the president. what will he do to make my life better the next four years? >> funeral for arlen specter, served in the senate long, long time. political discourse, spent his life, served for a long, long time. >> very good point. >> coming up tomorrow on "starting point," complete post debate coverage. candy crowley will join us to talk about how it went. it starts at 7:00 pm eastern tonight on cnn. carol costello joins us from the "ne "newsroom." hillary clinton says she is to blame. and second debate will be moderated by cnn's candy crowley. mitt romney won the big coin toss. will president obama try to be more aggressive?

chris clooey, pro football player and political activist. >> to me that's flat out discrimination, the same as segregation or suffrage. >> on same sex marriage and paying more taxes and why he's so darn political. newsroom starts now. and good morning to you. i'm carol costello. thank you very much for joining us. 12 hours before the big debate tonight and hillary clinton throws the president a lifeline. secretary of state taking full responsibility for the death of the u.s. ambassador to libya and three other americans. >> i take responsibility. i'm in charge of the state department, 60,000 plus people all over the world, 275 posts. the president and the vice president certainly wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals.

they're the ones who weigh all the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision. >> clinton made it very clear to cnn's elise labott she does not want to play the blame game, something that is sure toply out in tonight's president yl debate taking place at hofstra university ong long identity. dan lothian is there right now. i suspect that secretary clinton's comments certainly will make it easier for the president tonight. >> reporter: well, you know, what it does, it plays into what the administration, the president and the white house have been saying now over the last few days. it started toward the end of last week when the message at the briefings was that the white house was not involved and did not know about these requests for additional security in libya. of course, that was in reaction to what the vice president said during his debate, where he said that we, speaking about himself and the president, were not aware of this request.

and so this is somewhat of a shield, if you will, against republican criticism that the white house, in particular, has dropped the ball when it comes to libya. a big criticism that, no doubt, will play out in this debate here tonight, carol. >> and, you know, everybody is wondering how aggressive the president will be because he's lagging in the polls right now. can't be too aggressive. and i know he has been studying and preparing for a long time now for this debate. >> he has been preparing over the last three days. he with his in virginia at a resort there with much of the team that he had around him going into the first debate. we did see ben rohodes, one of his national security advisers, participating in this one. everything we're hearing from top aides is that the president will come out swinging. he will be aggressive and challenge mitt romney on his positions. take a listen to what robert gibbs had to say about that. >> mitt romney, you know, said

look, we don't need more teachers. then you watched him on that debate stage say i love teachers. we need more of them. i don't have a $5 trillion tax cut even though paul ryan thought it would take too long in an interview to explain the math. don't misunderstand it, mitt romney and paul ryan are doing this, trying to hide their positions. they want to go on national tv wi in debate with his big audiences and pretend they haven't taken these stances. there is a man behind the curtain. we do need to pay attention to that person because that's mitt romney. >> now governor romney's campaign says that the president might change his style. he may change his tactic, but he can't change his record. now the big challenge for the two candidates tonight is that it is the format, much different than it was in the first one. here you actually have real voters in the audience who will be asking questions. there are some undecided voters from that group. they'll be ask iing some of the

questions. and so the challenge is to make a personal connection with the audience while at the same time score some points with the opponents. >> dan lothian, reporting live from hofstra university. our cnn foreign aaffairs reporter elise labott broke the story about secretary of state hillary clinton taking the blame for what happened in libya. elise what else did hillary clinton tell you? >> reporter: well, carol, it was the first time she spoke to network reporters last night. her first time really talking about the night that the ambassador and those three other americans died in that attack. she talked about when a harrowing night it was, waiting to see if they were aalive. she really talked about this blame game going on in wz now. she wants to end the political firestorm and stop what she called political gotcha. aambassador stevens' father said

in the past week he thought his son's death was being politicized. in addition to take tri-ing to take the heat off the white house in this election period, i think she's trying to refocus the nation that four brave americans died and, yes, it's important to find out what the breakdown in security or intelligence was, but also to just -- really just make sure that this doesn't happen again. and she says she's going to stay out of politics and be focused on making sure that u.s. diplomatic posts get the security and resources that they need. carol? >> elise, the timing to some is suspect. i mean, hillary clinton throws herself under the bus for the obama administration on the eve of this big presidential debate. what did she have to say about that? >> reporter: well, i mean, in fact, it was the white house, i wouldcy, this kind of threw the state department under the bus over the past week. vice president biden during the

debate said we didn't know about those security requests and the white house started calling around to reporters and saying listen, that's the state departme department's function. at the end of the day, yes, it is the state department security professionals that are in charge of, you know, finding out what adequate resources are needed for various posts. you know, the vice president or president are not brief ed on every little post. but, you know, benghazi was a high-threat post. there was a growing threat of extremism and groups that are related to al qaeda. there is activity in libya. republicans are saying, yes, you know, senator mccain and senator graham. after our sbrou said it's very nice for secretary clinton to take responsibility but ultimately the buck stops with the president, his administration. and i think that while it may take a little bit of heat off the president tonight, i do think that, you know, we have to

find out not just was the security of the consulate issue, but where the brickdown with his. that's an administration-wide problem, carol. >> elise labott reporting live from peru. wasting no time at all firing back, ranking member john mccain along with senators lindsey graham and senator ayotte released a statement. quote, if the president was truly not aware of this rising threat level in benghazi, then we have lost confidence in his national security team. the security of americans serving our nation everywhere in the world is ultimately the job of the commander in chief. the buck stops there. end quote. as you might expect, president obama and governor romney out of the spotlight today as they prepare for tonight's debate. mitt romney's family is out on the campaign trail. romney's youngest son, craig, bragged about his dad to cnn's piers morgan and explained why governor romney wants to be preside president. >> you know, it's interesting.

i ran into -- i've been touring around the country, had a chance to meet voters all over the place. i met a woman in nevada who owns a small beauty salon. she came up to me and said i've been in business for 30 years. these last four years have been the hardest i've ever gone through and i'm struggling to keep my business going. i need your dad to win or eye think i'm going to lose my business. that's really what this is about. that's why my dad is in this race, out there for the small business owners, struggling for the 23 million who are unemployed. that's why he's in the race. >> mitt romney's wife, ann, is also busy on the campaign trail. on thursday she's scheduled to sit down with the ladies of "the view" without her husband, mitt, who due to a scheduling conflict had to cancel. in that secretly recorded video, romney said an interview with the ladies of "the view" was a high-risk move. george mcgovern is now getting hospice care. former senator from south dakota had an has been admitted to a hospice in sioux falls.

mcgovern's defeat to richard nixon in 1972 was one of the most lopsided president iial elections in history. pakistani teenager is being treated in a british hospital a week after being shot in the head by the taliban. 13-year-old malala yous aafzai was transferred to a hospital that treats wounded soldiers. her recovery is expected to take several months. dan rivers was at a conference where they talked about some unwanted visitors trying to visit the teen activist. >> spent a night here in birmingham at the hospital, seen by a team of about six specialists, we're told, neurotherapy, intensive care pediatrics, doing initial assessment on his her condition

and they are pleased with her progress so far. her condition is said to be stable. not much more information on her medical condition other thn that really. no suggestion so far that they have done anything more than an initial assessment. we have to wait and see when they're going to attempt any further operations. we were told that one of the first things they would do would be to build a 3-d image of her head from a ct scan, mri scan just to work out the extent of the damage to her brain. meanwhile, the clinical director here, dr. david rosser told reporters overnight here there had been some incidents with people trying to get into her room. >> i thands a number of people turned up, claiming to be members of mal aala a's family, which we don't believe to be true and have been arrested. we don't believe there's any sort of threat to her personal security. whoa think it's probably people being over curious. >> reporter: west middleton's police are playing this down,

saying it was simply well wishers who were turned away, trying to give her their best wishes. the message from the doctors is that she's not out of the woods yet but that they are optimistic that things are going in the right direction. dan rivers, cnn, birmingham, engla england. a man the u.s. government says carried out the biggest military computer hacking of all time will not face trial in the united states. gary mckinnon has been fighting extradition from london for ten years and today the british government said it would no extradite him, citing concerns about his health. his attorney says he suffers from asperger's syndrome. he is accused of breaking into pentagon computers to do

research on ufos. ceo is stepping down and has already been replaced. christine romans joins us now. this is sort of a mystery. it's not only him stepping down. >> he is stepping down, president and ceo of the company is is stepping down in kind of a courrier long executive michael corbat is take iing over. vikram pandit is who we're talking about. citi group since 2007. imagine citigroup in 2007. it was a huge bank, led the world. it was right before the financial crisis. then it all came tumbling down and vikram pandit had just taken over. take a lock at the stock the past five years. you can see how brutal the ride has been for shareholders. down 89% over the past five years and many people have said it is among the weakest players in the financial crisis and skre carefully and gingerly trying to recover since then. it had a decent earnings report yesterday. the timing today catching a lot

of people on wul street by surprise. vikr aam pandit saying now is the right time for someone else to take the lead at citigroup and he is leaving the company in a better position, he says. a strong quarter yesterday. something i want to put in perfect spe perspective here. "the wall street journal" has an mays amazing analysis of this. one of four banks, carol, that control some 60% of the nation's assets. just recently, sandy wile, who created this bohemoth was on television saying maybe some of these big banks should be broken up. >> haven't whoa been down this road before? >> hedge fund guy, very well respected in 2007. aa lot of people who know and worked with him on wall street say he he's very smarts a hedge fund guy but that the banking crisis, citigroup so big, so unwieldy now it's time for someone else to take over and the timing is now. >> christine romans.

>> you're welcome. >> i'm sure you'll continue to follow this story. >> oh, yeah. stark county, ohio, my hometown. my home county, rather. finds itself on the front loin of the battleground state. what voters in ohio are talking about ahead of tonight's critic aal presidential debate. overmany discounts to thine customers! [old english accent] safe driver, multi-car, paid in full -- a most fulsome bounty indeed, lord jamie. thou cometh and we thy saveth! what are you doing? we doth offer so many discounts, we have some to spare. oh, you have any of those homeowners discounts? here we go. thank you. he took my shield, my lady. these are troubling times in the kingdom. more discounts than we knoweth what to do with. now that's progressive.

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we know ohio is a key swing state in the election. cnn's latest poll of polls shows how close the race is in ohio. the president holding a three percentage-point lead. for a clue as to how ohio will go in november, look to stark county. the white house winner was chosen six of the last seven

times. miguel marquez went there to get the lay of the land. >> reporter: this is stark coun county, ohio, a front line in this bltground state. it's so closely tracked state in national voting patterns, this place puts the bell in bellwether. he has farmed in ohio his whole life. like most people here, he takes it very seriously may i ask you who you're voting for? >> yes. >> reporter: who are you voting for? >> i won't tell you. >> reporter: the country's problem so serious it makes voting more important and tougher than ever. >> a lot of people are hurting big. a lot of people need relief. and i'm not too sure the election is going to give it, no matter who gets elected. that's the problem. >> reporter: stark county has seen the worst of the recession and the best of the recovery, unemployment shot up to 13% at the height of the great recession. it's now plummeted to less than

7%. vaughan like stark county, ohio, has survived by changing, turning the business over to his kids and son-in-law. made some changes to the old family farm. boy, did he ever. a fourth of the family's income now comes a few weeks in the fall where the farm, now a market and winery, is transformed into a country fun fair, what he calls agri-team. >> you have to be diversified enough to weather the storm but not dilute yourself so much that you're not effective. >> reporter: making ohio ohio. >> ohio is number one at practically nothing but sxeegd average at many, many things. >> reporter: how quickly can one shred a car? >> in a couple of seconds. >> reporter: a state-of-the-art scrap yard. the boss here, lifelong democrat, voted obama in 2008.

he says this year, it's a tougher choice. >> this year i am truly an independent voter. looking at the first debate and he very keen on looking at the next two debates. >> reporter: a year ago, his yard could barely keep up with demand. two months ago, he saw orders plummet. is it a matter of hearing what they want to do or how they're going to accomplish it? >> i would say both in that question but more important ly, how are they going to accomplish it with a $16 trillion deficit? >> miguel marquez is in hartville, ohio. i'm from canton, ohio, which is in stark county. you know, i'm wondering -- >> reporter: i've already heard that this morning, carol. >> i'm proud of my people. i can't help it. but i'm wondering, who do they give credit to the county in ohio, the republican governor or the democratic president? >> reporter: it's a little bit

of both. they certainly credit the president with saving the auto industry and a lot of jobs in this area. they also have shell oil in this area, the governor has been very aggressive in get iting after. you have a lot of companies in this area of northeastern ohio that are making money off that. so a lot of that has had to do with at least regionally the unemployment number coming down so quickly here, carol. >> reporter: any idea which way ohio will go? because just a couple of weeks ago, it was firmly in president obama's camp, but now it's not. >> reporter: yeah. it certainly is tightening here. i suppose they expected that and both campaigns are making a big push here. in stark county and across the state, both campaigns have made a big effort to get early voters out. they started october 2nd early voting. in stark county, 35,000 early vote votes went out. 15,000 of them were democrat. 12,000 were republican. and about 10,000 are independent. those are usually split 50/50.

across the state you have the same thing occur iring. it looks like the democrats may be out there early voting much more but both campaigns are in it for the ground war, trying to get to every single voter's door, calling them constantly. this is going to come down to who can get people out to vote on election day. >> miguel marquez, live from hartville, ohio, this morning. that brings us to our talk back questi question. since president obama is the underdog, what does the president need to do in tonig tonight's debate? facebok.com/carolcnn. we'll be right back. you see us bank on busier highways. on once empty fields. everyday you see all the ways all of us at us bank are helping grow our economy. lending more so companies and communities can expand, grow stronger and get back to work. everyday you see all of us serving you, around the country, around the corner.

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now is your chance to talk back to one of your big stories of the day. what does president obama need to do in tonight's debate ♪ stakes couldn't be higher for the president. after his last debate performance, obama saw a drop in the polls and is now running behind romney. according to gallup/us. today, is now tied with obama among women voters, a group once

considered a slam dunk for the president. still obama adviser robert gibbs says oh, no worries. >> we're going to have a chance to talk about governor romney's economic theories that we tried, quite frankly, for eight years and they didn't work too well. they ended up crushing us and leaving us with this economic disaster this we've been trying to dig our way out of for the last four years. >> to dig himself out of this slump, the president will have to score big in tonight's town hall format and connect with the audience. in other words take a page from the bill clinton playbook. >> is your question -- are you suggesting if somebody has means that the national debt doesn't affect them? >> what i'm saying -- >> i'm not sure i get -- help me with the question and i'll try to answer it. >> i have friends that have been laid off from jobs. i know people who cannot afford to pay the mortgage on their homes. their car payment. i have personal problems with national debt. >> thank you.

glad you clarified. >> tell me how it's affected you again. you know people who have lost their jobs and lost their homes? >> yeah. >> when people lose their jobs there's a good chns i'll know them by their names. >> mr. clinton really felt your pain. although the race is considered a statistical dead heat, many democrats are worried that romney is winning over those independent voters who waited till now before deciding. the challenge for the president, how to win them back. the talk back question for you this morning, what does president obama need to do in tonight's debate? facebook.com/carolcnn. your responses, later this hour. a huge discovery. amateur astronomers have found a planet in a system with four suns. it's like a scene out of star wars. that was me still taking insulin

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good morning to you. thank you for watching. it's 30 minutes past the hour. stock futures looking higher this morning. investors are watching corporate earnings. ringing the bell, executives and guests of the american international group, also known as aig. malala yousafzai is recovering in a birmingham hospital one week after the taliban tried to assassinate her. the 14-year-old has a long way to go, but her family will be by her bedside soon. the shooting of the pakistani school girl has sparked outrage and anti-taliban feelings in pakistan. astronomers have discovered a new planet with four suns. it's about six times bigger than earth. the first-known quadruple sun

system, scientists say. about 11 1/2 hours to go until round two, when president obama and republican challenger governor mitt romney face off in their second presidential debate which, of course, is moderated by candy crowley. this debate will be a town hall format where the questions come from undecided voters. mitt romney will get the first question and, after his last debate performance, many analysts say president obama will come out swing iing. joining me now, maria cardona, who leans left and is aa democratic strategist and ana navaro who is a republican strategist and cnn contributor. both candidates into ed to connect with the audience. they both had, shall we say, trouble with that in past town hall style debates. let's take a lk at a few examples. >> you had your turn, madame. let me have mine. let me have mine.

i'll give you the microphone in a moment. i'm sorry. it's my turn. you had yours. now it's my turn. would you please hold on a minute and let me finish? >> i'm exhausted of defending you, defending your administration, defending the mantle of change that i voted for and deeply disappointed with where we are right now. >> my goal here is not to try to convince you that everything is where it needs to be. it's not. that's why i ran for president. but what i am saying is that we're moving in the right direction. >> okay. so that answer from president obama went on for four minutes. so you can see both men have some problems in a town had an hall format. maria, i'll start with you. president obama is not the warmest man. so what will he have to do to connect to those voters who were asking him questions tonight.

>> president obama had at least the cordial connection with the voter. we've seen poll after poll that president obama is the one that is seen as the candidate who understands the problems of middle class voters much more so than romney. and i think tonight is his absolute critical opportunity to continue to underscore that, to demonstrate that. he needs to do, i think, three things, carol. underscore how his policies have put us on the path to prosperity from the disastrous economic principles that he was handed from the republicans, point out that romney wants to institute those exact same economic principles that will put us back in the hole and the third thing he needs to do is talk about what he will do for the next four years to bring us out completely from that economic hole he was handed. he needs to feel voters' pains and inflict a little pain on romney by doing those three things. >> i feel your pain.

so, any, we saw that clip from governor romney. and he probably won't be that aggressive. but does he really need to connect to those voters in a warm kind of way or should he just be the businessman that he he is? >> no. he needs to connect with them. i think he's getting better at this. the obama campaign spent a lot of money trying to portray him as a very flat, very businessman, kind of inhuman guy early on. and it worked for a while. but lately we've seen him on the campaign trail tell the human side of mitt romney, tell personal stories, talk about emotional ane krchlanecdotes. i wouldn't be surprised, carol, if a question similar to the clip you showed with president bush 41 came up today where aa regular average american asks either of these two guys who are both well off and live in a bubble of having a lot of means

if they get the pain of the regular america. i think both of them would be well served to be prepared for both a question. i think they need to remember that they're going to be on camera the entire time. being on split screen was a lethal blow for obama in the first debate. and we saw how it was -- how they caught president bush 41 looking at his clock, at his watch back then. you know, i think they need to connect with the questioners. let me tell you the other thing they need to do. if candy crowley asks follow-up questions, they cannot whine during the debate. no whining in politics. >> they have to answer the question, darn it. i want to talk about women's issues a little bit. they were noticeably absent from the first debate when obama led romney in favorability among women. a new poll shows that gap

tighteni tightening. they are moving toward romney's side. what does president obama have to do to get women back on his side? i guess i'll start with you, ana. i would be interested in hearing your answer. >> carol, i think he needs to -- i can encapsulate it in one w d word. he needs to do better than he did in the first debate. he needs to show up and put his heart and soul in this debate and show the american public women, men, children, dogs that he is fighting with everything he has got to keep this job. he did not portray that image. he did not have that hunger in the first debate. he needs to show it. i was amazed by how the lead with women, which looked like an inis yourmountable, double-digit lead a couple of weeks aago has evaporated. >> maria, why do you think it has evaporated? >> i don't think it has evaporated, carol. has romney done better? yes. i don't believe that that gallup poll is even with women. having said that, president obama needs to go in there,

thinking that it is and thinking that he's behind. and ana is absolutely right. he needs to show passion. he needs to show that fire in the belly. he needs to talk about his mother. he should talk about michelle's upbringing. he needs to connect his policies, the policies that he has for women's health issues, for example. and talk about how they deeply connected to women's economics. for example, taking away obamacare would take away a lot of women's abilities to have free prescreenings for cancer, free breast exams, free wellness exams for grandmothers and women seniors. those are critical issues. birth control and abortion rights are absolutely important but he needs to make the connection about women's health issues and their economic fortunes, because they are one in the same. and he has had a tremendous ability to do that. and i suspect that he will do that tonight as well. >> all right. we'll see. maria cardona, ana navaro, thank

you. >> you're welcome, carol. >> thank you, carol. >> cnn's coverage of tonight's debate begins at 7:00 pm eastern. [ male announcer ] you are a business pro. governor of getting it done. you know how to dance... with a deadline. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle...

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41 minutes past the hour. checking our top stories now. former senator arlen specter will be laid to rest today. republican turned democrat died sunday follow iing a long battl with cancer. joe biden will attend today's service. specter represented pennsylvania for 30 years. he was 82 years old. two more drugs could be linked to the growing outbreak of meningitis. 214 people have the rare fungal disease. 15 have died. the fda says anyone who has received drugs made at the massachusetts compounding pharmacy could also be at risk. social security benefits are going up slightly starting next year. the average increase is less than 20 bucs a month, more than 56 million people are on social security.

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undecided voters for the most part will be in control for the town hall style debate here at hofstr aa university, long island. governor romney has won the coin toss. he will get the first question. cnn's candy crowley will be moderating tonight's debate. that means candy will follow up on voter questions.

>> i'm trying to just know what the facts are, what the positions are so that when something comes up that maybe could use a little further explanation might be as simple as, but the question, sir, was oranges and you said apples, could you answer oranges? or it might be as simple as, but, gee, how does that fit with the following thing? so you try to know and study up on as much as there is out there, knowing that hopefully you're getting close to, you know, 90% of the knowledge you need, knowing your only going to use 1%. but you don't know which 1% you're going to need. >> but, like everything else, this political season, that sort of moderating has stirred some controver controversy. to talk about that and more, the co-chair of the commission on presidential debates, frank farankopf. morni morning, frank. >> morning, carol. >> are we ready to go? >> we're ready to go.

they're arriving at an undisclosed location, checking in. candy will be meet iing with th to get their questions and she will decide which questions get answered tonight. >> how many questions have been submitted to the commission and candy? >> first of all, they don't submit them to the commission. the only person who will see those questions is candy. we have no control over it. we do not see them. as many are submitted, they've been told if they want to ask a question to write it down on two cards. one considered they'll keep with them so that if they are called on by candy, they'll have their question ready for her. she divides them into two stacks, foreign policy and domestic policy and she makes the determination. each of the candidates will speak to that question for two minutes, then there's a two-minute facillitation,

discussion. so it's six minutes max. you can divide that by 90 minutes, taking some off the front for introductions and off the back for the closing. we normally get in, hopefully, around 15 to 20 questions. >> frank, we've heard both the romney and obama camps are concerned that candy will do more than just moderate. did you talk with candy about that? >> well, we've talked to candy. she understands when she accepted the position that the rules that are set down by the commission, not by the campaigns -- there's been a lot circulating about this document that's been entered into. we're not a party of that document. the commission isn't. candy isn't. none of our moderators are. our format calls for her to facilitate during that two minutes, additional discussion on the subject asked by the question. we're coming down to the end of a very tough campaign. both of the campaign apparatus

get concerned and i think it's normal there are these concerns. >> if you want someone to sit there like astump you don't use a journalist like candy crowley. when she says she's going to follow up on questions, what does that mean, in your mind? >> it means that whenever the question comes from the citizen -- facilitate further discussion on that subject matter. that doesn't mean she can ask a question about something totally unrelated to the question. so we've met with her, she understands her role, and i think she'll do a great job. >> okay. so -- and i'm going ask you this. i've heard from more than one woman that female moderators are criticized much more than male moderators. gwen ifill, and now candy. why do you think that is? >> i'm not sure i believe that. i think martha did a great job. and 90% of the comments that i've seen, you know, concerning the job she did in the presidential debates were -- was very, very good. so i'm not sure that that's the case.

i just don't accept that. i mean, what normally happens in these debates, and this will be my 25th debate in the last 25 years here, is people who feel that perhaps their candidate didn't perform up to snuff blame the moderator. that is kind of par for the course. there is no way to do a perfect job and satisfy everybody. and that's why we get professionals who know what they're doing to sit in the seat of the moderator during these debates. >> frank farncoff thank you for joining us this morning. all of america is awaiting the debate. thank you so much. that brings us to today's "talk back" question. since president obama is the underdog tonight, what adoes he need to do tonight? your response is next.

"talkback" question this morning. since president obama is the underd underdog, what does the president need to do in

tonight's debate. this from scott. be himself, focus on his plan, how he'll get congressional cooperation and a vision of where he sees us domestically and internationally. from chris, don't be so nice and get nasty like romney. i do not vote for mr. nice guy. i know he has it in him. and this from ed. he needs to just give up and throw in the towel. next question? keep the conversation going, thanks as always for your comments. what?! you've got to be kidding me. [ derek ] i've never seen a road like this. there's jagged rock all the way around. this is really gonna test the ats on all levels. [ derek ] this road is the most uneven surface, and it gets very narrow. magnetic ride control is going to be working hard. the shock absorbers react to the road 1,000 times a second. it keeps you firmly in control. whoa! [ male announcer ] the all-new cadillac ats.

if the san francisco giants needed anymore reason to get up for game two of the nlcs, they got it when their second baseman went down. top of the first inning, the cardinals allen craig hits to shortstop brandon crawford who then tosses to marco scutaro for the force-out. matt holliday comes in to break up a possible double play.

scutaro goes down. the replay shows holliday went into his slide after he passed second base. scutaro would stay in the game to deliver this two-run single in the giants' 7-1 victory. but he was pulled after the fifth inning with an injured hip. scutaro's manager talked about the slide. >> i really think they got away with a legal slide there. the rule was changed a while back and he really didn't hit dirt until he was passed the bag. and marco was behind the bag and got smoked. it's a shame somebody got hurt because of this. >> holliday said, quote, in behind sight, i wish i would have started the slide earlier, but it happened so fast. end quote. the denver broncos have been making second-half come backs all season long. last nights with their best yet. san diego led 24-0 when peyton manning and the broncos' defense took over the game. manning completed 13 of 14 second-half passes, including three -- three touchdown tosses, and denver scored on two

turnovers by chargers' quarterback phillip rivers. broncos win 35-24. minnesota vikings' punter chris kluwy doesn't want to run for political office, but he is speaking out on issues that mean something to him. he supports same-sex marriage and has issued a challenge to any minnesota politician to debate him on that issue. kluwe also told cnn's poppy harlow he would take a bigger tax hit. >> would you pay higher taxes as a way to help balance the budget? >> i would. without question. as long as i have my couch and my video games, i'm good to go. that's all i need. do you really need a diamond en crusted yacht? >> you can hear more of kluwe view's in poppy harlow's full report in the next hour of "newsroom." that's a look at sports. and the next hour of cnn "newsroom" starts right now. stories we're watching right now. taking blame. secretary of state hillary clinton now shouldering the

responsibilities for the american deaths in benghazi. will it help president obama in tonight's debate? a diversity program under attack. it's just students having lunch with kids they usually avoid. but now a conservative group that same program promotes a gay lifestyle. legal challenge. medical marijuana advocates take the government to court. the issue: should marijuana be the same drug classification as heroin and lsd. and it was the jump watched round the world. fearless felix makes history. but could this be the start of a changing future for space travel? "newsroom" starts now. good morning to you. thank you so much for joining us. i'm carol costello. 11 hours before the big debate tonight, and hillary clinton throws the president a lifeline. secretary of state taking full responsibility for the death of the u.s. ambassador to libya and three other americans.

>> i take responsibility. i'm in charge of the state department, 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. the president and the vice president certainly wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. they're the ones who weigh the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision. >> clinton made it clear to cnn's elise labot she does not want to play the blame game following last month's attack, something that is sure to play out in tonight's presidential debate at hofstra university. and speaking of hofstra, everything is ready to go with that university. the podiums are set up, the chairs are in place. 80 undecided voters will ask questions of the candidates and cnn's candy crowley will moderate and most likely ask follow-up questions. cnn political director mark preston is at hofstra. good morning, mark. >> reporter: good morning,

carol. >> want to start with the libya question first and whether that will help or hurt. whether it will help president obama. >> well, look, there's no question that two weeks ago, foreign policy was not much of an issue in this campaign, carol. fact of the matter is, though, it has become an issue. and the romney campaign has really done a good job of trying to use it as a wedge with the american voters. president obama, when you look at the issue of foreign policy, has had a wide lead, all throughout the year on the issue of foreign policy. now, it's not one of the top issues on voters' minds. we note it comes down to the economy. but carol, i think we would be shocked not to hear it tonight, whether that question is going to be asked by one of the audience members or whether mitt romney is going to bring it up himself. i have to tell you, the fact that hillary clinton went out last night and fully accepted responsibility in some ways will help shield the president tonight. but the fact of the matter is, as john mccain said last night, the republican from arizona,

while it's laudable that hillary clinton did that, the fact of the matter is, the buck stops with the president. i wouldn't be surprised to hear mitt romney say that tonight, carol. >> just going back to voter interest in this particular topic, i mean, do polls show there's much interest at all? >> reporter: well, you know, it's not a voting issue, right? we know it's the economy, the economy, the economy. and it's been the economy since 2008 in many ways. that is how barack obama rode his victory against john mccain that year. the fact -- what we've seen over the past couple weeks is an effort by the romney campaign, in some ways a successful effort, to try to erode away the credibility on the issue of foreign policy. but the issue of honesty. we heard different stories coming out from the state department, from the administration officials about what exactly happened in benghazi that night. what led to the killing of the ambassador and those three other u.s. officials. so what the romney campaign is trying to do is to say, look, he's not being forceful in

acknowledging what has happened. it was a terrorist attack. and president obama has not really addressed that so thoroughly. so says the romney campaign. >> all right, mark preston, live at hofstra this morning. let's talk more about the secretary of state, hillary clinton. taking one for the team. in an interview with cnn foreign affairs correspondent elise labot, she had this to say about the attack on the u.s. consulate at benghazi. >> i take responsibility. i'm in charge of the state department, 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. the president and the vice president certainly wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. they're the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision. in the wake of an attack like this, in the fog of war, there's always going to be confusion. and i think it is absolutely

fair to say that everyone had the same intelligence. everyone who spoke -- >> reporter: bad intelligence, it seems, though. >> everyone who spoke tried to give the information they had. as time has gone on, the information has changed, we've gotten more detail. but that's not surprising. that always happens. and what i want to avoid is some kind of political gotcha or blame game going on. >> i think it's a little too late for that. tom fuentes former assistant director of the fbi and cnn contributor. tom, welcome. >> morning, carol. >> so all of this is going on in washington. and the fbi is trying to figure out what happened in benghazi. how does this affect investigators? >> well, actually, it will not affect the investigators. they're going to do a thorough job, no matter what. they're not really paying attention to the politics and, frankly, the fbi team that's working on this could care less about the political implications. they just want to get the facts. but as far as the statement of

the secretary of state, if you listen closely, yes, she takes responsibility and says i was in charge, i'm in charge of the state department. i'm responsible. then goes on to say the decisions were made by security professionals, which means israeli diplomatic security service within the state department. and then also goes on to somewhat fault a lack of intelligence. so that would put that off on the intelligence community and other agencies. so yes, she's taking responsibility the way a captain of the ship might take responsibility if it sinks. but not necessarily saying it's my fault. >> so ultimately, i mean people are saying the president is to blame, no matter what the investigation shows. is that true? >> i think that is true. i think what's going to happen here is that if you're for president obama, you're going to say she did the right thing, it's her fault, the white house had nothing to do with it. if you're not for president obama, you're going to say wait a minute, the buck stops here, and you might even go on to say, did the white house put her up to this.

hurry up and make a statement, taking blame 12 hours or 24 hours before the next debate. which makes it politically suspicious as far as the timing of why she makes that statement now. >> when do you expect some sort of the, you know, concrete answer will come from the fbi, you know, the investigators in libya? >> i think it will be another month or two, probably, before they've completed all of the investigation and looked at all of the intelligence reporting that was available going back not just on this past 9/11 when the incident happened, but preceding it. and i think the other interesting story about this is where else have they received the similar type threat reporting in other dangerous places throughout africa, throughout the middle east, throughout asia? prior to the problem in the post-9/11 2001 era, the intelligence community and law enforcement and state department

are flooded with reporting. and you have this water fall of material they're trying to sift through for the key drops that might indicate a specific attack. so that's the difficulty here, is not a lack of information in one sense. it's almost the fact that there's too much information to determine what is serious and what isn't. >> tom fuentes thank you for joining us. george mcgovern is in bad shape this morning. the former senator from south dakota has been admitted to a hospice in sioux falls. he is 90 years old. as you know, mcgovern ran for president in 1972. he lost to richard nixon. a community in new york is outraged after a violent police arrest is caught on camera. now, an internal investigation is deciding the fate of the police officer. people have doubts about taking aspirin for pain. but they haven't experienced extra strength bayer advanced aspirin. in fact, in a recent survey, 95% of people who tried it agreed that it relieved their headache fast.

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hillary clinton takes one for the team, depending on your perspective. the secretary of state taking full responsibility for ambassador cris hill's death in libya. >> i'm not going to get into the political back and forth. i know that we're very close to an election.

i want just to take a step back here and say from my own experience, we are at our best as americans when we pull together. >> oh, but some conservatives are saying how convenient on the eve of a make-or-break debate. ron braunstein is here to talk about that and more. >> yeah. >> so she tried to make it not political, but it became more political. >> in october of a year easily divisible by four. pretty much everything that happens is political. i think what she said is plausible, as far as it goes. i think it is realistic that a request for more security at an individual diplomatic outpost would not necessarily reach the white house, would ultimately be decided by the state department. if she is taking responsibility, that is completely reasonable. there is another side of the equation, what the white house said after the fact about what happened there, what the president said, what jay carney said, susan rice, u.n. ambassador. and that's something i think is still out there and is going to

be investigated and debated for some time. >> well, in this particular debate, that's going to take place tonight. in this particular format, i mean, the undecided voters are going to be asking the questions. they're not going to get into the weeds like that, right? >> right. >> so how much will it actually help or hurt anyone? >> well, look, it's just kind of a drum beat in the back drop. yeah, the town hall debates are a little bit of a wild card. you don't know what people are going to ask. the questions are not always formulated the way journalists would formulate them, knowing kind of -- living the details of all of the stories. and yet as the respondent, you have to kind of appear empathetic and concerned. probably the most memorable moment from any of the town hall debates was george h.w. bush looking at his watch while someone was asking the question, kind of out of luck, out of time in his case. >> so since president obama is the underdog, that's my "talkback" question for today, what does he need to say? is there one thing he needs to say to get voters back on his side? >> i don't think there is one thing he can say.

i do not think there is any way to return the race to where it was in september where he had had a margin of comfort. i think at best now, we're talking about a dog fight all the way through to the end. but i think he has a couple different challenges tonight. first, i think above all, is to convey energy and passion that he has an agenda that would make people's lives better over the next four years. that was really missing in that first debate. i think he has to try to focus in on some of the questions that are looming over mitt romney's plans, particularly the tax plan and whether he can do the three things he says he wants to. cut tax rates 20%, not increase the deficit and not reduce the share of taxes paid by the rich nonpartisan studies say that is mathematically impossible. the third thing is different. first two debates focus almost entirely on a very narrow range of issues. he really hasn't gotten to some of the issues that activate key elements of his coalition. such as immigration, such as the battle over contraception, abortion came up at the end. he needs to do a little bit i think broaden the discussion to get to some of the issues where he has contrasts that benefit him with the voters he needs.

>> okay. and the final question for you. i think that many analysts are surprised that the last debate was so, you know, wonderful for mitt romney and so not wonderful for president obama. is that unusual? >> i think -- look, i think this is the black swan in the race. i think a lot of people are surprised, myself included that there has not been a clear pattern. debates have mattered sometimes, haven't mattered other times. but there are very few debates that have mattered, judging by the polls, as much as this one. maybe 1980 with carter-reagan, 1960 with nixon-kennedy. it has fundamentally reshaped the race. it has put romney in a position where voters not considering him before, somewhat dissatisfied with president obama are now seriously considering him. and now obama, i think, has an urgent task on both sides of the ball to show what he would do and to re-establish some of the doubts that his campaign worked so laboriously to sow about romney and which romney made enormous progress, at least temporarily, of dispelling in the first debate. >> ron braunstein, thank you so much. >> thank you.

>> i know you're watching tonight. 16 minutes past the hour, new york city police officer under investigation after a violent arrest was caught on camera. two officers, one male, one female, were responding to a dispute at a brooklyn community center last week when, boy, things got out of hand. the video appears to show a male officer hitting a suspect dozens of times after the suspect pulls free. the department's internal affairs bureau is now reviewing the situation. money news this morning, the fbi issues a warning for android phone users. two attacks are fishing for your information, using applications containing malware. the fbi is warning, don't open text messages you don't know and password protect your mobile device. amateur astronomers discovered a new planet in a solar system with four, count them, four suns. the planet orbits two of the suns and is orbited by two more suns and is a little bigger than neptune and about six times

bigger than the earth. scientists say this is the first-known quadruple sun system. the pakistani teenager is recovering at a british hospital one week after she was shot in the head by the taliban in pakistan. 14-year-old malala yousufzai's recovery is expected to take several months. dan rivers is live in birmingham right now. dan, what are the doctors saying about her condition? >> reporter: it well, they're saying she spent a comfortable night here at the queen elizabeth hospital. her condition, they're now saying, is stable. she has had the initial assessment from a whole range of doctors, specialists in brain surgery, dealing with kids and so on. always different teams looking at different areas of her health. now they will go away and start to plan how and when they're going to begin the very long, complicated process of surgery and rehabilitation.

one of the first things they've got to do is an mri scan on her brain, on her head. and they want to sort of build a 3-d reconstruction of her skull and her brain to map exactly where the bullet went through her head and work out what has been damaged or what needs to be repaired. so that's a kind of critical part of all this. dr. david rosser is the director of medicine here. here's what he had to say to reporters earlier on. >> i guess i would say irritating incident overnight. i understand there are a number of people who have been arrested. but there are no security concerns. we don't believe there's any sort of threat to her personal security. we think it's probably people being overcurious. >> reporter: so that's highlighting that overnight people have tried to get access to her. the police here are playing this

down even more, saying actually it was just well wishers trying to deliver flowers to her, and they were turned away saying they weren't even arrested. but it highlights that security is a big concern here. there is still a death threat hanging over her from the taliban who have already once tried to execute her. >> dan rivers reporting live from birmingham, england this morning. thank you. minnesota vikings' punter chris kluwe gets his kicks off the field with politics. kluwe may not be running for office, but he has something to say about the men running for the white house. and it ain't pretty. i've been coloring liz's hair for years. but lately she's been coming in with less gray than usual. what's she up to? [ female announcer ] root touch-up by nice'n easy has the most shade choices, designed to match even salon color in just 10 minutes. with root touch-up, all they see is you.

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now is your chance to talk back on one of the big stories of the day. the question this morning, what does president obama need to do in tonight's debate? the stakes couldn't be higher for the president after his last debate performance, obama saw a drop in the polls and is now running behind mr. romney. 47-48%, according to cnn's latest polls. romney is making in-roads in the swing states and according to

gallup, tied with obama among women voters, once considered a slam-dunk for obama. still obama adviser robert gibb says not to worry. >> i think we're going to have a chance to talk about governor romney's economic theories we tried, quite frankly, for eight years. and they didn't work too well. they ended up crushing us and leaving us with this economic disaster we've been trying to dig our way out of for the last four years. >> yet to dig himself out of this slump, the president will have to score big in tonight's town hall forum and connect with the audience. in other words, take a page from bill clinton's playbook. >> if the question -- if -- maybe i won't get it wrong. are you suggesting if somebody has means that the national debt doesn't affect them? >> what i'm saying -- >> i'm not sure -- help me with the question and i'll try to answer. >> i've had friends that have been laid off from jobs. >> yeah. >> i know people who cannot afford to pay the mortgage on their homes. their car payment. i have personal problems with the national debt. >> thank you. glad to clarify.

>> tell me how it's affecteded you again. you know people who have lost their jobs. >> yeah. >> in my state, when people lose their jobs, there's a good chance i'll know them by their names. >> yep, he really felt your pain. although the race is considered a statistical dead heat, many democrats are worried romney is whipping over the independent voters who waited until now for deciding. talkback question today, what does president obama need to do in tonight's debate? facebook.com/carolcnn. your responses later this hour. just ahead, an amazing felix baumgartner goes into the record books. but is it a jumping off point for the future of space travel? [ ross ] we are in the dades gorge, high up in the atlas mountains of morocco. have you seen this road we're going down? ♪ there is no relief for the brakes. we'll put them to the test today. all right, let's move out!

[ ross ] we're pushing the ats brakes to the limit. going as fast as we can down the hill. we are making these sharp turns, slamming on the brembo brakes. [ derek ] it's like instant response, incredibly consistent. this is the challenge, machine vs. mountain. [ male announcer ] the all-new cadillac ats. by the way they clean themselves in the bathroom. try charmin ultra strong. with a new duraclean texture, it helps you get clean. plus it's four times stronger than the leading value brand. and you can use up to four times less. charmin ultra strong. fire bad! just have to fire roast these tomatoes. do you churn your own butter too? what? this is going to give you a head start on your dinner. that seems easier sure does who are you? [ female announcer ] new progresso recipe starters. five delicious cooking sauces you combine with fresh ingredients to make amazing home-cooked meals. ♪ ambiance

[ female announcer ] new progresso recipe starters. your head-start to home cooked. oh, hey alex. just picking up some, brochures, posters copies of my acceptance speech. great! it's always good to have a backup plan, in case i get hit by a meteor. wow, your hair looks great. didn't realize they did photoshop here. hey, good call on those mugs. can't let 'em see what you're drinking. you know, i'm glad we're both running a nice, clean race. no need to get nasty. here's your "honk if you had an affair with taylor" yard sign. looks good. [ male announcer ] fedex office. now save 50% on banners. c'mon, michael! get in the game! [ male announcer ] don't have the hops for hoops with your buddies? lost your appetite for romance? and your mood is on its way down. you might not just be getting older. you might have a treatable condition called low testosterone or low t. millions of men, forty-five or older, may have low t. so talk to your doctor about low t. hey, michael! [ male announcer ] and step out of the shadows. hi! how are you?

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and good morning to you. i'm carol costello. thank you so much for joining us. it's 30 minutes past the hour. coming up to 30 minutes past the hour. stores are watching receipt now in the "newsroom." a pakistani teenager being treated in a british hospital a week after being shot in the head by the taliban. 14-year-old malalaious your selfa is in the hospital. a man the u.s. government says carried out the biggest military computer hacking of all-time will not face trial in the united states. gary mckinnon has been fighting extradition from london for ten years and today the british government said it would not extradite him. citing concerns over his health. honda says it's past the 1 million mark for hybrid sales. the japanese automaker was the first to sell gasoline-electric hybrids in the united states. honda says it took just under 13 years to reach the million mark

milestone. oh, you know tonight's the night. round two, president obama and republican challenger governor mitt romney face off in a town hall style debate moderated by candy crowley. paul steinhauser is at the university now. good morning, paul. set the scene for us. >> hey, carol, good morning. here's the scene now. neither candidate is here yet, but they will get here in a couple hours. each will have a private walk-through. right behind me, the debate hall, taking a look at the stage where the audience is going to be seated. now yesterday -- i got a sneak peek inside the debate hall with the co chairman of the debates. here's what he told me. >> we're standing right where candy crowley will be, right at this table behind us. and you'll see beyond her two stools where the two kaebcandid will be. and around them, 80 people

chosen from long island. they're the ones who will ask the questions of the candidates. >> live pictures now inside the debate hall. and carol, those 80 people frank was talking about, they are all undecided voters, from the area here. and as he also mentioned, coming up with the questions. they will be meeting with candy crowley at an undisclosed location. i don't know where it is, so don't ask me. what she'll do, she'll gather these questions from these voters, and she'll decide which ones get to ask the questions to governor romney and to president obama. there will be probably time for maybe 15 questions. each candidate will get two minutes to answer, and then candy gets her turn. she can kind of facilitate the discussion for another two minutes after that. that's how it's going work today, carol. >> okay. so who gets the first question? >> well, they did it very scientifically. they flipped a coin, former governor romney will get the first question. he'll have two minutes to answers and then two minutes from the president and we'll see what happens. >> what's the seating situation like?

will the audience be right up there, like right in front of the podiums where the candidates will be standing behind? >> yeah. if we show that live picture, put it up again, it's going to be close, comfortable atmosphere. the candidates sitting on stools. candy will be behind a desk and then the audience is going to be right around them there. and this is why body language is so much more important this time than it was in denver two weeks ago. the candidates when were behind bodyiums two weeks ago. this time every part of their body visible. body language really matters in a debate like this one, carol. >> all right. paul steinhauser. we'll all be watching along with you. thanks so much. the debate's not the only thing people stlar eye on today. outspoken minnesota vikings' kicker chris kluwe says he doesn't like either candidate for president. we're not in london, are we? no. why? apparently my debit card is. what? i know. don't worry, we have cancelled your old card. great. thank you. in addition to us monitoring your accounts for unusual activity,

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he's an outspoken advocate for marriage equality. minnesota vikings' punter chris

kluwe doesn't just reveal his inner geeky side for "out" magazine for defending gay rights, he has a feisty political sign, too. cnn poppy harlow is here to tell us what makes this nfl player so passionate and unusual. >> so unusual. he's all about breaking the stereotypes, carol. and he's been making headlines, he's this outspoken advocate for same-sex marriage. he penned a profanity-laced letter recently to a maryland representative for trying to silence another player's support of same-sex marriage. he really went off on the lawmaker. so i went home to minnesota to find out what makes this quirky video game-loving football player tick. >> so chris kluwe will be taking it away. >> reporter: this is the chris kluwe most football fans know. and this is the minnesota vikings' punter pose ohhing for a prominent gay magazine. >> this is about equality and human rights. >> reporter: kluwe, who is not gay, isn't coming out, he's

speaking out. loudly. where would you say this real passion to defend guy marriage came from? >> the fact is, there are american citizens who pay taxes who serve in our military, who defend this country, who are not benefitting under the same legal protections and laws the rest of us are. and to me, that's flat-out discrimination. that's the same as segregation or suffrage. >> reporter: in a state divided over a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, kluwe has taken his fight to blogs and twitter. >> i will defend to the death your right to say or do what you want, as long as it does not oppress other people. >> reporter: fellow nfl players certainly don't all agree with him, but kluwe says attitudes are changing. >> i think there is a very -- a much more tolerant atmosphere in the nfl now. >> reporter: is america ready for an openly gay nfl player? >> i don't know. i think until someone comes out, we never will know. >> reporter: you've tweeted you

would like to debate any minnesota politician on this same-sex marriage issue. >> still waiting. >> reporter: you're still waiting. >> still waiting. >> reporter: it's not just same-sex marriage that gets him riled up. ask about other hot-button issues and he goes off. >> citizens united, that's a huge issue for me right now. corporations are not people. and if you look at the current presidential race right now, we're spending over $1 billion to determine who our president is going to be. and to me that says that money has an overriding influence in our politics right now. >> reporter: and on taxes? you would be part of the 1%. >> i am part of the 1%. >> reporter: would you pay higher taxes as a way to help balance the budget? >> i would. without question. as long as i have my couch and my video games, i'm good to go. that's -- that's all i need. i mean, do you really need a diamond-en crusted yacht? >> reporter: but don't bet on him running for office. he has zero interest. for now, this is his fight. >> it shouldn't be news when someone speaks out for equality. it should be news when someone speaks out against equality.

>> reporter: he's not wild about either candidate, but says he'll vote for president obama, calling him the less terrible choice. he's not punting this election. >> he is certainly not punting this election. a few other sort of fascinating things, carol. he even wrote a letter to minnesota's catholic archbishop and pope benedict, making all of his points from the bible of why he says same-sex marriage should be allowed. i said, are you a religious guy? he said i'm cheerfully agnostic. fascinating guy. >> so how does his outspokenness go over in minnesota? >> it's a great question. i can it's right down the middle. people in minnesota like me are loyal vikings' fans. but even all his teammates don't agree with him and his stance. and some have spoken out. and certainly not all minnesotans do. there's this big vote coming up november 6th in minnesota, whether or not to define marriage as between a man and woman in the state constitution. and recent polling shows it's really split right down the middle. he's doing everything he can to have that vote not go through.

he's working for minnesotans for equality, and he is going out and speaking. interestingly, though, the vikings, no pushback from teammates or the league. roger goodell, the commissioner, was asked about him and what he thought about this player speaking out in support of same-sex marriage. he said these are the times. people are going to say what they want to say, and that is okay. so there is a changing tone in the league, but still not one single gay current nfl player has come out, even if there is one. that we know. so still support very much. >> i don't believe him when he says he's not going to run for political office. >> he has zero interest. >> after he retires from football, i'm going to place a bet. we'll be watching. >> thanks, poppy. we never get tired of seeing this video. daredevil felix baumgartner's leap. did he jump-start the future of space travel, too? they think all brushes are the same. they're not.

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42 minutes past the hour. checking our top stories now. former senator arlen specter laid to rest today. the republican turned democrat died sunday following a long battle with cancer. vice president joe biden will attend today's service. specter represented pennsylvania for 30 years. he was 82. at least two more drugs could be linked to a growing outbreak of meningitis. so far, 214 people have the rare fungal disease. 15 have died. now the fda says anyone who has received drugs made at the massachusetts compounding pharmacy could be at risk. in money news, social security benefits are going up slightly, starting next year. the average encrease is less than 20 bucks per month. more than 56 million people are now on social security. and medical marijuana advocates hope they can sway a three-judge panel over how the government classifies marijuana. safe access wants the u.s. court of appeals to change the

classification of marijuana from a schedule 1 drug, like heroin and lsd. the dea considers those drugs to have high rates of abuse and no acceptable medical use. you've probably seen video of felix baumgartner's incredible jump by now. he plummeted 24 miles to earth in a free-fall from the edge of space. and lived to tell about it. it was an incredible feat for sure. but it could be a sign that space exploration is moving to the realm of private business. here's cnn's brian todd. >> reporter: felix baumgartner talks about the moments that had all of our hearts pounding when he went no a rapid spin that he may not have come out of alive. he said his rotation started off well. >> and then it started spinning so violent, it spun me around in all different ways, you know. and i was trying to find out how to stop this. putting one arm out, didn't work. put another arm out. >> reporter: baumgartner's feat has experts talking about what's next or when there are risks

that great, is it better for a privately sponsored explorer to go on these missions or a government trained one? >> there is really no reason for a government-trained person to be doing what baumgartner did. >> reporter: john longston of george washington university, who helped investigate the shuttle columbia disaster says his mission doesn't relate as much to space as we might think. 50 to 60 miles above the earth, he says, the upper atmosphere is higher than baumgartner's 24-mile ascent. longston says future astronauts will likely be wearing suits different from what felix baumgartner wore. but will red bullied the way in exploration? aside from baumgartner's mission, space ex contracted with nasa to send an unmanned supply craft to the international space station. this vehicle, space ship 1, privately financed, went over the border into space in 2004 and returned safely. richard branson is trying to develop that into commercial space tourism. listen to what the technical project manager of baumgartner's jump said about their mission.

>> that's really part of what this program was to achieve, was to show high-altitude egress, passing through mach and a successful reentry back. because our belief is that scientifically, that's going to benefit future private space programs or high-altitude pilots. >> that's something you used to hear from nasa's mission control. is this where this is going, companies like red bullieding us into all aspects of future exploration? >> no, i don't think so. there is a market for commercial space flight for adventure touri tourism, for these kind of high-risk, adrenaline-producing undertakings like this jump. but it is still governments that will take its place. it will build space stations or take us back to the moon or to astroids, to mars. >> reporter: why is that? longston says while there are billionaires who invest in these projects, it takes multiple billions to do someplace exploration. and says no individual company

is rich enough to fund that without the possibility of getting a return on investment. also longston says, these missions may be too risky for private investors. he says it's generally more acceptable for governments to take the risks on behalf of society. brian todd, cnn, washington. it's an effort to stop bullying, to get kids to sit with kids they usually avoid. but a conservative group claims there's another reason behind the program. to promote homosexuality. aha! oh...there you go. wooohooo....hahaahahaha! i'm gonna stand up to her! no you're not. i know. you know ronny folks who save hundreds of dollars switching to geico sure are happy. how happy are they jimmy? happier than a witch in a broom factory. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. boring. boring.

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50 minutes past the hour. mix it up at lunch day is an anti bullying project that began 11 years ago. more than 2,500 schools are across the country now participate in the program. with october 30th a day usually set aside for it. but the american family association wants parents to keep their children home that day, saying the program promotes a gay lifestyle. brian fischer is the director of

issue analysis for the american family association. he joins us by phone. welcome. >> thank you, carol. good to be with you. >> mix it up at lunch appears to be a lesson in intolerance. as a religious leader, what's wrong with that? >> parents need to understand about this program, it's a thinly veiled attempt to push the normalization of homosexual behavior in public schools. and to eventually punish students who would express a judo christian view of sexuality. so it appears to be innocent on the surface, but the hidden agenda if you look at the website is about pushing homosexual orientation and alternative sexual behavior. >> so are you saying that merely sitting beside a gay person will promote a gay lifestyle? >> no, but what parents need to understand, this is about pressuring public schools and students in public schools to accept homosexuality as a

normal, healthy alternative to heterosexuality. it's interesting to me they're doing this on october 30, the day before halloween, and what this program is, it's like poisoned halloween candy. somebody takes a candy bar, injects it with cyanide, the label looks fine, it's not until you internalize it you realize how toxic it is. and we want parents to be aware that any program that comes from the southern law center will be toxic to their students' moral health. >> on the website, it urges students to move out of their comfort zone, connecting with someone new over lunch. there is absolutely no mention of homosexuality at all and this program has been going on for 11 years. >> that's fine, carol. and if they want to say it's not about homosexuality and all, we would challenge them to issue a disclaimer, just put a disclaimer right on their web page, mix it up day should not be construed as an endorsement of homosexual behavior, and mix it up day will not infringe on

any student's right to raise serious moral and health questions. >> but they're trying to promote tolerance to all students who may be different so i don't think this the law center would put a disclaimer like that. >> no, they wouldn't. >> the southern policy law center has called your organization, the american family organization, a hate group. and some might say that's really what's motivating you. >> well, the reality is, though, carol, is that what the southern policy law center is about is punishing and intimidating and silencing christian students who take a conservative view of human sexuality. so in reality, southern policy law center is out to bully students who have conservative moral values into silence. the head of the southern policy law center, mark potauk said their mission is to destroy -- >> mr. fischer, i think that the southern policy center could turn the tables on you. because in the past, i'm just going to read to our viewers

what you have said in the past. this is from a radio web cast from september of 2010. you have said, hitler recruited homosexuals around him to make up his storm troopers. they were his enforcers. he discovered he could not get straight soldiers to carry out his orders but homosexual soldiers had no limit to the savagery and brutality hitler sent them after. that spells agenda to me. >> carol, i would encourage you to read a book by machtan, german historian, secular german historian who has written a book called "the hidden hitler." who said that exactly that same thing. >> most people's standard -- >> he recruited storm troopers to be his enforcers. that's exactly what i said, that's what this noted german historian said. i would encourage you to read his book, "the hidden hitler." >> i think most historians would

take issue with that. what i'm saying to you, that by many people standards, would be hate speech. >> well, but the reality is, the southern policy law center, they're out to destroy the frc. that makes them the bullying group. that makes them the hate group. they're the ones that want to silence any view that would criticize the normalization of homosexual behavior. and we know from the cdc and from the fda not part of the vast right wing conspiracy homosexual behavior has the same health risks associated. >> that's just not true. i'm going to end this interview now, sir, because that's not true. mr. fischer -- thanks for sharing your views, i guess. we're going to take a break. we'll be back with much more in the "newsroom."

more than a quarter million people will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. many will become survivors and celebrity yoga and pill lot ease instructor christian mckee has an empowering exercise for them in today's daily dose. yoga is a wonderful tool and aid to have during the breast cancer recovery process. so one of my favorite things is mountain pose. and you're lifting everything up, engaging your lower abdominal muscles, keeping the shoulders down and back. and then you're going to reach your fingertips down to the floor, and you're going to feel that nice empowered stance. you can hold this for five to eight breaths in your mountain pose. and then open your feet to about your own legs' length apart, turn one foot out, another foot

45 degrees. keep both legs straight and active and start to tip to your side so you can slide this hand down the thigh. if you're dealing with any sort of incisions or scars, you can always keep your hand on your hip. this is such a wonderful stretch for the side and back. okay. the question of the day, the "talkback" question, what does president obama need to do in tonight's debate. this from steve, put romney on the spot, ask him about everything he's not telling people, numbers, policies, 47% and why he will not release his taxes. this from tiffany. be honest and forthright, connecting individually with vote, but also point out governor romney's changing positions on virtually every issue. and from lisa, be himself, don't let him get by with distortions, remind people of his successes and share plans fror the future. and from dan, show up this time. please continue the conversation