this is your october 1st, 2011 cnn saturday morning. there's some name calling going on in the republican gop party. now, a threat though kick off the primary season before the new year even begins. we've got a live report in just a moment. also, the last moments of michael jackson's life are playing out in a los angeles courtroom. we'll wrap up this week aepd's testimony in the conrad murray trial and we'll fast forward to the week ahead. also, go ahead, have that jolt of java. a new study says coffee can help you ward off depression, especially if you're a woman. details on that. plus, get ready, folks. some of you out there could be

voting for president of the united states a lot sooner than you thought. several states want to be the first to hold a republican primary. florida has moved up its primary to january 31st. they want to be more of a player, have more influence, so they move theirs up. so officials in new hampshire say they may hold their presidential primary in disease. that's right. december, this year, around the holidays. that's two months sooner than they had originally planned. now, you know the tradition here. iowa is usually the first state to vote. so it's also thinking about pushing up its caucus. our political reporter, shannon is in des moines for us today. is that going to be the plan? if new hampshire moves up, iowa has to move up. we're talking about december, mid-december, could we go as early as november sthp. >> possibly not november, but definitely potentially december. i have to tell you, t.j., iowa's

republican party is not happy at all with what florida is intending to do by holding this january 31st primary. as you mentioned, iowa is always traditionally the first contest in the presidential nominating season that holds the caucuses. iowa is banding together with new hampshire, with nevada and with south carolina. those are the four states that normally go first, according to the rnc rules. they're banding together and saying, look, we're going to move up our dates together, just to show how upset we are with what florida is trying to do. thou, we don't know those states yet, but aus mentioned, new hampshire could go in december. iowa could follow suit sometime tl thereafter. let me read a statement from the iowa republican party. the ar gans shown by the florida elected leadership is disappointing, but not surprising. equally troubling is to see this put ewe land behavior rewarded with our national convention, the consequences of florida a's

intransagainst must be swift and severe including the refusal by the rnc to critical or seat any member of florida's presidential primary date commission at the 2012 rnc cop vengz in tampa. of course, what he's talking about is if you're a presidential candidate, you need delegates in order to win the nominati nomination. what the delegation is saying is slice or strip florida of a lot of their delegates so they have less voting power on who becomes the nominee. >> are they still going forward as if, hey, anyone iowa is important, new hampshire is important, anybody campaigning in that state this weekend? >> there are some candidates in the state -- oh, i'm sorry, just one, rick santorum. rick santorum is coming out saying, this isn't really a good thing that they're moving these dates around like this. all the other candidates, as you might imagine, staying a little bit mum.

they are talking about it, but they eernt comiaren't coming do or the other about it. obviously, florida is a critical swing state. >> yeah. good to see you, as always. let me turn to afghanistan where there's word of another major blow to a terror group. you may not have heard a lot about this group, the haqqani network, but it is a big deal. some experts consider it more dangerous than the taliban. coalition forces have captured that network's senior command ner afghanistan. senior coalition officials announced that capture today. it happened tuesday. this is in southeastern afghanistan. the operation was carried out by nato and afghan forces. the what canny network is based in pakistan. mean what time, the fbi and cia are out with a warning. an war al awlaki's attack could

spark violence in the united states by home grown violence extremists. al awlaki was killed by a cia drone in yemen. one expert says his death could inspire a new wave of militants. >> i think targeting al awlaki and killing him is going to add fuel to the fire. i think it's going to completely marginalize those who agree that his violent views are wrong, but just want to know why this happened. >> now, another part to this story, is it legal for the u.s. to target an american citizen like al awlaki? that's the question erin burnett asked the cia director leon panetta. >> this individual was clearly a terrorist. and, yes, he was a citizen, but if you're a trift, you're a terrorist. and that means that we have the ability to go after those who would threaten to attack the

united states and kill americans. there is no question that the authority and the ability to go after a terrorist is there. >> and be sure to tune in on monday night. 7:00 eastern time for the premier of erin burnett, out front. it's 6 minutes past the hour now. for more information on just who anwar al awla can i was was in recent months he had been called the new bin laden and the bin laden of the internet. the u.s. says he was a master at online recruiting and finding and motivating new radicals to kill americans around the world. he was linked to a number of terrorist attacks. he was a spiritual adviser to three of the 9/11 hijackers and communicated freely with the accused of the deadly killing at ft. hood. we turn now to the amanda

knox trial. the american exchange student could be spending her final weekend in an italian prison. she's appealing her 2009 murder conviction in the death of her former root mate. matthew chance is covering this trial for us. matthew, hello to you. we are expecting on monday amanda knox to speak up in her own voice on her own behalf on possibly try to save her own life. >> reporter: yeah. it's going to be the biggest speech of her life, i expect. she's getting the opportunity by the court to stand up for 15 minutes and address them in what's called here a plea of innocence. aaffaele will also get that opportunity, as well. yet we spoke to the parents, the father in particular about what was going to be said by amanda knox. he told us that she's most likely going to be speaking in italian. she's obviously become fluent in italian over the years. she's been held in the prison

here and she says the past several months, according to kurt knox, her father, deciding what to put in that address, working it out, agonizing over it, and she has to convince the jury and the judge in that court to see things from her point of view and to quash her murder conviction and to let it go, t.j. >> what are her options if she loses this appeal? >> well, if she loses the appeal -- and we're expecting to hear whether she does or doesn't on monday night -- then she goes back to prison, obviously. the opportunity is there for her to appeal one more time to the italian supreme court, which undoubtedly her attorneys will do if they lose this appeal. but i have to say, there's a good deal of confidence on the part of the family, on the part of the family's attorneys, as well, that this time they may have a good chance of getting

the jury to see it from their point of view. remember, there's been dna evidence in the first trial that was so instrumental in convicting amanda knox, it essentially linked her and raffele to the murder screen and to the crime. but that dna evidence on the basis of work done by independent forensic experts, doubt has been cast on it. if the jury were looking for a reason to overturn that sentence, they have i tell in the faulty dna evidence. >> matthew chance for you, how much sway might knox's own words have with the jurors? i asked molly hughes about that. >> it will be important, but more important will be how the jury perceives this young woman. i think gone is that sort of care free young girl who came across as cold, indifferent, didn't really care. i think she's come to realize that her own affect and her own

attitudes may have played a part in her conviction more so than any physical evidence. >> knox has 15 minutes on monday to make her case to jurors. we will bring you the very latest as it happened on monday. ten minutes past the hour now. witnesses talk about the day michael jackson died. we're one week into the trial of his personal doctor, conrad murray. a recap for you is coming up in two minutes. bank of america customers still are upset. they are now going to be charged starting next year, charged for using your own debit card and your own money. is there anything you can do? actually, not a whole lot. stay here. two of the most important are energy security and economic growth. north america actually has one of the largest oil reserves in the world. a large part of that is oil sands. this resource has the ability to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. at our kearl project in canada, we'll be able to produce these oil sands with the same emissions as many other oils

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12 minutes past the hour now. the er doctor who pronounced michael jackson dead, he testified this week that the pop superstar had signs of auto dying heart and was clinically dead on arrival. ted rollins recaps the drama so far. in weeks one, we heard a lot of testimony from those who were at michael jackson's house in the days and week before his death and those that were there with michael jackson and they were trying to revive him. on friday, we heard from two paramedics that came from jackson eeps home and unsuccessfully tried to give cpr to jackson. they thought jackson was cold to the touch and almost flu bluish in color.

the most compelling testimony that prosecutors got out of those ambulance drivers or the paramedics were they asked dr. murray point-blank, what have you given him? what drugs are in michael jackson's body and dr. murray, they say, never mentioned propofol. next week, we're likely to hear from the doctors at the ucla medical center and they are expected to tell a similar story that when jackson arrived with murray in the ambulance, they, too, asked what have you given him and there was no mention of propofol. that, of course, prosecutors would hope would show a sign that murray was trying to cover up his tracks that he was using propoe follow with michael jackson which is highly irregular. next week, we'll likely hear from witnesses, a couple of the detectives for michael jackson and a couple of dr. murray's

girlfriends. t.j. >> thanks to our ted rogllins ad testimony resumes on monday. also video, the jurors in the casey anthony murder trial were not allowed to see. you're about to see it now. it's been released. it's a security video taken at a jailhouse medical facility. what you're seeing is her highlighted there sitting in the chair. what you're seeing is the moment that casey anthony found out that remains were found next to the anthony home. it was determined about a week later that, in fact, those remains belonged to 2-year-old take kayly. a judge said the tape was too inflammatory to be played in court. anthony, as you know, was acquitted in that murder case. funeral services for georgia's death row inmate troy

davis are set to get under way this hour. he was put to death by lethal injection september 21st for the 1989 slaying of off duty police officer in savannah, georgia. his case sparked international crime for clemency. amnesty international is urging supporters worldwide to rep remember today as a day of remembrance. the actual funeral is today and no cameras were allowed inside for that memorial service. coming up next, two more people are dead from contaminated cantaloupe and more people are at risk and they may not even know it. also, all the women out there drinking decaf coffee need to switch to the caffeinated stuff, at least according to a harvard study. the benefit of a cup of joe, stay here. meineke's personal pricing on brakes.

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19 minutes past the hour now. two more people are dead after eating cantaloupe contaminated with listeria from a colorado farm. the centers for disease control, saying the one person died in new mexico and another in kol california this week. the listeria outbreak was reported on october 12th and the jensen farms rocky fork officials say it can take weeks before the symptoms show up. >> it can take a week to three

weeks after you eat the contaminated product to become ill and can take as much as two months to become ill. furthermore, some people may still have the jensen farms cantaloupe in their refrigerator. if you have cantaloupe that's labeled as something other than jensen farms, then it's okay to eat. but if the label looks like this, that's what the jensen farms label looks like, then it is not safe to eat, throw it out. >> this has been going on beginning last month since around the middle of september. 15 people in eight states have died after eating this contaminated fruit. in a separate incident, more than 2,000 cartons of chopped and shredded row main lettuce are being recalled after listeria was detected in one bag. the lettuce has a use by date of

september 2e8 29th. no illnesses have been reported so far from the lettuce. a ten-year study from harvard says that coffee, specifically the coffee with the cavee in it may help reduce depression over the long-term for women. earlier, i talked with the chore of this study at the department of harvard health and asked, how many cups of coffee a day do you really need to drink? sdmrs those who drank four cups of coffee a day had a 50% lower risk of developing depression. >> now, sir, that sounds like a lot of coffee. i guess, what's the down side to drinking that much coffee? the cavene may be good for you, but can you get some negative side effects? >> some people do some have intolerance. that is really an individual response. but in the long-term, there is no adverse effect of coffee for

people who drink it regularly. >> is it specifically coffee here that you can expect the impact because there's so much more caffeine in coffee than in a soft drink? >> yes. or even a cup of tea. so it's difficult to reach those levels of caffeine by other measures. >> and what about men, can you expect it to have the same compact on men? >> most likely. we hope to be able to examine this in men, also. >> have you found -- and there have been studies over years that have shown some benefits of caffeine. have we seen anything that you would want people to stay away from caffeine? i guess, how is it bad for you? >> not really. for a regular, moderate intake

of caffeine, there is really no other to say. but i would warn people who never drink coffee or caffeine, we're not recommending people to start because people who don't drink coffee, they may have an intolerance or level of anxiety. so we're talking about regular coffee drinkers here, yeah. drink up. 23 minutes past the hour now. use your debit card just once a month and you're charged $5 for the privilege of spending your own money. after the break, you've probably heard about this one by now, one of the biggest banks in the country is going to start charging you for that privilege. can you get around this? i don't have good news for you on that. it has microparticles, enters the bloodstream faster and rushes relief to the site of pain. it's clinically proven to relieve pain twice as fast. new bayer advanced aspirin.

25 minutes past the hour. starting next year, bank of america plans on charging customers $5 a month to use your debit card. use it once, you'll get charged $5 for it. earlier i talked to collide anderson about this. he says if you plan on using big banks, you might need to get used to this stuff. >> everybody is abuzz with this. earlier in the morning, their system was down. now they're making this transition. this is what everybody is talking about. now it's like the david and go lee yath. goliath is now stepping on the small guy. >> their explanation for why they -- they almost say they need to do this. >> what's happening is the regulation change. they've been coming down to say that they cannot charge

retailers as much and they used to charge them to the debit fees. >> they're saying they're out of money over here. >> and it's almost $3 billion that we're talking about here that they'll make up with this $5 charge. it adds up to about $60 per per per account. >> how many other banks are doing this right now? >> we've seen sun trust and wells fargo try it out. $5 is higher than the trend we've seen, but it is a trend. >> is there any way to get around this? >> for $8.95, bank of america, you can get all your ee statements online. you only get charged if you use the debit card -- >> we don't walk around with that much cash, right? >> it's not realistic for a lot of people. an everyday person, it may be normal.

>> here is our other problem. some people say, already, i'll give up the debit card. i'll use my credit card. but your problem there, you might get hosed, as well. >> what you have to look at, and a lot of people are saying is that look at your smaller bank. the smaller banks that we're talking about, less than $10 billion in assets to a majority of the loans right now. the community banks, smaller banks, maybe your credit union. but they're not doing it now, but would l they eventually? >> could in the future. >> if the biggest dog on the block is doing it -- >> well, you know, the big banks, they got bailed out, they got the money from the government and now we're paying for it. our dollars helped them to get out of this mess and now they're hitting us with this pea. >> the other thing, people are saying, you know what? i'll just switch banks. >> it's not easy to do, especially if you have things like direct deposit and accounts

already set up. it's not as easy to do. so it's a lot of red table. bank of america also introduced new accounts. they have an enhanced count as well as a premium and platinum account. platinum accounts is for people that have investments with the bank. >> what you're telling me, carry cash or look into smaller banks and credit unions. >> that's what i say right now. >> well, those are your options. as we get close to the bottom of the hour, terrorists using computers could cripple the u.s. economy. we'll take a tour of a special complex where experts are working to try to stop cyber attacks before they could be launched. stay with us.

we're at the bottom of the hour now. a story we're keeping a close eye on, new developments today in the killing of american born al qaeda leader anwar al awlaki. he was killed in yemen. the u.s. homeland security department is out with new warnings, it says his killing could spark attacks in the united states by home grown violent extremists.

al awla can i was killed by a cia drone in yemen. a terror attack using computers could cause problems all across the u.s. and the government has a special facility in idaho where experts work around the clock to try to prevent cyber attacks on the homeland. >> when you think about the state of idaho, you're likely to think about one thing, potatoes. but just a few miles away from here in the town of idaho falls, government workers are trying to protect the country from terrorism, not from bullets or bombs, but from computers. it turns out that idaho is ground zero in the fight against cyber terrorism. this is an example of one have not inventorier's system that we have under tests. >> leading that fight is marty. >> as these systems become more connected to networks in general

and to the internet, there's a lot of concern about people being able to manipulate these systems for ill intent. >> to show what's being done about it, the department of homeland security invited cnn and other media outlets for a rare look inside the idaho national laboratory. this section was made to look like a water chemical treatment plan. another was built to representative a power substation. both were designed to prevent a wide array of experiments. it could knock out electricity for a wide area. the key is to see how the system reacts and what software upgrades could be done to prevent it from happening in the first place. >> we don't want to unnecessarily frighten people, but these threats are real. >> they absolutely are real. but i think the average american doesn't understand that the vast majority of the infrastructure around them is controlled by computer devices and as we all know, we can get viruses on our systems at home. these systems are susceptible to

similar types of events. >> and viruses have the potential to leave entire cities or entire regions with contaminated water and without power. in 2007, for instance, the last conduction of then classified experiment known as aurora, the government test shows how hackers could not only shut off an electric generator, but could actually destroy it. any major knockout could be dubbed a cyber pearl harbor. worse yet, even if there were an attack, the experts might not even know it. >> can there be a cyber pearl harbor? absolutely. would we know if it's a cyber pearl harbor? i don't believe so. >> security specialists like joe weiss worry about cyber criminals staying one step ahead by being able to inflaig flikt damage without a trace. >> can you hide a plant shutting down? no. can you not know that it was cyberly targeted? the answer is yes.

>> cyber terrorism comes in many different varieties. the idaho national laboratory is trying to identify all of them, but most important to try to prison attacks from hiding. 35 minutes past the hour now. a woman in saudi arabia, convicted and sentences. her punishment? lashings. her crime? driving a car. we'll tell you how the king's actions, though, in this case are now tainting him as the reformer. stay with me. so you're seriously proposing we change our name to sun life valley. do we still get to go skiing? sooner or later, you'll know our name. sun life financial.

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38 minutes past the hour now. kim abdullah revokes a lashing sentence for a woman who allegedly broke the law. what did she do? she drove a car. he commuted that sentence and he's done a couple other things that show he's a reformer and that saudi arabia is going in another direction. he's going to allow women to both vote and run for office in the future. now, again, he's being painted as a reformer and that's something i discussed in this morning's passport. >> in the next election, which by the way is around 2015, women will not only be allowed to vote, but run for municipal council. >> it's huge for him to say that. >> exactly. and a few days later, a woman is sentenced to ten lashes for driving and he quickly revokes

it. and that's the point, that he quickly revokes it. it's looking at the arab spring and saying this cannot happen, wa can i do to appease people? but king abdullah is a reformer. he has a lot of opposition within his own government. so for him, this is huge for king abdullah who is seen as a reformer. by quickly revoking the lashings for the woman who was accused of driving and then getting ten lashes, again, it shows he's looking to reform. remember, in 2011, up until june of this year, almost, if a woman walked into a store and wanted to buy a bra and panties, she had to do it from a man sales associate. what he's done is said women can at least sell lingerie to each other. >> okay. now, you said there's a cynical view there and we still have to

wait some four years before women can actually vote. but for the most part -- i mean, this is some immediate -- not immediate action, bus it was pretty quick and immediate action by him. >> women feel very much this is a sign things are going to change. he's a little bit between a rock and a hard place. he would like to bring about much more reform. barbara walters interviewed him in around 2005. he said he would like women to be able to drive. he has the opposition within his own government. so we're seeing a big change. but i spoke to a muslim rights activist, melody mayerti and says the prophet muhammad's wife, his first wife was was the most powerful businesswoman in mecca. so hopefully for saudi arabian's women they will certainly be allowed to drive. because at this point, they have to have a drive. and it's ironic, the reason to

not drive is so you won't be in the company of strange men and so many of the drivers are from other countries and are strange men. hard for us as americans to understand women can't drive. but hopefully will be able to and certainly vote, coming up. so progress is being made in saudi arabia. take a look now at these pictures we got out of australia. and a ferish wheel, there all kinds of problems here. is it the plane anterior the ferris wheel? this is an ultra light plane, had to people on board, but it crashed into this ride at a country festival. the plane barely missed two young children who were on that ferris wheel. everybody was dangling there for about an hour and a half. the kids were finally rescued. the plane's pilot and passenger rescued, as well. would you believe, no one was injured, at least not seriously in this accident. but as i say good morning to

reynolds wolf, my question here was whether or not there might have been some weather issues. the guy said he didn't see the ferish wheel. >> it was an ultra light, you know? obviously, not light enough. you look at that ferris wheel, there's a lot of open sky there. it's kind of hard to make it actually happen. the bottom line is, we can laugh about it now because everyone is fine. no one was hurt, that kind of thing. >> so he sdint didn't see it? >> yeah. i don't have a pilot's license, but if i did, i would probably pull something similar. conditions were good this weekend. if everybody wants do get out and enjoy some football or rake leaves and -- let's just watch football, forget about raking leaves. if you look carefully, you'll see a little bit of a weird pattern. that weird pattern is pretty easy to see to see. a warm-up on one part of the country and a cooldown on the

other side. the jet stream is adding a barrier which allows warm continues to develop over parts of the northern rockies and the northern plains. billings, montana, about 20 to 30 degrees above normal. you've got a bit of a trough that's going to allow cooler air to filter into the great lakes into the northeast where temperatures are going to be just the opposite. about 15 to 20 degrees cooler. this morning, you have something else on top of that. that cold air is coming through with a little bit of that moisture. lo and behold, viola. you have a bit of frozen precipitation. but still, very cool, you know? could see some snow, obviously, farther to the north, but in terms of that, it's going to be just a few flakes here and there. certainly no heavy precipitation to expect whatsoever. wrap things up, what you can expect for the rest of your day. check it out. we have windy conditions departing in the tennessee

valley, as far south as georgia. sunshine, scattered showers in parts of extreme northern california back into oregon and into washington state. all right. t.j., i don't talk a little about football, but i know we have a cool baseball story. it's a bittersweet baseball story. to remind ow viewers here, july 7th, it was at the ballpark in arlington, texas. firefighter shannon stone, he's reaching over trying to catch a baseball that had been tossed up into the stands by josh hamilton. well, he ended up falling as this video -- we're not going to continue it here, but he fell to his death with his son, 6-year-old son was right next to h him. cooper. cooper stone went back to ranger stadium last night for the first time since this understand and he was there for game one of the american league division championship series between the texas rangers and the tampa bay rays. look at how it went down.

now, cooper, as you see there, got a chance to throw out the first pitch of the playoffs, and he threw it to his favorite player, josh ham ton. hamilton happened to be, yes, the one that tossed that ball into the stands that his dad went after. but you saw some people there in the stands, just about everybody in the stands had tears in their eyes last night. it was great for the little guy, a 6-year-old, but bittersweet moment for him. you know he would much rather have skipped this moment in his life and to have his dad back, but still, the rangers doing what they can to try to support the young man and support the family and fans in the community after that tragedy this summer. i'll be right back. [ male annou] to the 5:00 a.m. scholar. the two trains and a bus rider. the "i'll sleep when it's done" academic. for 80 years, we've been inspired by you. and we've been honored to walk with you

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all right. ten minutes to the top of the hour. i love this time of the morning. good morning. >> good morning to you. how are you doing? >> i am doing well. i was about to call you out on twitter, but i'll just call you out here. >> please. >> are you tweeting? >> i didn't tweet today. >> you did not? >> no. sorry. the day is young, that's right.

whew. who are you going to tweet sfp. >> i was going to tweet, just put your name up and say hey, it's fredricka tweeting. put you on the spot. >> that would be the reaction. i will get there. i'm just slow. anyway, well, we have a lot going on. we won't be slow in the noon eastern hour. we'll be rocking and rolling, we have a lot coming up, especially with our legal guys, richard and avery. they're going to talk about a host of things, but the s.a.t.s. you took the s.a.t.s. >> we did a.c.t.s in arkansas. >> and it is stressful and all that. but you know, there's this investigation now involving a college student who took the test allegedly for six others and the arrest. so is this just the tip of the iceberg? and why criminal charges? why is this something that just wasn't addressed with the school district? >> what is it, is it a fraud charge he had or something? >> yes, fraud for posing,

allegedly, as six other students. >> he was a little entrepreneur. >> and they paid big money. >> yes. >> maybe $2,500, $1,500 a pop. yeah, we're going to talk about that, why the criminal charge. >> okay. >> okay. >> and are you ready for your holiday shopping? >> we do this every year. >> i shop throughout the year. >> really? >> yeah. i see something, that person is going to like that, i pick it up. that way i'm not as stressed out at the end of the year. really sfp. >> yeah. >> that's fascinating. >> that's not necessarily any financial tip. we're going to talk about planning for the entire year, parcelling out the entire year. when i figure out how much money you want to spend come crimp or kwanzaa, how much money do you spend throughout the year? >> we probably should have this conversation back in april. >> i know, i know, but you could start your shopping now. >> okay. it's not too late sfp.

>> the lay away plans, they're back. you want to take advantage of that. >> k-mart and all those -- >> yep, and a lot of them are bring it back. and then, okay, so do you have any idea to whether the healthier of the children in the household would be the eldest, the middle, at the bottom? >> that's a good question. >> or would you even think that all of them should be equally healthy? >> well, you would think. but maybe the older people show you what not to do and how not to live. so i'd like to think my sister gave me that example, this is what you shouldn't do. >> and the responsibility of the parents, as well. dr. bill will be along to help impress upon what parents should or shouldn't be doing. it depends. but then the flip side to that is your older sister may be more susceptible to certain things because of the way parents helped raise them, asthma, older kids have the propensity of

having more asthma and allergies, both. >> she has both. >> you see? you're so right. he's going to elaborate. >> thanks for taking one for the family. >> he's going to elaborate on that later on in the day, as well. so you want to begin at noon eastern and hang with us throughout the day. >> we absolutely will. great stuff. always good to see you. she is @fwitfield. >> so busy. what to do. the to-do list is piling up and now, tweeting, too? >> coming up, how far is too far when it comes to criticizing a politician? we take a look at how chris christie is being blasted right now for his weight.

as we get close to the top of the hour, a look at stories making news across the country. listen to this, a convicted rapist in vancouver, washington asked the judge to throw the book at him, and he gets his wish. he pleaded guilty yesterday to raping a woman at knifepoint and then attacking another woman back in february. the 21-year-old requested the maximum sentence, so the judge gave him the maximum sentence, 15 years in prison e says it's his way of showing remorse. a florida company is

constructing partially built homes, constructed and then head over to florida -- excuse me, iraq. florida company making homes for iraq. got that right? homes manufactured in palmetto and made of steele frames injected with foam. the company says the houses can withstand hurricane-force winds as well as earthquakes. an army sergeant tim johansson sent home a special package to his wife katie, a stray puppy he found in a bomb-riddled iraqi countryside. he's still trying to adjust to the calm of the new home in illinois. the sergeant is expected home shortly after christmas. you know, fredricka coming up in a few minutes. before we get to fredricka, she's busy tweeting by the way. a big question surrounding governor chris christie is will he or won't he run for president. people are also speculating about another pretty heavy issue involving the governor. here now cnn's jeanne moos.

>> reporter: as governor chris christie's profile gets bigger, so does the issue of his size. >> all right. >> reporter: now that he's a national figure, comedians are starting to make his waistline a punch line. >> take a look. does he show up -- go to google earth. >> reporter: from late night to daytime talk, chris christie's weight is being tossed around. >> can you see him as president? >> you say no? okay. why not. because he's hefty? >> reporter: for a while they danced around the f word then -- >> i don't think the country is ready for a fat president again. >> i think that's ridiculous. >> imagine this conversation about an overweight female candidate. >> reporter: governor christie is a bonanza for cartoonist showing chris christie belly up on the beach. >> i saw him the other day. i was amazed by him.

he must be 300 plus. that's something you're going to have to deal with. i'm google to cut the budget. how about supper. >> reporter: chris matthews would go to bed without supper for his remark if mike huckabee had his way. >> to criticizes chris christie because of the amount of his skin is absurd. >> reporter: the amount of his skin used to be excessive, he lost 100 pounds. his weight may be the elephant in the room but chris christie talks about it comfortably. >> i'll let the audience in on a secret, i'm over weight. the thing i feel most guilty about, my weight. i eat too much. it's not a complicated thing. >> reporter: when it comes to portly presidents, william howard taft was america's biggest at over 300 pounds. taft was famous for getting stuck in the white house bathtubs. aides had to come get him out. he then had a new tab made big enough for four men. at a christie tow