a well, good morning. it's only tuesday. golly. some kind of a monday, wasn't it? morning, sunshine. i'm here to wake you up. i'm robin meade. there could be an arrest soon in the killing of a university of connecticut football player. what we're learning about a possible suspect. also ahead, a man will be in court accused of trying to sell u.s. secrets to the israeli government. and is blagojevich going to be fired before the new "celebrity apprentice" even airs? what they're worried he's going to say on tv. come on. not blago. all right, our top story.

there will be an arrest soon in the stabbing death of a university of connecticut football player. a defense lawyer says police have told him that his client will be taken into custody. his lawyer says his client did not kill jasper howard, but he was in on the fight with uconn football players when howard was stabbed. one other man was arrested at the scene sunday, but he has not been charged in the killing. last night students held two vigils to remember howard. the violence is dominating conversations on campus. >> you get to see this student/athlete play and that night something happens like this and it's almost too close to home. it is close to home because it's here. >> everybody wants to find this killer. he needs to do his time. he needs to serve. >> rafer weigel is joining us now with more details on the night howard was killed. we knew yesterday that it happened during a dance or after a dance. >> right, robin, and now we're learning even more harrowing

details about what happened after that. the head coach says at least two of howard's teammates attended to him the night he was killed and says one of those players actually held howard in his arms while he died while the other player tried to give howard first aid and dress his wounds. another football player, brian parker, was stabbed but his injuries are not considered life threatening. today students at uconn are encouraged to wear dark clothes to mourn howard. there will be events every day through saturday on campus to honor and remember him as well. robin? >> all right. and we certainly will watch this investigation. thank you so much. today afghan president karzai is expected to announce his plan to deal with his country's messy presidential election. the power struggle there could affect u.s. troop decisions. a u.n.-backed fraud investigation found nearly a third of karzai's ballots were invalid. now that would mean he did not get 50% of the votes needed for an outright win. options include a run-off or possibly sharing power with his

challenger. charges in the balloon boy case could be filed next week. colorado authorities say that the heenes carried out a hoax involving their son and a huge balloon. well, they could face several felony charges including conspiracy. but some say that that is taking things too far. >> we need to not get carried away. there was a false police report made. that's a misdemeanor. to turn it into a conspiracy and taking the kids away, i think we need to be very careful before we're throwing people in jail for a ridiculous but still mostly comic stunt. >> richard heene has spent time in jail before. we're digging into his arrest record in less than ten minutes here. a flu outbreak is forcing some schools to close. right now an elementary school and two middle schools have canceled classes for a few days. about 40% of the kids have a fever, cough, and sore throats. many parents support the

closings. >> they're germ factories. they come home with everything. pencils in the mouth, crayons in the mouth. i think it's a right kigs. >> crews are going to be cleaning the schools. they should reopen as early as friday. remember the woman who died in police custody at the phoenix airport, what, like two years ago? well, now city officials are offering her family a $250,000 settlement. phoenix authorities say carol gotbaum was -- strangled herself. prosecutors say that rob blagojevich's participation on "celebrity apprentice" could taint the jury pool for his corruption trial. they tell the judge he has talked about evidence during other tv appearances and that the reality show may air during jury selection, but they did not ask the judge to bar blago from

the show. they say it's unfair to stop his client from declaring his innocence. >> this is the first time i have ever heard of a law enforcement official coming to court and saying, judge, please shut the defendant up. usually it's the exact opposite. >> blago was not at yesterday's hearing. he was in new york last week taping the show. he is scheduled to compete with people like brett michaels, sharon osborne and cyndi lauper. that is bleeping golden. >> the mix of people -- >> that's great. >> just want to have fun. >> fantastic, politically speaking. it's great tv. fantastic in that way. >> i think blago and sharon osboro osbourne would be fascinating. >> some party through this celebrity trump thing, fantastic. i'd watch it again. let me show you what's going

on across the country. a cool start for the northeast all the way down in towards florida but it's going to warm up quickly today. let me show you the temperature readings. 37 in boston. 38 degrees in albany. frost advisories for south jersey all the way down to southern parts of georgia. right now 46 in new york. live to nyc. if you're travel up here, warmer for you today. eight to ten degrees on top of what you saw yesterday. trying to figure out what we're looking at. probably the east river we're watching right there. so what about the temperatures? 65 the high in new york today. a little bit warmer around the d.c. metro, up to about 70. right now 42. 40 in charlotte and cold near atlanta. about 41 degrees. you can see the cool temperatures extending down through birmingham to mobile. 49 around new orleans. but notice houston, 64 degrees. winds out of the south right here. those winds will be out there for you in dallas through the great lakes. some rain showers ahead of the cold front. you see a good batch of moisture through northern parts of

minnesota stretching on to western wisconsin the now the u.p. of michigan. more light rain behind that. no severe weather today. it's a lot of rain and what about tropical storm rick? the post office may leave be a little extra money in your pocket. plus, this one was no hoax. the original balloon boy talks about an experience 78 years ago that even had the smithsonian taking note.

our salute today is for a marine who is going to turn 21 tomorrow. he has been in afghanistan since may. to celebrate his 21st birthday, started a 21-day charity bike ride to build money to build a home. she misses shane and can't wait until he comes home. do you have someone in the service and you want to salute them? go to cnn.com/robin. this morning at least one

woman was killed after two suicide attacks at a university in pakistan. at least six people were injured. the blasts happened at the international islamic university in pakistan's capital. more than 12,000 students from all over the world go to school there. criminal charges could be filed next week against the man at the center of the balloon boy incident. richard heene has been in trouble with the law at least once before. correspondent richard lui joins us now. okay. so what's he done before? robin, he was arrested in 1997. the l.a. city's attorney's office says he pled no contest to vandalism. he was charged with vehicle tampering and disturbing the peace as part of the same case, but those charges were dropped. 911 dispatchers also got a call from heene's colorado home earlier this year. the sheriff said it made them suspicious about domestic violence but no charges were filed there. >> we know there are three kids, they're 6, 8, 10 years of age.

there is so much concern about them. say their parents are charged, what happened to them? >> robin, they're with their parents for now. the sheriff contacted child protective services to investigate their well-being. they will look into much more than the alleged hoax. >> getting the children to lie to the police and to the media potentially endangering the children by taking them storm chasing, engaging in this crazy behavior is what is being looked at by cps not the hoax. >> and another twist, heene's wife, mayumi, hired her own attorney. he says no one has contacted him or his client about taking the kids away. robin? >> richard, thank you. wait until you see a fight that happened right outside the little boy's home today. there was a dude in a headlock, punches flying. new for you in about 30 minutes, details on the smackdown.

because that's always good to do in front of three little boys, you know. despite the bad economy, people are still willing to pay for some of the things they really want. our money expert jennifer westhoven is here. apple is saying people are snapping up the iphones still? >> they're pretty expensive. you can't see a magazine or watch tv for more than a half hour without seeing ads for the iphone. it seems to be working. they sold more macs and iphones than ever before in the fourth quarter. profits up 47%, way past the estimates. a lot of people signing up for that iphone. the stock shot up 7% last night. at one point $204 a share. that's an all-time high and it may help the stock market when that rings this morning and maybe not just apple. there are some signs maybe everybody is getting sick of being el cheapo and thinking about spending more for christmas. we're talking about some of the

retail sales there. bloomberg is quoting economists who say people could be getting frugal fatigue. t.j.maxx and marshalls said we think people are going to spend more. intel did the same thing and they made chips for so many gadgets there's like a little hint in the air, shall we say, that maybe people have been doing a really good job of saving and they are going to spend a little bit more on christmas. a baby food recall to tell you about. the brand in question is apple and carrot. there are some fears about botulism. if you can't write it down fast enough, check our website cnn.com/robin. >> we have that important website section where jen puts that stuff. or jen asks people to put all that stuff. a u.s. scientist had a top security clearance to work on classified space projects but now he is charged with trying to sell secrets.

15 minutes past the hour. a former u.s. government scientist will be in court today to face charges that he allegedly tried to sell classified info to the israeli government. he had top secret clearance, charged with espionage after allegedly trying to sell secrets to an fbi agent posing an an israeli intelligence agent. new this morning an experimental aids vaccine may only offer short-term protection against hiv. the test results are in. the "new england journal of medicine." but scientists say blood samples from the trial could show experts how to make a better vaccine. the findings also suggest the vaccine may work better in the general population than in high-risk groups. a murder suspect has been added to the fbi's top ten most wanted list. a lot of you are reading about

this on cnn.com. joe saenz is wanted in four killings, a kidnapping and a rape. investigators thought that he might be dead, but then they saw a videotape from last year that they believe shows him killing someone execution style. lebron james apparently had a cancer scare recently. rafer, that's not exactly what you expect to hear about the nba superstar. >> no. somebody young, somebody healthy. >> he's like young 20. >> 23 years old t. goes to show you nobody is immune. for t fortunately for him, robin, he is okay. we heard james had surgery to remove something from his jaw. james has now confirmed it was indeed a benign growth. doctors did a biopsy to determine whether it was indeed cancer. it wasn't. malignant anyway. james told the cleveland plain dealer the whole thing was nerve-racki nerve-racking. he was on edge waiting for the results.

he had the surgery in june after their season ended. he says he had basketball to focus on at the time. the mayor of rio de janeiro says his city will be safer by the time they host the olympics in 2016 but it will not be easy. two weeks after rio was given the games a police helicopter was shot down in a melee with gangs. 21 people died including three officers. it happened five miles away from one of the zones where the olympics will be held in seven years. two baseball playoff games, the same exciting result. first the world champion phillies pulled off late-game heroics down one run in the bottom of the ninth to the dodgers. jimmy rollins hits a double to score two and win the game. and watch as the team and the crowd goes wild. they are one win away from getting back to the world series which is not fair. and then in anaheim the l.a. angels taking on the yankees. the two teams were tied at 4-4 in 191th inning. jeff mathis hit a double to score the winning run. this was a sellout crowd and they say that they are apathetic

in l.a. as far as sports fans go. angels win this one. the yankees still lead it two games to one in the best of seven. in the next half hour the most surprising team in the nfl keeps on rolling and wait until you see one of their ugly uniforms. >> oh, no, the retro thing again? >> still won't go away. >> you know what's amazing to me, who knew that in, i don't know, decades ago, we apparently liked you ugly colors. >> apparently we had bad taste. >> thank you. the balloon chase may have been a hoax but it is bringing back memories of the original balloon boy. bill crawford was 4 years old in 1933. his dad would strap him under a helium-filled balloon. tfls an air show stunt in ohio. one time, though, the balloon got away and he floated out of the stadium. he said he remembered enjoying the ride. >> the draft in the stadium carried me out over the end towards the scoreboard and

apparently i went outside. i was thoroughly enjoying it and i had no fear at that time of flying or looking down. >> well, his flight was a big enough deal for the smithsonian air and space museum to make a record of it. can dogs talk? some owners think so. here's a pooch who they think says "i love you" in today's hot viral video. >> i love you. >> i loaf you. >> good girl. >> i love you. i love you. >> i'd say of course she's saying she loves me. millions of people -- are checking on this one. we dug it up for you on youtube. she is lovelorn. actually your dog, bob, doesn't necessarily say much but he does speak instead of bark.

>> just go outside and do your business. i don't care if it's raining or not. >> which i'm pretty sure could be a curse word. >> i've got you. okay, buddy. i see how you're going. no big whoop today which is some good news. high pressure dominating the eastern part of the country. safer flight explorer shows in towards new york and d.c. look at all the air traffic here. it looks like it's going to continue to be pretty nice out there but we will see the rain showers popping up. dallas, gusty winds. salt lake city experiencing some rain. 30 minute to one-hour delays. seattle morning clouds. that's it, robin. a great day to travel on a tuesday in mid-october. more on that in about a half hour. >> all right, thank you. a college student went to a concert and never came back. no one has seen or heard from her since saturday. and now police are making an urgent plea for help. plus, a truck underwater. a man trapped inside and a tense

effort to save him before time runs out.

a woman was killed in two back-to-back suicide attacks at a university in pakistan this morning. police in islamabad say 13 others were wounded. it is the latest in a wave of recent suicide attacks by militants. they're retaliating against a military offensive targeting insurgents along the pakistan/afghan border. school lunches need fewer fries. that's from a new report from the institute of medicine. it says schools are not following the federal dietary guidelines and need to update their standards. researchers say all that could raise the costs up to 20%.

those are a few of the headlines this morning. i'm robin meade. vaccines for the swine flu are slowly starting to trickle in. in south florida several people lined up to get vaccinated for the h1n1 but health officials were only giving it out to high-risk patients like babies, pregnant women and the chronically ill. >> i have several severe illnesses and i don't want to put my grandchildren in danger and they go to public school and i don't want them to be in danger. i told my daughter as soon as it hits miami, we'd like to be first. federal health officials say despite the slow delivery of the swine flu vaccine, there's no reason for you to panic. however, there has been a rise recently in cases of both the swine flu and the seasonal flu around the country. the next legal step in the balloon boy saga could come next week. this is when richard heene's lawyer says they may file criminal charges. we're getting new insight into heene from the people who knew him all along.

correspondent richard lui joins us now with more on that. okay. so who's come forward? i have some details. two people have come forward. his former landlord for one told the associated press he still owes her a $2,000 security deposit. the family left $6,000 in damage to the home after she gave them an eviction notice and then a second man who said he rented out a spot to heene in a stand-up show in the '90s. he says heene was always trying to get people to invest money in his storm chasing ventures including a plan to ride a motorcycle into a tornado. >> who would ride a motorcycle into a tornado? >> well, he was hoping somebody would. >> all right. those accounts match up with a lot we've heard about this guy. he was apparently in fashion with the idea of how to be a star n. a way,a weird way, he got what he wanted. this has turned into a pop

culture phenomenon. >> and the last chapter has not been written yet. there are dozens of fan groups online when you talk about that culture and you can buy balloon boy merchandise on top of that. one t-shirt says go falcon, go. there it is. and then cafepress.com has the all time hide and seek champion. of course he never was in the ballo balloon. websites aren't the only ones with jokes. here's what jay leno had to say about the story last night. >> you see it was smart for them to try this balloon stunt while president obama was in office. that wouldn't have worked with the bush administration. cheney would have shot that balloon. get out of here! kid or no kid. yeah. get it out of there. >> so now time, robin, to sit back and laugh a little. >> yeah. now that we're all so glad the little boy is safe, hoax or not. richard, thank you. iran is having a hard time

convincing americans that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. in a new cnn poll out this morning nearly nine in ten people think iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons but there is less agreement on how to respond. more than half favor military action against iran but that is less popular than negotiating. a man got trapped under water when his truck plunged into a creek. we'll watch this res dmu missouri yesterday. a report bystanders jumped in but could not get the man out so they tried holding his head above the water. firefighters eventually freed him and they did cpr. he is expected to survive. police are investigating how he wound up in the creek. the man who wrote the addams family theme song has died. ♪ the addams family ♪ the house they knew ♪ when people come to see them ♪ they really are the addams

family ♪ >> get this, he sang the song himself. his manager says he died saturday in his bel air home. he also wrote the theme song for "green acres." the cause of death is unclear. vic mizzy was 93. wow, his home in bel air. apparently being a songwriter paid well back in the day. all right. 35 minutes past the hour. we are watching -- is it hurricane rick? let's talk to bob. >> tropical storm now. >> now it's tropical storm. >> remember yesterday it was category 3 storm, 125-mile-an-hour winds. 180-mile-per-hour winds. right now only 65-mile-per-hour wind. you can see a little bit of resurgence mainly in the northern side of the storm. the center of circulation is right about here. you can see it there. it's keeping it from becoming a

hurricane again. in the path of this, close to the la paz area and stretch into the mexico coast sometime probably thursday or friday. basically rains itself out over northern parts of mexico. some of the rain might get picked up by a frontal boundary, moved on in to texas and the lower gulf coast by this weekend. otherwise i don't think we'll see much of a problem out of this. great news. the other story, cold air setting up shop. 31 degrees in portland. temperatures all the way down through the mid-atlantic are cold. look at some of these readings. 39 at richmond. 42 when you get to roanoke. baltimore 37. d.c. is 42 but the dry air is out there. it's going to heat up nicely for you and quickly, too. here is what it looks like in the capital. lots of sunshine today once it comes up and, again, with the dry air it heats up pretty fast, 70 degrees the high temperature in washington. 70 in atlanta. about 65 in new york. it's a beautiful day. >> okay, thank you.

so cold but a little bit warmer. right? >> yes. about five to ten degrees. >> all right. in the middle of some serious storms a man drove into a huge sinkhole but now police say there's something very suspicious about his story.

♪ would you look me in the eye and tell me that you're happy now ♪ we are hearing from the mother of a gay teen whose photo was banned from her school yearbook. 17-year-old sierra sturgis wore a tuxedo. the photo was rejected. her mom says she got a school letter saying that only boys can wear the tuxes in the yearbook

photos. >> they don't feed and clothe my child, they don't put food on my table. i don't care. what i care about is my daughter's feelings and what -- how she feels about herself. i support her 100%. >> the school superintendent says federal court decisions uphold the school district's decision not to publish the photo. the aclu has taken on the teen's case. it's demanding that her school publish the photo. some of the appliances with the best energy rating may not be that great after all. our money expert jennifer westhoven is looking out for you. >> i felt like the story is infuriating. you're trying to save energy so you look for the sticker, you're going to get a tax rebate maybe. it means you're going to save energy, like a seal of approval. >> not always the cheapest. >> you have to pay more for these up front, too. but there are reports many of these appliances should not get

that energy star sticker at all. here's consumer reports talking with cnn's mary snow. >> in our labs we found it used a lot more energy than it claimed. >> so can a manufacturer just put on an energy star sticker if it wants to? >> well, they're supposed to have these tested and they do but they themselves test it. >> it boils down to do you trust the companies to be making the stickers themselves, to be telling the truth on the stickers. even the energy department is acknowledging that there's a problem. they found some of the same things in their audits. what is it doing? it doesn't seem like very much. "the new york times" says the energy department has said something should be done and they're looking to expand testing but they haven't really put a by when something should be done. they haven't had any firm guidelines out there so there's not necessarily that much accountability at this point but we'll keep watching that one. another subject that we'd love to talk about here because it's one of those subjects you love

to hate. overdraft fees. help could be on the way. senate leaders just proposed some curbs on them and if it passes you'd have the choice of participating, meaning you could get hit with a fee if you want to, if you go over the limit, or you could choose to have your card declined. >> okay. so it's either you get embarrassed in line when they say, i'm sorry, they're not accepting your credit card, or you pay the fee to save face? >> just pull out another card. there's nothing embarrassing about that anymore. it's not like the old ads. >> seriously, you can now say, oh, the card's bent. it had it in my pocket. everyone is still talking about -- everybody is still talking about the 6-year-old colorado boy and the alleged balloon hoax. here is joy behar and what her guests had to say about it. i love that the kid threw up. it's so incredibly freudian. he lies and then he pux.

look at when he throws up. he throws up when his dad is asked, is this a hoax? and he's expected to go along with the lie. >> he threw up twice. he threw up on two morning shows and the parents didn't bail out of the second one. throw up on tv once, shame on me. >> didn't george bush use that? >> watch "the joy behar show" here on hln. wait until you see a brawl near the balloon boy's house. a man in a headlight, headlock and punches were flying.

a fallen hero was laid to rest in savannah, georgia. vernon martin was killed earlier this month in the deadliest battle for u.s. troops in afghanistan in more than a year. 25-year-old martin earned a purple heart and a bronze star. he leaves behind a wife and three kids.

>> staff sergeant martin not only fought for his country, he believed in family values. he was the good guy. he was the kind of person we need more of in this community. >> i would want his children to know they had not only a father but a man who was willing to make that big step and defend his country. >> martin and seven other soldiers who died october 3rd battled with taliban intour gents for 12 hours. you have to see a brawl outside the balloon boy's home. a man confronted a fox news crew sunday when another man, who is not with fox, got involved. i'm sorry. it's funny. the man in the yellow shirt put the other guy in a headlock. headlock. and then -- and then the first guy starts throwing punches. i'll teach you!

the fight broke up before police arrived. no arrests so far. don't you mess with the news cry. i know. i'm sorry. am i brazen in that i'm laughing at it? maybe so. >> i don't think so. >> okay. it's just absurd looking. right in front of the balloon boy house. hi there. >> that's why rafer and i go to the gymnasium. that's what we do in the gymnasium. >> you never cover coyote highlights. let me show what you it looks like. a great day to travel today. usually you get the winds popping up around the great lakes this time of year with lows moving in. shouldn't be that bad. dallas looking about 30-minute delay because of gusty winds. again, about 30-mile-per-hour winds today. denver, same thing. 30-mile-per-hour winds. salt lake city, rain especially in the morning. 30 minutes in seattle. morning clouds and showers. 30 minutes but that's about it. more details in about a half hour. >> i want to point out you're

holding your coffee. >> forgot to put it down. >> because this is where you put your notes. >> it is. >> he puts his notes on the coffee. >> a true professional. >> when it's alcohol he puts lines on it. just kidding. if you still send snail mail, the post office says that it's freezing prices for stamps and other products. a first class stamp will right now cost you 44 cents. we have new details in the alleged murder/suicide involving former nfl quarterback steve mcnair. rafer has more on that. it's been a while since we've heard about the investigation. >> yeah. and there's some dispute over the whole murder/suicide thing. some people don't believe it. police released text messages between mcnair and his mistress, who police say shot and killed him before she turned the gun on herself. it seems to support the police's

position. she apparently texted mcnair saying she was so stressed she might need to go to the hospital because she was having a breakdown and also asked mcnair for $2,000 to pay her cell phone bill. police say mcnair did transfer the money. this comes after a cbs news report from her friends who said she would never commit suicide. and the white house isn't saying whether it was pardon african-american john sir jack johnson jailed for dating a white woman in 1913. the first african-american to win the heavyweight title. he was put in jail for ten months. the house and senate both passed resolutions asking for the pardon. i'm sure the president will but he might be a little busy. it is the most exciting and the most rare play in the nflt envelope and that is the return for a touchdown. denver receiver eddie royal became the first broncos player ever to run back both a kick and a punt for a score in the same game. now the broncos have been the biggest surprise. they beat the chargers.

but the most important thing to point out, the uniforms. look at the socks denver is wearing right there. they look like clowns. and the chargers in the background, i'm just saying. that's a look and they're doing because it's the anniversary? >> it's the 50th anniversary of the afl. that is how they dressed 50 years ago. some criminal experts are breaking in without a weapon. clark howard tells you why small businesses are a prime target. >> i have special news for you if you own a business. criminals are experts at trying to crack the computers at big companies. usual you might have a lot of money running through your account, especially on payroll day. so what criminals are doing, they're attacking the computer

systems of small businesses with what are known as trojan programs that they load on your computer, they're able to access your bank and brokerage account password, and at key moments, when you tend to have high balances, they go in, swoop in, take over your accounts and run off with the money. usa today had a great suggestion for small businesses. buy a new computer that you use only for banking and financial web sites that you never use for anything else. i'm clark howard. for more ways to protect yourself, go to cnn.com/clarkhoward. >> clark will teach you to save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off, so catch him at noon eastern on saturdays and sundays right here on hln. a man drove into a huge sinkhole last month, but it may not have happened like we thought. in fact, the driver has now been arrested. there were supposed to be barrels blocking the road, but a witness tells police that the man drove around barrett rels

and got stuck in the sinkhole then. so he moved the barrels to make it look like they were blocking the road. the driver is facing several charges. people cannot stop talking about the balloon boy saga. there is a new zinger from the now famous cnn interview that will keep you talking about it.