing about god that's a totally different story. the pugh research center quizzed americans on their knowledge of religion and listen to this. the highest score erps not the devout beliefers, they were actually atheists and agnostics, people that rejected religion. now mormons and jews came a close second, outperforming protestants and roman catholics when it came to knowing details about all religions. it was even more shocking to see that people claiming a religion couldn't even answer simple

questions about their own faith. for example, more than half of protestants couldn't even identify martin luther as the guy who actually led the establishment of the protestant church. well the quiz was 32 questions long. the average number of correct answers, 16. that's half. seems like a lot of wrong answers for a nation where just about four in five people say they belong to some sort of religious group. world renown spiritual leader and mary ann williamson join me from denver and l.a. and one of my favorite pastors, reverend art cribs is here. my favorite topic. all right. >> thank you. >> i just want to make sure we got phones with all of you. i want you all to respond to this first question because it's the one that had us all talking and we were pretty surprised about the fact that those who

scored highest were atheists and agnostics. does that surprise you, deepok? >> it does not. it is harder for answers and the devout usually are close minded. fervent believe is a cover up for insecurity and you see all the problems that arise from fervent believers who we call fundamentalists. i think the survey counts counter intuitive but it's not. it doesn't say anything about value judgment. who feels closer to god. who embodies divine attributes like love, compassion, goodness, truth, peace of mind? who despairs over death? there's a difference between religious experience and religious knowledge. >> you know, mary ann, the head of the american atheist dave silverman said he just gave his daughter a bible and that's how

you make atheists. what do you think about the fact that agnostics and atheists knew more than people who claim a religion and say they are faithful and knowledgeable about what they believe? >> you know, there's a line that says many conspire with god who do not yet believe in him. what deepok was saying is the religious experience is what matters. if a person has love in their heart they are serving god whether they quote or unquote believe in god or not. when we make a conversation about the religious experience which is not about dogma or doctrine or my club versus your club but about the way we live our lives in humility and an effort to forgive and live peacefully i know people who call themselves atheists or agnostic, an agnostic is open to what is it. that's the religious experience. that's where the conversation is moving now.

not to all the external issues but to the internal issues of the heart. is the atheist is a loving person i think that's what god cares. >> jews and mormon, reverend, other top scorers. mormons showing more knowledge than evangelicals on the bible and christianity. does that surprise you? >> not at all. i'm working with a wonderful friend of mine, douglas hunter here in los angeles on a project, he's a mormon. when i go to his home he is studying the bible with his very small children, he and his wife and so i don't know how representative douglas is about the mormons but i was excited to see him doing that and perhaps many of us can learn from that. what is fascinating, though, and i heard john roberts earlier talk about maybe we can have more debates, both the koran and bible say not to debate, not to have argument, for example over religion. i find it fascinating that those

of us who practice our faith know so little about it. maybe that's a pretty good thing. maybe just kind of learning how to experience life and love among many people. i would wish, those we could do more comparisons of understanding how our faiths are so interwoven, how closely aligned we are in terms of the values, the tradition as opposed to thinking my wi is the only way. >> deepok, you have addressed that a number of times that we really are so much alike in many different ways. do you want to respond to that? >> there are three principles that are common and unifying. people call kingdom of heaven or nirvana. number two, the

interconnectedness of life and being. and number three, the values that emerge from that. platonic ideas like truth, goodness, beauty, harmony and divine calls like joy. these are the three principles in every religion. this is where we should look. this is what religious experience is. otherwise, the bible becomes cultural mythology as does the koran as does any other religious literature. you have to go a little deeper. >> let me ask you this. okay. going deeper. mary ann, what do you think? is it more important to have knowledge or faith? >> i think they are both important. obviously, faith -- the issue of real faith, the word itself is more than just belief. it's experience. that's what matters. our experience of love for each other. our experiences of a sense of forgiveness and sense of humility and sense of peace

make. that's beyond belief and beyond what we normally think of faith. the power of faith has to do with the fact that there's a higher power that can do for us that we can't do for ourselves. faith that love will heal all thing. faith in other people. god is not just looking to us to have faith in him. the experience of god is having faith in other people. i think the issue of ignorance versus education is so important is because as the other two gentlemen have been speaking, that which we are ignorant of we're more likely to fear and in today's world it's so important that we see our common humanity, and in seeing the common values, the spiritual values that are universal to all the religions you're less likely to judge a person of another religion and nothing short of peace on earth is at stake. so i think it's extremely important right now for us not only to find the power of love, to claim the power of love, to stand on the power of love but also to see the ways in which other religions and other groups

of people do no less than we do. >> reverend, your thoughts? are we stronger people for knowing more about our religion, or maybe being more -- having more faith and being more faithful and just believing in what we are taught? >> well that's an interesting question, because i think very often we get lost in our minds around religion as opposed to practicing our faith. i think it would be wonderful today in this very exciting era where we have so many challenges around economics and war to begin practicing our faith, a faith that calls for forgiveness, a faith that calls for mercy, a faith that calls for us to be charitable, to care about others more than we care for ourselves. if we practice our faith and understand we're to love one another, not to declare war on persons that ever different than we but we are to stretch our imagination to find ways to be helpful. our faith informs us to think

about the other. even in love relationships, i think marriages would be stronger if wing thought about how do we please the other more than how can i seek pleasure. if we in this era of economic challenge were to think about the poor, the vulnerable, how do we lift up those at the bottom before we think about greed and what i can do for myself. as mary ann was saying, if we begin to think of a higher power to be able to be muslim, to submit ourselves to understand that we do not live a solitary life, we're communal by nature and called to be together. the practices of faith, it seems to me, becomes more important than intellectual discourse of what i believe and why my faith is the way and your faith is not. >> stay with me. i have one more question to hit you with right after the break. i want to talk more about education and religious understanding in just a moment. and we also have a pop quiz. three questions from that pugh study poll that we want to read

to you. what was mother theresa's religion. when does the jewish sabbath begin. and what is ramadan. we'll tell you tans and what the study tells us who knew the answer. before we go to break, rob marciano on some breaking news. >> there's been a landslide in mexico. in southwestern mexico. this area has seen a tremendous amount of rain in the past few days. and early this morning there was a landslide that reports are telling us 300 homes affected by this landslide and national newspaper here is reporting that there may be as many as 1,000 people dead. again, reported by the national newspaper. we don't have confirmation on that yet. they have seen a tremendous amount of rain for sure. this area right here. this is pretty much what's left over of matthew. we talked about that last week and a lot of rain there. that's the issue there. we'll try to get more information about what's going

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we're wrapping up our conversation with world renown spiritual leaders. i just want to ask all three of you guys before we go, you know, the fact that this pugh study shows we know god but we don't know a lot about god overall. epok do we need to inexercise rate religion 101 curriculum and continue that throughout our educational process so we can make better decisions?

>> yeah. i think knowledge is essential. and so is experience. knowledge without experience is meaningless and experience without knowledge can be confusing. you need both. when you have knowledge you see the commonalities. you mentioned ramadan, the month of fasting that muslims embark on. it was very close to rosh hoshana. many rituals are very similar. when you see the commonalities you're more toler rants and likely to have more understanding of where people are coming from leeds to less conflict. >> mary ann? >> absolutely. just what deepak said. our love for god is not a love for something outside of ourselves. the experience of god is the love each other.

when we study religion we see something that's not just about god but we begin to understand other people better. we begin to understand what lies in the heart of the people who practice that religion. when we begin to see the universeality of these spiritual themes as de everyone pak was saying what's going on in the heart of the jew in yum kippur or in the heart of the catholic, the heart of the muslim or christian during particular rites and rituals. right now when we hold god as something which is exclusive and separates us from others, this actually leeds through this belief in separation, it leeds to conflict and violence. but when we recognize that god is the love in our hearts then, of course, our faith leeds to us peace. what could possibly be jeff morrow important on the earth

today? >> reverend? >> i hope we would learn more about mercy and foregiveness. i believe path to god is relationships we have to each other to the extent that we learn more about each other, concern ourselves about people who are in places that are unfamiliar to us, to make ourselves more knowledgeable about the world itself. it seems to me it's a path to god, to have an openness, a spirit of compassion, a spirit of forgiveness, a spirit of mercy. right now we have a religion of war. we have a religion of greed. we have a religion of separation and disdain for one another. if there's a way to break into that at every opportunity and i don't want to put anything else on our schools. i think they are already overburdened. i believe we could have a practice in our homes and community just to know how to say hello to one another. learning different languages and have experiences with people in other parts of the world and fortunately today because of transportation and technology it's not difficult to get to know the other but i believe we have to have a consciousness, a desire to know one another.

the path to god is not through some practice or some ritual. but through the hello, how are you today? how are we doing? what are we doing to make this a better, safer world for ourselves and future. finally, to the extent that we become less ego centric we'll come to understand god. >> a much more beautiful place this world would be. what a terrific discussion. i thank all you and respect all three so you much. thank you for your time today. >> thank you. a new safety warning about lasik surgery from an official who helped to prove it. he said he wouldn't let his loved ones go through it now and he wants the fda to issue a you a strong warning. we're having him and the man who performed the first lasik

surgery here in the u.s. here on cnn live.

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. breaking news out of austin, texas. we're getting reports that aparentsly there was a gunman on the loose there at the university. not sure if there's any other injuries but we are being told that that gunman did take his own life. the university right now is on lockdown. and also there are reports out that there might abscond suspect. we still don't know. these live pictures of the university via our affiliate out of austin. once again, a gunman that was on the loose there on the campus has taken his own life. reports of possibly another suspect on the loose, the university is on lockdown. no injuries reported at this time. we'll keep you updated on the situation there at ut austin as we get more information. another developing story right now is a landslide in mexico. rob marciano tracking that fours. >> this is in oaxaca.

south of mexico city. there's a village to the east in the mountains of the east about three, four hour drive and the last mudslide earlier today that reportedly took out 200 to 300 homes and we're fearing there's about 1,000 people that may be trapped in a mudslide that has mud and debris as tall as potentially 900 feet. so that's a scary proposition there. obviously search and rescue is on the scene in this very pretty rugged terrain out here to the east of oaxaca. obviously, reports are sketchy. that does not sound very good. i can tell us this between tropical storm karl and tropical storm matthew, we've had a tremendous amount of rain in this area and that's probably what did it over the past 16 days. another tropical storm later in the hour we might be seeing nicole developing in the northwestern caribbean. back to you. correct your vision with laser precision and little down

time. that's promise for lasik. for 15 years americans have been going into the procedure hoping they will see me like this without contacts or glasses. but imagine your results ended up more like this. the fda official who helped promote lasik now says it's not safe. he wouldn't even recommend it to anyone that he cares about. we're going to talk to him along with a lasik doctor who performed the first surgery here in the united states. but first let's walk through lasik surgery step by step. it starts with a thin flap. outer cornea. lifted up and out of the way. then a laser flattens the inner part of the corpnea. that can lead to microscopic scar tissue and big vision problems. but industry experts say those effects are minor and often temporary. a lot of back and forth here. is lasik safe or not?

the former u.s. official helped to prove lasik back in the '90s and now owes changed his mind and is warning against it. i'm joined by dr. steven slaid, he performed the first eye surgery here in the u.s. it's great to have you both. i hope we can educate our viewers that are struggling with this an also who may be thinking about doing this very soon and morris, why don't we go ahead and start with you. you approved this back in the '90s. at that point in time why did you approve it? why did you give the green light and feel so confident about the procedure? >> well, to put it in a nutshell, of course, it wasn't just myself. there was a team of which i was o one of the leaders. our focus was making sure there

wasn't a loss of visual acuity. we didn't pay enough attention although some attention to other problems that occur when you slice a cornea and take some tissue out of it. so it's not a concern about the loss of best corrective visual acuity, it's a concern about not being able to get rid of your glasses and your contact lenses, that's only about 60% are able to do that. and then in addition you have these glare halos,ing night driving problems even if you happen to have reasonably good visual acuity. the focus became if you'll excuse the expression was on the visual acuita parameters. >> steven please respond to that. you helped perform the first

surgery. other doctors couple to now even to get this surgery done. you still believe in it. what do you think about what morris is saying now? >> well, good morning. i was there from the start. and what morris is saying today is wrong. the science is not there. lasik is the most studied be elective procedure we have today in the united states. since that original fda approval more than 38 other protocols, extension ever lasik, different lasers have been approved through the fda. that represents over 16,000 eyes that have been extensively studied not just for loss of best corrective vision but specifically for what morris is talking about, glare, halo, even night driving simulations. some 17 million patients have had this done in the united states alone. it's approved in every country in the world. all branchs of our military have

approved it as well as our astronauts. some 300 peer reviewed studies have been done on lasik alone. the study is there to show lasik is safe and fixative which by the way importantly is precisely what the fda's position is today that it is safe and effective. >> so, morris, what has changed your mind? you mentioned a bit of that in your first answer but what is it that is so concerning to you where you are even telling people that you care about don't do it? >> well, i think it's straightforward, actually and i hardly disagree with steve and i respect him a great deal. i have reviewed -- there certainly has been a great deal of research by lasik surgeons on the topic. i've reviewed the pmas, the data that was partly which i had reviewed when i was at the

agency and looked at specifically at those tables that relate to haze and halo and night driving problems and despite dr. slade's comment, these problems are persistent, they remain, i looked specifically if they remain after a year and they do. i've heard from many, many patients who call me and this started about three years ago -- i had put lasik issues behind me, was working on many, many other products. the failure rate if you calculate a failure rate based on fda data and you can see it from the charts i sent to cnn, the failure rate is over 50%. that includes taking into account that only 60% can get rid of their glasses and contact lenses, 18% or more suffer from glare halo, dry eyes and similar

problems. and in addition, people have a very small percent but maybe less than 1%, maybe about .07% the cornea is too thin and it bulges. people are having a miserable time with lasik. it took me -- >> go ahead. >> go ahead. it took me two to three years -- it took me two to three years to figure out that i was wrong to discount the haze and halo and other effects. these have not been studied extensively. they are being -- when they are studied they are studied by people who have a financial interest in the outcome, and there's not an independent study that's been done. and, in fact, one of the big problems is that in the military

some of the doctors who have been responsible for the military adopting these issues have a side business in which they conduct, they perform lasik surgery. so they've profited mightily by this. so it's being promoted heavily as if it's nothing like getting your finger nails manicured or hair curled. it's not. it's a serious problem. you're taking a perfectly formed cornea, messing it up, taking a slice, putting a flap over it. if you add in a few incompetent surgeons you have a lot of problems and people are suffering from this and they need help. >> sure. dr. slade, he threw out a lot of information, a lot of numbers and trying to bring this all together. but bottom line, there are, and we can't refute that, number of patients who do have the blurry vision, the halo, the double vision kmoip a number of people that have had to go back and get another surgery, a third surgery.

they still have to wear glasses. you know, what do you do with those patients that do experience those type of after effects, and, you know, tell us why it's still worth doing i want despite the number of folks that are not being successful with it? >> right. well, certainly i'll address that. i would like to point out that i do disagree with everything morris, just about everything he just said. i don't believe that the military doctors who did the treatments there -- lasik has proved better night driving lafr lasik than before salt lake. i don't think they are compromised or disreputable. but let me address your question because you actually touch on the most important thing and that is the patients. these are our patients. as doctors, these are all our

patients that had problems with lasik. that's the most important thing there is. and we will do everything in our capabilities medically to help them. and we are doing that. morris, some of the data he put out was from 20-year-old technology. the first fda approval was in 1995, '99 based upon machines that are now 20 years old. since then, for example, we don't slice the cornea as morris said, we use a laser to make a flap and lift that up. we use much more sophisticated patterns than we did with 20-year-old technology. think about your laptop or cell phone liked 20 years ago. the patients that have had problems with older forms of lasik or even information of retractive surgery again are our focus and we will do everything

for them that we possibly can. new drugs have been developed for dry eyes. new screening techniques. morris misrepresented the rate of it. we can screen for that. it's far lower. the highest published rate is .66%. that was outside of the u.s. that's the highest range. we can detect those patients. we have new drugs for dry eyes. better antibiotics. more sophisticated laser 0 blat -- oblation patterns. we can treat cataracts with laser. the amount of technology that's available for these patients is -- it's there and believe me we are committed to them. there's nothing more important.

>> bottom line to the patient get out and do your homework and read everything that everybody has to say. i appreciate you both. something that a lot of people have been talking about. popular subject. this brings us to our blog. our blog question today we asked you to share your experiences with lasik surgery. natalie said four years post-lasik i still have dry eye, fluctuating vision and night vision disturbances and for $3,000 i'm still wearing glasses. john said my wife and i had lasik two years ago. her vision now is better than mine and feels safer she did before especially while driving which is important because she is the one who drops the kids off at school. francoise said i had lasik surgery seven years ago. i still have a problem with dry eyes. if i was to do it all over again you i would not critic. thank you so much for weighing

in. logon to cnn.com/kyra and share your comments. and the first language, the language of chemistry, was universal and eloquent. and the unique ability of chemistry to change everything has never changed. it is still the hope of human history to come. it is still the bond in partial between the elements. hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and human.

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relief that's icy to dull pain, hot to relax it away. and no mess. new icy hot power gel. don't mess around with pain. break egg news out of austin, texas. we're getting word there was a shooter on the loose there at ut austin and we're being told he took his own life. there are reports there might be another suspect that's on there's. the university right now is on lockdown. police on the scene trying to figure out what's going on, if it's safe for students at this point. we caught up with a witness just a few second ago. our affiliate out of austin had this for us. >> reporter: we're on the ut campus this morning, shots rang out early right before 8:00 this morning. at one of the libraries here on campus.

i'll give you a scene setter. we have the media here to cover this event. we had two armored vehicles that have shown up with s.w.a.t. team members. the austin police department and as well as university of texas police. from what we're being told the gunman that was identified this morning has shot himself and they are looking for a second suspect at this time. it's not yet confirmed whether or not there is a second suspect. but this is a locked down situation on campus as police continue to come in and helicopters are now arriving to continue to survey the campus of the university of texas. so far, again, we have confirmed that there is one shooter that is dead inside a library. shots were fired inside that building. nobody was hit from what we're being told from the communications director. but that shooter is now dead.

all right. just to correct what i said that was obviously not a witness that was a reporter for news 8 austin. getting information from public affairs folks there at that point had not talked to any witnesses. but on gone to us now, a student there at ut austin. mika, tell us what's going on right now. what kind of information have you been getting? >>ing right now i'm across from the lab. there's s.w.a.t., dogs, national guard, everything you can think of. >> what have you been told? has anyone given you any information? are your on campus and have you been told not to move? you are on campus? >> i live off campus. we got an e-mail around 8:45 possible shooter. be cause shus. then around 9:00 we got an e-mail who said if you're off campus stay off campus. i was on the bus already. bus got to campus and dropped

off. i made my way to gate. nobody is going to class. business school is across from the library. it's chaos right now. >> so, you're obviously in a safe place. are you in a building or are you with other students? >> i'm outside with a group of people right across from i guess the crime scene. >> have you been told to leave campus or has everybody been told stay where they are until they figure what's been going on? >> stay where you are for right now. >> okay. and do we know if there is another shooter that may be on the loose? have you gotten that information? >> you know, i'm really not for sure. but north of where the library was, there is a big group of s.w.a.t. that met up and they ran just right passed us to go behind thereby. >> got it. it looks like the scene is centered around the library. >> yes, ma'am. >> did you actually hear the shooting when it took place the first time around?

>> after i got off the bus i did hear one gunshot. >> you did hear one gunshot? >> yes, ma'am snoochs it in the library or outside of the library? do you know? >> i was probably half a mile away from the library but it sounded like it came from that vicinity. >> do you know anything, if there had been any reports of any injuries? we've been told -- we haven't been able to confirm any injuries that point. how about you have you received any information there on campus? >> i do see an ambulance but they are not giving out any real information right now. >> okay. is the ambulance opened up? do you see anybody on a stretcher or is it closed up right now? >>it's closed up right now. >> okay. so the s.w.a.t. team surrounded the library, is that what you're saying? >> they just went in the back. i don't see them at the moment. national guard or police right now s.w.a.t. team are also moving this way. and i don't know. they have a bazooka. >> this e-mail you got this morning, the first one you

received is this a campus wide e-mail that goes out to all of your emails that are registered -- tell me how that works like the first warning you got and what it said. >> it was a ut service alert. i got it through text message. i can pull it up real quick. >> that would be great. pull it up for me. we're talking with a student there at ut austin who has his eyes on the library where the s.w.a.t. team has moved in. >> they are walking in the back of the library. >> okay. walking into fwak of the library right now. we have reports that one shooter has taken his own life but there are reports that possibly another shooter might be on the loose there on campus. so far we haven't been able to report any injuries. mika, go ahead and read that text message you got through the university. >> the first text at 8:23rks armed subject reported last seen at pc l. and that was it. >> what is pc l? >> that's the library.

>> pc l. got it. public library, right? public campus library? >> it's named for somebody. >> what was the next text message you got. >> i'm not sure the exact time but probably around 8:50. armed subject last seen at pc l. shelter in place. stay where you're at. more information to follow. >> have you gotten any more text messages since then? >>, no ma'am, i have not. >> you got information through the university. now do you see any other students walking around? is it pretty contained right now? >> in the library, we're all blocked. they have everything blocked off. they have cop cars every where. behind the yellow tape there's a group of 50 of us, some reporters, other people just watching. >> any idea at that time in the morning around 8:00 how many students are in the library s w

studying? >> there's mid-terms this week. there could be a decent amount. i can't really tell you a good estimate, honestly. >> got it. but it's is most populated library on campus. >> it's the most populated library on campus. >> yes, ma'am. have you been able to talk with any of your buddy, classmates via text or on the phone? >> i have a buddy in engineering and they are not letting them leave class. so he's stuck in class. >> got it. >> all right. go ahead. i'm sorry. >> i'm sorry. i have some other friends that live in the dorms. the dorms are shut down too. they can't leave or exit. >> got it. >> and now you have campus -- do you have campus police or campus security? do you know? >> the ut police department up here, i'm pretty sure the austin police department is here.

i see tape agross the library. i see dogs. >> got you. okay. and you said the s.w.a.t. team has come in and going into the back of the library. does that seem to be where all the focus is in right now is in back of the library? >> from the s.w.a.t., yes. there's some police still scattered around every where. >> give me an idea of the library -- it's been a long time since i've been to that campus. where the library is. what is around the library? what other buildings, you know, how close are they to the library? how condensed is that area? >> well, probably about 100 yards to the right of the library is the most populated dorm on campus, houses around 3,000 people. >> okay. oh, wow. how many levels are in the library? >> i believe there's five. >> five. okay. so they are going to have to clear five levels of that

library. once again for our viewers that are just tuning in, mika, you're calling into us -- what year are you by the way? >> my second year. you're a sophomore at ut. for those who are just tuning in, university of texas, austin, there was a shooting early this morning. we're being told that that shooter has taken his own life but right now the s.w.a.t. team has moved in, various police departments have moved in, even mika our student there that called into us said he's seen the national guard roll into campus. what are we hearing there, mika? >> there's a loud siren coming in. [ inaudible ] >> okay. mika, our sophomore there at ut calling in to us heard one. shots ring out there near the library on the ut campus. thanks so much. stay with us for a second, we

might want to get some more information with you but we're following this shooting that took place at ut austin. no reports of injuries so far. we do know the shooter took his own life. there might be another shooter, police there on the scene trying to assess what exactly to do next. right now ut austin on lockdown. take a quick break. we got a landslide in mexico. our rob marciano will cover that for us next. i love my curves. but the love i have for strawberry shortcake, threw a curve at my curves. so i threw it right back...

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we're following breaking news out of u turn austin. this morning at about 8:23, according to one of the students

there in texas they got a text message that there was a possible shooter there near the library. and they were to avoid coming on to campus, if they hadn't left for class yet, if they were on campus already to stay put. since then we have learned that that shooter has taken his own life but possibly there might be another shooter on the loose. seems like the area of concentration is around the library there on campus. according to a student the s.w.a.t. team has rolled in. also the national, one student report is also there, trying to assess how threatening this can be. another student joining us, actually from his dorm, matthew calling into us. matthew, how close are you to that library? >> i'm just a couple of blocks to the south of the library, the library is to minority, but i've been seeing all the action unfold from the window of my

dorm room. >> tell me, take me from the beginning. what have you seen, heard, what do you know? >> about 8:00 a.m. i was in my room studying, and then about 8:10:00 a.m. i heard a series of loud bangs and at first it caught me offguard. i would say about seven. in the back of my mind i thought was it gun shots. i went the right my window, looked out and i saw people running. i thought could thab shooter? i never saw the shooter. none of those people were injured. i think they were startled by the loud noise. about five minutes after the shots are fired i saw the first police car head north towards the library and then a second, a third and now i'm looking at almost ten cars outside of my window right now. i've seen armored cars headed to the north towards the library as well. right now they have the road taped off and students are staying around behind the tape, not letting the students go

anywhere on campus it's on lockdown. been quite an exciting morning to say the least. >> no duct. did you by chance see any bodies taken out of the library? i understand there's an ambulance there that you can possibly see from the library. have you seen any transportation of any bodies possibly any shooting victims, the shooter himself? >> well, yes. since i'm south of the library i don't have a clear view of the library but i've seen at least two ambulances head north towards the library. but i have not seen any bodies transported. >> got it. matthew, thank you for calling in. hope you stay put. we'll continue to follow this break news story out much austin, texas there at the university. one shooter has taken his own life. possibly another shooter on the loose. we'll keep following that story four. another developing story breaking right now, a landslide in mexico. and rob marciano has been following that for us. >> heavy rain the past several days. matthew has dumped a lot of rainfall west of oaxaca is where this landslide occurred.

i believe we have a reporter on the phone out of oaxaca. what time did this happen and what do we know how many people are affected by this landslide? >> reporter: it happened about 4:00 in the morning when many were still sleeping inside of their homes. there's not a whole lot known besides what the oaxaca state governor said this morning on the news station program and he said there were about 300 homes buried and up to as many as 1,000 people trapped under the mud. >> give us the idea of the terrain. i assume it's rugged. are search and rescue crews able to get to the people that have been trapped? >> reporter: that's the tricky issue right now. they have army, police, rescue and medical teams on the way. this is a very mountainous region with very muddy roads that's very hard to get to, especially after the recent rains from tropical depression matthew. >> all right. thank you very much for that

report. we'll be reporting on this throughout the day. no doubt. >> like rob pointed out, we'll continue our breaking news coverage of these two big stories right now. we'll see you back here tomorrow. drew, picking it up right after the break.