good to have you with us. we'll see you back here in america's newsroom on monday. "happening now" starts right now. gregg: have a great weekend. jon: a bank robbery in texas forcing an elementary school lockdown there, good morning i'm jon scott. jenna: i'm jenna lee. there are new reports of a potential hostage situation being over. a nearby elementary school remains on tight watch as you can imagine. officers suspect the robbers are still inside that vintage bank, again, right outside del last, texas. we'll bring you the latest as we get it. jon: we're learning from the desk that that lockdown at the school has been lifted. in the meantime the obama administration expected to announce today that the federal budget deficit exceeds $1 trillion for the second consecutive year. the soaring deficit a huge political issues leading up to the elections.

mike emanuel with more on that. what do we know about the numbers for 2010. >> reporter: the figures expected to be in the neighborhood shy of $1.3 trillion to give our viewers a little context. that is expected to be the second worst relative to the size of the economy since the end of world war ii, with last year being the worst year so far. obviously bad news in terms of our deficit and ultimately people who are worried about government spending and the deficit long term will be anxious hearing that number, jon. jon: what about the politics of all this. we are less than three weeks away from midterm elections. >> reporter: democrats i've spoken with say that there is a sense that you kind of need to 0 keep an arm's distance away in some of the tough races from the white house, from president obama, recognizing there is frustration in the country about the economy right now, there is frustration about the government spending, the debt, the deficit. what we're seeing is some democrat saying, i know the president is a great fundraising

force out on the campaign trail but if i'm in a tough fight against a republican opponent it might be wise to keep a little bit of space during these difficult economic times. jon: mike emanuel at the white house for us this morning. thanks, mike. >> reporter: sure, jon. jenna: a huge reaction to our america's asking town hall usa segments. we're talking about the debt, the deficits, your doubts. the economy is on everybody's mind, we want your questions on the economy and how it might affect the elections. i'm getting great questions from victoria, keith, randal, scott on the board already, i appreciate it you can get online and talk a little bit to jon, harris, myself. you can get to it by going to the foxnews.com home page. right on the home rage there is a link very easy to access. >> reporter: it's a lot easier today, it's a lot of fun. i signed on almost an hour ago, that's how i roll, i like to get

into the chatter lee. jenna: the early bird catches the worm. >> reporter: yeah it's always fun. people will send in their political questions today for later on the panel. they are exchanging some thoughts. it's like he's dropping on a really good conversation, right there on our home page. you can go try the "happening now" page too so you can look at cool videos and check out things while you are there. a lot of options. jenna: we have great comments coming, we'll be watching those. the next big story today a fox news exclusive on a new terror threat that has u.s. intelligence extremely concerned. sources are telling fox news that the same terror group that sent faisal shahzad to time square may have an operative inside the u.s. ready to strike us again at any moment. jennifer griffin broke this story, she is live at the pentagon with more on this. what else are you hearing today. >> reporter: three separate intelligence officials have confirmed to fox news that there is new intelligence suggesting

that the pakistan taliban has sent an individual to carry out as you mentioned a times square style attack inside the united states. he was sent, we are told from the same area, the tribal areas of pakistan, the same area where the failed times square bomber was trained on the border between pakistan and afghanistan. this attacker wants to carry out a very similar attack using similar materials but that it's not clear whether he would target times square again. this fbi demonstration video that you are about to see demonstrates how a blast using those materials that faisal shahzad had, what it would look like. the fbi put that together during faisal shahzad trial. i'm told there are five different threat streams right now that have the intelligence community extremely concerned. three of the streams focus on plots in europe, two of them, including the one i've just described focus on the united states homeland, jenna. jenna: we are showing some of

the mock video that we're looking at for the failed times square attack. why are experts convinced that there might be something similar coming? >> reporter: well, don't forget that al-qaida's trademark is that when they fail at a certain attack, remember with the world trade center, they failed once, they came back, tried again, that has people concerned, but then they also intercepted this new intelligence. they say it's not necessarily an imminent threat, they are watching it they are hearing an all time level of chatter. listen to shahzad, this came onto the internet in july. >> it's not difficult at all to wage an attack on the west, specifically in the u.s. and completely defeat them. >> reporter: this video was made prior to him being caught of course on may 1st, jenna. jenna: scary stuff to listen to. you sat down with general james

conway the commander of the marine corps. it was his last interview before he was retiring. did you talk anything about this threat we're hearing about. >> reporter: yes, in fact we did just have the final exit interview we're told, television interview with general james conway. i asked him about this new terror threat, he would not comment on the specific intelligence because of course it's class need but he did say that they are extremely aware and extremely concerned about the threat coming from pakistan's tribal areas. listen to what he told us. >> jennifer, we've seen reports that there is an effort on the part of i'll say al-qaida al-qaida/taliban to reach out into western european the united states. we think that it's probably coming from the other side of the border, and i think it's fair to say that our nation has done proper warning and is taking steps in our own defense to try to insure that that does not happen.

>> reporter: that exclusive interview will be aired tonight at 6:00pm on bret baier's special report. we'll have the full interview, his last interview before he retires from the marine corps after 40 years of service. jenna: than that you very much, jennifer griffin at the pentagon today. jon: there is some dramatic footage of riots coming out of greece. right now the country's top tourists attractions under heavy guard. tourists are just now returning to athens, ancient monuments guarded by rows of police. louis joins us on the phone. first of all the rioters are what, public service employees primarily. >> reporter: yes, they are the culture ministry's temporary staff. there are about 320 of them who have not been paid in the last 22 months. they've also been promised that they will be given permanent jobs and this has not been carried out as well. jon: so they are rioting outside

places like the acropolis. >> reporter: the rioting was caused by the police, they had closed off the acropolis for the last couple of days, they had padlocked the gates and the police decided yesterday to remove them through orders of the government and this is where the problems occurred, and of course they used tear goods and there was a nasty scene and some journalists were also injured in the attacks. jon: so many americans have visited that ancient monument, is the acropolis it the selfin any danger at this point? >> reporter: no, actually it was open today after the protest, the three daypro test the demonstrators left the area, and police were allowed to allow the tourists to go in free of charge by the government. they say of course they will be returning tomorrow but they won't be closing the dates, they'll actually be closing the box offices. this is another problem for the government, in other words they won't be making any income out of the tourists coming in.

it looks like the tourists again tomorrow will be going in tree. jon: i'd suppose i'd be a little upset too if i hadn't been paid in 22 months. is there merit to their claims. >> reporter: definitely. the government says we have no problem with paying them if they bring the proper papers that are necessary. but they cannot promise that they will be receiving a permanent job after october 31st when their contracts run out. jon: i suppose this is all related to greece's economic troubles, right? >> reporter: yes, definitely of course there is a situation where the socialist government is under intense pressure to slash the state's spending. we were on the brink of bankruptcy this year. they imposed a sweeping pay cut and hiring freeze and this of course caused problems in the public sector. jon: thanks for your information. jenna: another big story internationally iranian ahmadinejad finding himself in

in controversy again. why he's speaking with an israeli enemy. we are taking you live to the streets of new york city, police are -- people are playing a game with their tax dollars. uncle sam? >> reporter: the federal government is expected to spend $3.6 trillion this year, much of that if your hard i've earned tax money. we'll have the "wheel of fortune" or misfortune. we'll have all the numbers for you after the break, and let me tell you they are not pretty. [singing] ♪ [ male announcer ] the next big thing from lus is not a car.

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i have twins, 21 years old. each kid has their own path. they grow up, and they're out having their life. i really started to talk to them about the things that are important that they have to take ownership over. my name's colleen stiles, and my kids and i did our wills on legalzoom. [ shapiro ] we created legalzoom to help you take care of the ones you love. go to legalzoom.com today and complete your will in minutes. at legalzoom.com, we put the law on your side. jon: a controversial meeting in lebanon that the west is watching closely. iranian president bernard madoff ahmadinejaahmadinejad skwrad isg

with a state official. he spoke to a crowd of thousands of supporters in a hezbollah stronghold a few miles from the israeli border. israeli leaders are causing this visit provocative. jenna: the federal budget is about 3 1/$2 trillion. that's a lot of zeros. what are we the taxpayers getting for that money. ashley webster is checking this all out. >> reporter: $3.6 trillion. what is a .1 trillion to your friends and family, it's your hard earned tax money being spent by the federal government. what we are doing is breaking it down. you can see uncle sam is joining me down. he's spinning the "wheel of fortune." this highlights where the money goes. it goes to defense, other government programming and to healthcare. for all the money you're putting into the federal government's budget what do you get? right here this little slither

right here that's your share of the services and what you get back from the government, it totals $11,500 each. many of you will be a little distressed by that amount. it's not a whole lot is it out of $3.6 trillion. with the way the budget is going, if the bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year, your contributions will go up but this tiny little mark on this wheel will probably get even smaller. the question is how greedy is uncle sam. unhe will sam people say you're greedy, what do you say? >> i am. >> reporter: are you going to give us some of our money back. >> no. >> reporter: there you go hard-earned money, jenna. see that, he's quick. the question is of course it does highlight in a comical way but it's serious as you can see $3.6 trillion. we all know that government spending, where does it go? we spent almost 800 bill dollars on the stimulus. as you know many people will say where were the jobs created by the economic stimulus. all in all a lot of government spending and people will tell

you as the government gets bigger your return often becomes smaller. jenna: i was looking for a free sraeu waeugs or a car on that wheel. i didn't see any. >> reporter: no. jenna: happy anniversary. >> reporter: thank you, jenna. jenna: everyone is better for having fox business around. >> reporter: three years, many more to come. jenna: thank you very much. thanks to uncle sam as well. >> reporter: thank you uncle sam. jon: ashley has blown the budget at fox business by building that wheel i'm afraid. jenna: it illustrates the point. jon: it sure does. the democrats in the white house are going after the u.s. chamber of commerce accusing that group of saking secret money to get republicans elected. guess what, their attacks might be helping the chamber in the long run, we'll explain. the happiest place on earth gets a little heated. harris is following that story at the breaking news desk. >> reporter: there are no characters in this one, a very real dad with a very real baby in his arms and some very real angry hands around the throat of

a disney bus driver. it's the video you have to see. coming up. ready to try something new? campbell's has made changes. adding lower sodium sea salt to more soups. plus five dollars in coupons to get you started. campbell's condensed soup. pass it on. campbell's.® it's amazing what soup can do.™

jon: "happening now" a bus driver for walt disney world on paid leave right now after a wild fight between him and a tired father gets caught on video and splashed all over the internet. who better to bring it to us been harris faulkner. >> reporter: what i'm hoping is that the bus driver is not spending a lot of time on youtube these days. this thing is blowing up. we have a little bit to show you here. i'm going to talk over it. but when you watch people you can listen to people screaming in the background. the guy with his hands around the neck of that bus driver has a baby, he's hurling the baby at the bus driver. i watched it over and over. there was a machine and woman

standing outside the bus with their little one. he had the carrier, she had the baby. he grabs the baby, he's angry because the bus driver opens the door and says there is not enough room for you but there is another bus coming. the guy boards the bus, let's though show it again. he gets so angry he's screaming. let me be quiet for a second. he's screaming, he says you have to let us on, you passed us by, it's not fair, why are there no seats left. the woman recording it says look i'm recording this i'm going to zoom in, you saw that right there. you mentioned that the worker has been placed on leave, that bus driver, walt disney world resort, no scripts no characters in this, and jon i don't know if you've taken your kids there but these buses come like every 30 seconds or every minute. jon: it's not usually a long wait. >> reporter: it really isn't. this turned into quite the altercation. the video i watched was several minutes long, there was a long discussion with several people coming up after what you just

saw play out, really interesting stuff, going viral today. jon: that passenger needs a vacation. >> reporter: he was on a vacation. jon: what's what i mean i'm going to disney world. >> reporter: he needs a longer one, thanks. jenna: a political slug fest less than three weeks before the midterm elections. in one corner you have president obama and the democratic national committee. in the other you have the u.s. chamber of calmers. here is a look at one punch thrown by the dnc. >> karl rove, ed gillespie, they are bush cronies. the u.s. chamber of commerce, they are shields for big business and they are stealing our democracy spending millions from secret donors to elect republicans to do their bidding in congress. it appears they have even taken secret foreign money influence our elections. jenna: chris stierwaltz is the

digital fox news editor. this battle has been going on for a little over a week. have the ads worked? >> reporter: they have worked, jenna except not in the way that the administration or the democratic party had hoped that they would. they worked for the chamber of commerce as fundraising numbers. we had an exclusive this morning in the power play where the chamber of commerce sources inside the chamber of commerce and political operatives working with them told us that not only has it been good for their fundraising but that even just a week ago that the chamber was uncertain that it would be able to meet its $75 million commitment to theee electrics and that thanks to these ads stirring up their donor base they've got the money now and they can roll out the very aggressive nation-wide strategy that they had been planning to roll out in the closing days of the elections. the president and his team really gave them the tools that they need at the end. jenna: a little bit of a short term backfire, if you want to

say on some of the ads, chris. but that question still remains, even with that burst of money into the chamber of commerce that we've seen over the last couple of days, you've reported this exclusively, where did that money come from? >> reporter: well the money came from all over the place. this is what's very interesting about it. you had, for example, glen beckon his radio show, he gave $10,000 on the radio show while he was talking about the attacks on the chamber of commerce. people may not follow this in and out but glen beck is more of a tea party guy and less of a big business guy. basically what the administration and the democratic party did here was unite the donor base behind the chamber of commerce to give them the tools that they need. normally you wouldn't associate sort of the tea party movement with big business at the u.s. chamber. but beck demonstrated that that's brought together. the the other people who are giving here are conservative members and donors inside the chamber who are members who had been skeptical whether or not they were going to take a hard

enough line against the administration. once something like this happens and the administration sort of declares all out war on the u.s. chamber there is no more doubts any more and these folks opened up their checkbooks. jenna: it's an interesting trend about the tea party getting more big business or more mainstream i guess you say with their donor base. is that trend extending anywhere else besides the chamber of commerce? are we seeing any evidence of that? >> reporter: the fights will come after the election. right now the tea party movement and big business all share a common enemy which is the policies of the obama administration. so it's easy enough. they'll have to sort out their problems later. right now you see somebody like sharron angle in nevada who is getting support from big business, from small business, from tea parties, from everybody on the right, because what these groups basically say is we can fight later, right now let's beat democrats. jenna: interesting. thank you so much chris, that exclusive reporting on power play. everyone can get politically

powered up every day on your iphone you log onto foxnews.com and click on the link for info on how to download this great app. you can be on -- in the know as we countdown every day to the crucial elections. jon: americans may have dodged a deadly attack when shahzad botched the times square bombing attempt. the feds put on a demonstration a few weeks ago. this is what the blast could have looked like if we get to the other re-enactment tape, the blast could have looked like if shahzad had pulled it off. there it is. hundreds of people in times square, new york city could have been killed and now we are getting word the pakistani taliban may have another operative in the u.s. his goal apparently to finish that job. also, a typo leaves electionee figureses red faced. this candidate for governor is named rich wh itney.

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>> reporter: we are all over a situation that has turned out to be an all-out manhunt in texas today. two employees were locked inside a bank vault at the vintage bank on 77 north freeway, highway, i should say there. they're okay. two women are unhurt. s.w.a.t. members and a whole lot of armed authorities looking for

a guy who took an undisclosed amount of cash. this worked for him to go in there, wait for the employees to get there, lock them this a vault, and then he got away with the money. police are a not releasing a description, but they are sweeping the neighborhood around this bank, vintage bank in the center of your screen, and they're also doing something else, they're reviewing the surveillance video. they say cameras were rolling during this crime, so i'll stay on this story. again, the most important part, the two women are unhurt, but they're warning this neighborhood, this robber is out there somewhere. the nearby school that was in the area has been taken off lockdown, but everybody is still on alert as this manhunt continues. now back to jenna and jon. jon: harris, thanks. "happening now" fears of a new terror threat in this country. you probably remember back in may america dodged a potential disaster when faisal shahzad botched his car bombing attempt

in the heart of new york's times square. but with intelligence sources telling fox news the pakistani taliban may have another operative in place in america right now, we might be so lucky -- we might not be so lucky for long. let's talk about it with terrorism expert neil livingston, the chairman and chief executive of executive action. i used the word luck, neil, and, you know, the first homeland secretary tom ridge is famous for having said, we have to be right 100% of the time, the terrorists only have to be right once. >> that's right. and they came very close at times square to having a very successful bomb that probably would have shattered windows throughout that area, glass would have fallen on people. but they, they had a couple of imperfections in the bomb, and what we think now is they've sent maybe one or more people into the united states who are better trained because they want to get it right this time. jon: right. it seemed at first like faisal

shahzad's attempts to which he pleaded guilty was amateur hour. he used fireworks that didn't have much explosive power, the wrong kind of fertilizer, but when the fbi did reconstruct his attempted bomb and used some slightly better ingredients and a little better methodology, they came up with that powerful explosion that you were just referring to. >> that's right. but we're not only afraid of bombs in this case. we've had this online al-qaeda or jihaddist publication inspire that talked recently about carrying out smaller attacks in the united states if they can't carry out big attacks. and can they recommended machine gunning or attacking restaurants in many washington, d.c. during the noon hour so they could kill federal workers. they talked about plowing people down with pickup trucks and things like that. so i think they've got a whole bag of tricks right now, and because we don't have any specific information about these guys, it's going to be very hard to find them. jon: and it's not the kind of thing you can prevent with metal

detecters or body scanners at airports, for instance. >> absolutely. i mean, these guys, the lone terrorist, the guy that we call the lone jackal, is often the very hardest guy to find because he doesn't have a support network. he goes out and if he's been trained properly, he gets whatever the ingredients are, or he simply gets a gun like major hassan down in fort hood and starts shooting people. there's such a limitless number of things they could do, we can't be prepared for every unall the time. jon: and in shahzad's case, he was under pretty good cover, so how do you find these people? >> well, right now, obviously, we want to do everything we can in the terms of intelligence gathering, electronic eavesdropping and so on on communications. we're probably at this point going back to look at everyone that might fit a certain profile

that has come into the united states in the last month or two, perhaps from pakistan or perhaps via some other country. but the real problem there is that they've been working very hard to get people with american passports to recruit them. and if this guy should come in or several people with american pass ports, that's going to make it even more difficult to determine who they are. jon: neil living strong from executive action, thank you. >> thank you. jenna: well, cold and flu season taking on a whole new meaning in the computer age now. touch screens are the latest way to spread old-fashioned germs. dr. mark segal, a member of the fox news medical a team, is joining us now. and we even have an example because we have our chat going on, the touch screen for this ipad, doc. we're saying it's worth the risk for our viewers to see what we have to say. how bad is it becoming?

>> it's becoming worse. it's going to peak in january, but it's now starting, that's one of the most easily transmitted viruses or back baca that we have. it's inside a droplet, and it can spread from 3-6 feet in the air or by touch. and, you know, a hygiene expert studied this and found that on cell phones there's 18 times more germs than on the toilet handle in a men's room. can you imagine? is. jenna: that's gross, doc. you want to hold this now? [laughter] >> here's the thing, you've got to use disinfectant on these surfaces, on your computer screen, on your ipad, on your ipod, your cell phone, on an at&t-type machine. and then the most important thing is you've got to use the hand wipes on your own hands or wash your hands vigorously. jenna, the flu is not getting in through your hands. even if you're harboring it on your hands, we then touch our face. it gets in true your nose and mouth. not only do you wash your hands,

but you have to watch out where you put your hands. one of the reasons that kids are superspreaders of the flu is they don't watch that. they touch their nose, they touch each other. jenna: it's a good reminder just to think about that, that's the way it actually spreads. we had a question on how important it is because of some of the new risks this year to tibet a flu shot. how important do you think that is? >> well, it's more important than ever. all through childhood you're supposed to get this because we have something called herd immunity. i've got to vaccinate everyone around infants. we're expecting a fairly mild season -- jenna: why is that? >> last year we had the pandemic strain. this year the viruses we've seen in the sowsh hemisphere are relatively mild, but even mild is still millions of people getting infected, over 30,000 tend to die a year because of the flu. this is a serious virus whether

it's a mild surgeon by comparison. -- season by comparison. jenna: and you still don't like it when you get it. >> that's why it's called the grip. let's watch it, clean our ipads. jenna: thanks very much, dr. segal. good to have you. jon: i have my flu shot scheduled. thanks, doctor. election officials are fixing a typo after electronic voting machines in 23 districts misspelled the name of rich whitney. he is the green party candidate for governor of illinois. and you can imagine that whitney is furious. his name was changed to a word with racist overtones. they left out the n. in fact, half of the machines were headed to predominantly african-american districts. jenna: investigators blamed a plane crash that killed 50 people on critical errors by the pilot, so why is the airline

industry against a new law to mandate more training for pilots? we're going to ask a former faa spokesman. also, lots of action on our america's asking live chat. harris has been working that from the breaking news desk. nice shoutouts, by the way, from our great viewers for "happening now." >> reporter: i know, i know. on a perm note, if i could thank joel. joel, i love working for fox news channel, and i'm glad you're glad that i'm here. because i'm glad too. by the way, there were quite a few questions for dr. segal. christy wonders why people in foreclosure can't just be locked in at that new current rate and no closing costs to give them a break. you guys are talking housing a lot on the live chat right now. get in, go on. go to foxnews.com, "happening now"'s page. get in there on the live chat so we can read yours too, and that town hall coming up in about 20 minutes. top political questions coming from you guys. jenna, we're so lucky to have our viewers. jenna: all right, harris.

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jon: the federal aviation add o m wants to ground -- administration wants to ground a new safety law raising the requirements for pilots in the wake of an air crash in buffalo. 50 people were killed as you probably recall, but the industry says this new measure will not make the flying public any safer. let's talk about it with scott brenner, a former chief spokesman for the faa. so congress passed this program that co-pilots would have to have 1500 hours training experience before they could get airline jobs, right? is. >> right. jon: sounds like a good idea. what's wrong with it? >> well, i think it's a problem of quantity versus quality, jon. i think the intention was good, you know, how do you improve the qualifications of co-pilots coming in where priestly they could -- previously they could come in with about 250 hours

experience. you probably want more than that. but i think by going to the extreme level of 1500, jon, you're a pilot, you understand this. if i'm out just towing a banner up and down the beach or doing a crop duster, those are very different kind of hours if i'm in a simulator or a variety of situations such as, you know, high, you know, temperatures, you have cloudy situations, something where there's storm-impacted. i think that's more important than just having the 1500 hours. jon: right. so my 1500 hours flying around in a single-engine cessna like the one on the screen right now, that would qualify me to jump in, say, an airpus and start flying passengers around. >> exactly. jon: that's what congress is thinking. >> exactly. i think normally what happens is congress comes up with an idea, they hand it off to the faa. faa puts a group of folks together and says, okay, here's what the commerce wants us to do, what is the best way we can

do to improve those pilots? i this -- think they're suggesting having better quality hours of training so you're training in the simulator, you're training in reputable institutions, and you're getting real hours, type-certified for the various aircraft that you're thinking you're going to be flying. jon: well, that air crash, i mean, nobody wants to see that kind of thing repeated, and a lot of it was laid at the feet of inexperience of both pilotses and the way they handled that turboprop, right? >> no, you're exactly right. the pilot had around 3600 hours of flight time, co-pilot around 32, so i don't know if that would have sod the problem. i think the problem we saw there was they were just not faying attention when -- paying attention when they should have been. three or four different things they talk about is what they should have been doing and, clearly, they were trained to do this, but they just were not paying attention. jon: scott brenner, formerly a chief spokesman for the faa. thank you.

>> great. thanks, jon. jenna: thowps of students are striking protesting, get this, budget cuts in the classroom. we bring you there live in just a moment. plus brady v. beaver, and it's all about the hair. we have that story just ahead. [ female announcer ] staynce... stay twice... earn a free night! two separate stays at comfort inn or any of these choice hotels can earn you a free night -- only when you book at choicehotels.com. can earn you a free night -- everyone has someone to go heart healthy for. who's your someone? campbell's healthy request can help. low cholesterol, zero grams trans fat, and a healthy level of sodium. it's amazing what soup can do.

jenna: new next hour, they were trapped underground for months, now three more chilean miners are leaving the hospital and going home to their families. also with just 1 days left until the midterm -- 18 days left until midterm, some democrats openly running against nancy pelosi, house speaker. why is that? also a big sports program taking a bite out of the gators, we're taking to the university of

florida next hour. jon: in europe, a tough lesson in economics and government spending. teachers and students are protesting in the streets of both italy and france over budget cuts to the education system. greg burke is in rome streaming live for us. what's the battle about there in italy first, greg? >> reporter: well, jon, there are two main complaints. basically, teaching has always been seen as a very secure job, a kind of job a lot of europeans and certainly italians like. you're not going to get paid a whole lot, but a job for life and then a pension. and the way it looks now is the government has to trim the budget. they say some of these teaching jobs are, in fact, precarious, and they are likely to be cut with the budget cuts. now, the second issue is funds for research at the universities. those are definitely going to be cut as well, so a lot of people on the sort of professor track, young people working in be research at the universities are facing either losing their jobs or at least ending up with salaries they would have a hard

time living on, that's why they're out in the street and making quite a bit ofoise at the same time. jon: they're out on the street in france as well? >> reporter: that's right. students and teachers in france. france has had a number of strikes over the past few weeks. students out today, and some of that actually got rough. they were in this several different cities, some violence coming up in the leon, but the strike that, perhaps, is most damaging to france at this moment is actually the oil refineries. they have been on strike for several days now, and that's starting to put a dent in the economy. i don't think the government's too worried about students and teachers, but the fact that the oil might be shut off -- actually has been shut off to the two main airports in france, their right now working on their reserves, that is a great concern to president sarkozy. the french unions say these are rolling strikes, they could continue as far as tuesday of next week. the key vote on pension reform is scheduled for wednesday. jon? jon: seems like they're always

arguing about something in europe. greg burke, thanks. jenna: or everywhere. kind of feels that way everywhere, doesn't it? >> well, right now the pope's miracle man. during his historic trip to england last month, he beautified cardinal newman requiring a miracle. this miraculous cure is said to have taken place more than a century after the cardinal's death. lauren green is live from our newsroom with in the story. lauren? >> reporter: it's very interesting because they do try to send many miracles to the vatican to say, hey, this could be the one, but the only one that made it was made in america. cardinal newman was an english priest who converted to catholicism, and he died in 1890, but his journey towards saint hood started ten years ago when a massachusetts man prayed to him for help with his back pain. when jack sullivan was diagnosed, doctors told him to quit his deacon classes to have

surgery. depressed, sullivan prayed for a miracle after seeing a cardinal newman special on tv. >> he helped me to walk so that i can return to classes and be ordained. >> reporter: the pain disappeared. sullivan completed a year of deacon classes when the pain came back. so he went under the knife. five days postop, sol man prayed to cardinal newman again. >> i felt tremendous heat as if i was standing in front of a blast furnace, you know? it was extremely intense, and a strong tingling feeling throughout my body. >> reporter: he says recovery was instantaneous. convinced he experienced a miracle, he sent his story to the powers that be. eight years this past september he was ordained as a deacon here at this cathedral. on the day of his or the nation he received an e-mail telling him that the process of

beatification of cardinal newman would begin and that they were taking the case o rome. sullivan's doctor provided testimony for the vatican, but the final surgeon says sullivan's recovery could be considered normal. >> in general the patient would be in the hospital between two to five days. >> reporter: vatican investigators vetted the case before taking it to the pope, but it's not a done deal. cardinal newman needs one more miracle on his record before he can be made a saint. this process actually takes about eight years. that-and-a-half is there any other miracle that's in the running? >> reporter: i have it in background information that possibly there is another miracle they're investigating very quickly, and, you know, it's a situation where this could take hundreds of years or a few years. jenna: it's amazing. it's good to hear about the possibility of miracles happening. >> reporter: absolutely. jenna: you have a write-up on foxbusiness.com. >> reporter: yes. explains the whole process. nan a.

jenna: lauren, thank you so much for that. jon: patriots' quarterback tom brady and former patriots' receiver randy moss both deny nastiness over brady's new longer hair style is what ultimately sent moss packing to the vikings, but there is no denying justin bieber's diss of brady in a new rap song. the young pop sensation calls out the three-time super bowl winner accusing him of copying his hairdo. check it out. ♪ tearing it up like a cracker, matter of fact -- ♪ hello, mr. brady. ♪ come and try to save me. jon: brady says the longer hair was his supermodel wife's idea. he, of course, is married to giselle bundchen. brady said he didn't know about the bieber jab, but the teen thinks the patriots' wide receiver, julian edelman, looks a little like justin bieber.

okay. jenna: hair battles? really? are we going there? really? jenna: i think that's what they have to argue about on the patriots these days. jenna: jon, we could see you with a little more of a swoop in the hair. i think you could carry it off. don't you guys think? yeah, jon scott. we'll see if it happens. jon: see if it happens tomorrow. jenna: a heated debate in sin city. harry reid exchanging tough talk with his republican challenger, sharron angle. who will voters bet on come election day? carl cameron breaks down that debate. also real quick, guys, america's asking is our town hall at foxnews.com. just go to the main home page, click on "happening now" town hall. we're getting great questions including one from william about term limits, and can that's been a big topic, so we'll ask our panel coming up around 12:30 today. we'll see you in just a fur minutes.

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jenna: hi, everybody, happy friday to you, i'm jenna lee. jon: happy friday to you, i'm jon scott. what happened last night in vegas won't stay in vegas, and the stakes are very high. senate majority leader harry reid facing off against tea party favorite sharon angle, both candidates going for broke in a very hot debate, so who do the odds favor right now? the latest fox news poll gives angle a slight edge with 49% to reid's 47. this race could easily go either way though. chief political correspondent carl cameron is reporting live from las vegas. these two have been going at it for months, carl, and it seems like the mud slinging continued last night. >> reporter: it sure did. you know, the tv airwaves, the radio ads, the mailboxes have all been filled with the harshest visit roll either side can manage. last night's debate was actually no exception.

there has been some question about sharron angle, she's made some missteps on the campaign trail and had some gaffes that even republicans have looks askance at, so it was important for her to establish herself as a credible candidate, and she did that really by being the aggressor. she picked at reith on his vote -- reid on his votes, 35 years in washington, talked about his personal wealth, the notion he'd gone from humble roots to becoming this powerful washington insider and hammered him for big-spending government liberalism, and here in the southwest specifically went after him on illegal immigration. and challenged him to explain and really kind of went after him on the idea that the obama administration is suing the state of arizona for its immigration law and has allowed some foreign cups to be party to -- countries to be party to the suit. listen to sharron angle's attack. >> senator reid, you've allowed 11 foreign countries to dictate our immigration law. that's just nuts. we need to get back to simple

solutions to these problems. once we secure the borders, enforce the laws, then we can deal with those internal problems. >> reporter: at one point she said, man up, harry reid. you've got to admit that social security has a problem. at another point she said that having voted for tax increases 300 times, we can't trust you, harry reid. the democratic majority leader and democrats across the country have been attacking sharron angle's credibility suggesting that she is a radical extremist for the ways in which she would like to reform and reduce and downsize the federal government. here's just a little bit about how harry reid went back at her on that level. >> all these things i've talked about, my opponent is against those. she wouldn't do that. my job is to create jobs. what she's talking about is extreme. >> reporter: harry reid says his number one job is to create jobs for nevadans and americans. sharron angle has said

repeatedly it's the job of legislators and politicians to create an environment where the private sector can create those jobs. of jon? jon: a hot race in the desert. cal cameron, thank you. jenna: another closely-watched senate race that could shift the balance of power on capitol hill. long-term democratic senator patty murray of washington state facing a tough challenge from republican dino rossi. the two squaring off last night in a crucial first debate as well. a recent fox news research poll finds the two candidates are running neck and neck, rossi leading murray by just one percentage point, 46 to 47%. dan springer is live in washington with more on this story. hi, dan. >> reporter: hey, jenna. these polls have been all over the place in this very confusing race. after that poll came out showing rossi up by one, cnn shows rossi down eight, and now there's a new survey usa poll out today showing rossi down by three. bottom line, this is still in the toss-up category which means

it's going to be watched very closely right up through election day. last night's debate here in spokane was the first of two televised debates in the state, the second one on sunday in seattle. and while it was heated at times, there didn't appear to be any game-changing moments. both patty murray and dino rossi stuck close to the major themes of their campaigns and ad strategies. rossi making it a referendum on the economy, specifically the budget deficit, unemployment and government spending. senator murray defending virtually all the spending including the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal earmarks she's supported last year calling them, quote, targeted investments. the two also clashed on health care reform. >> tens of thousands of jobs in the state of washington are going to be lost or not created because of senator murray's 60th deciding vote on this legislation. >> mr. rossi want to repeal health care reform. tell that to the woman who for the first time can sleep at

night because her daughter with cystic fibrosis won't be denied coverage for her health care. >> reporter: democrats feel even if they lose the other close races around the country, if they hang on to murray's seat, they'll keep control of the senate, and that is why they're bringing out the heavy hitters. president obama was here in be august, and he will be back campaigning with murray next week. vice president biden will be here for his second visit next week. former president clinton will be here as well as first lady michelle obama all campaigning for murray. interestingly, this is a state that obama won just two years ago by 17 points so, obviously, murray believes that he still has the ability to help her out here, that's why he and biden are all coming out here next week trying to get that base vote out for her. this is still a blue state. if they get the base out, they should be able to hold on to the seat. jenna: another interesting one to watch, dan. thank you so much. dan springer in washington. jon: and you might call this

political cannibalism. some democrats are turning on their own. speaker of the house nancy pelosi is finding hearse under attack by -- herself under attack by members of her own party. we've seen this before, james rosen, but is it becoming more of a trend? >> reporter: i wouldn't say a trend, jon, but most democratic candidates this year while they may be distancing themselves from the congressional leadership are not explicitly campaigning against speaker pelosi. still, it is a hallmark of a potential wave election cycle and one strongly favoring republicans that we see as many democrats as we do singling pelosi out. it is, in essence, a survivalist tactic and one borne also of the public's unfavorable view of pelosi which stands at 56% or worse in the three recent national polls. >> georgia is a long way from san francisco. and jim marshall is a long way from nancy pelosi. jim marshall doesn't support nancy pelosi, he voted the same as republican leaders 65% of the

time. jim marshall worked and voted against pelosi's trillion dollar health care bill. >> i've heard my constituents, and they don't want a liberal running the house, they want a conservative. i'm going to vote for the person that will allow me to best represent my constituents. >> reporter: now, again, consider the sources here. jim marshall who will be talking with megyn kelly, by the way, in the 2:00 hour later tonight is a four-term democrat in one of georgia's most conservative rural districts and bobby bright in alabama representing an area where the last round of redistricting left his district heavily republic. jon: going to be interesting after these next elections. nancy pelosi wouldn't be where she is if she didn't have a thick skin though, right? >> reporter: absolutely true. one strategist active in the current cycle told fox news that if it would help accomplish some of her goals, speaker pelosi would be willing to accept some measure of disparagement, even if it should come from within her own ranks.

>> you know, i actually think nancy pelosi gets it. i mean, i think she'd rather win the house than remain speaker. i mean, i think that's her first priority, so i think she'll understand what's going on, and even if she has the votes won't even mind many of these members voting against her. >> reporter: in the historical terms, most analysts agree nancy pelosi is one of the most powerful speakers in modern times and one of the most effective in terms of steering her top agenda items to passage. from there, jon, it depends on your point of view whether you see her high disapproval ratings as an anomaly or a direct result of her effectiveness. jon: james rosen, thanks. >> reporter: thank you. jenna: well, you saw it unfold live on fox, 33 miners in be chile survived two months trapped underground. they're still on the road to recovery, but today we have even more good news to tell you. three miners left the hospital

this morning to be with their families. they're, of course, leaving as pretty big time celebrities. one report says the men have agreed to guard the details of their ordeal so they can all benefit equally from their newfound fame. adam houseley is streaming live for us still in chile following the the story. adam, talk to us about who's set to be released and what their conditions are. >> reporter: yeah. they haven't given us the names of the next ones being released, several different reports of how many will be released this afternoon. the latest one says ten more. three were released late last night at the hospital to quite a media frenzy that, in some cases, followed them all the way home, and one man said he wanted to get back to his life as he closed the door. ten more will have the chance to go out today. you might remember the medical officials said they wanted to keep them for 48 hours. seems like they may keep a few for a bit longer than that. they hinted at that yesterday when they said some were having a few psychological issues which

you might imagine is understandable after 69 days underground. jenna: adam, we're seeing a few of them still wearing those dark sunglasses. any word how long they have to keep those on? >> reporter: right. yeah. for a few days. you know, coincidentally in television news you have an idea to get a little bit -- you can understand why because some of the artificial light can effect some of us sometimes, and we end up having to wear special eye protection for a couple days, so imagine being in front of artificial light for 69 days, 17 of which they didn't have much light, but still he they have to get their eyes used to being out in the sun. probably for about a week two week and a half, but again, it all depends on their medical condition, and doctors are going to monitor their physical condition for a month and psychological condition for at least six months. jenna: one of the biggest stories of the year. adam, thank you so much. jon: you have heard a bunch of the states have filed lawsuits

challenging health care reform. those are making their way through federal courts around the country, but there is something states can do now to try to thwart that law. our next guest has a plan. plus, the top commander in afghanistan explains why nato is providing protection for leaders of the taliban. ready to try something new? campbell's has made changes. adding lower sodium sea salt to more soups. plus five dollars in coupons to get you started. campbell's condensed soup. pass it on. campbell's.® it's amazing what soup can do.™ [ but aleve can last 12 hours. tylenol 8 hour lasts 8 hours. and aleve was proven to work better on pain than tylenol 8 hour. so why am i still thinking about this? how are you? good, how are you? [ male announcer ] aleve. proven better on pain.

jenna: well, "happening now" in many our live chat, health care is definitely still a very big topic. and there's lawsuits around the country that are really challenging health care reform, and they're making their way through federal courts. but there's something states can do right now, some say, to thwart the law. that's according to our next quest, dr. scott got lib and former deputy commissioner at the fda. we often hear an all or nothing

approach, but you say we don't have to do that completely. why not? >> that's right. if you look at what's going to shape up after this election, republicans can't effectively repeal the health care plan because the president's going to veto any attempt to repeal his signature legislation, so the action's really going to shift to the states, and it's going to be up to the governors to implement the core component of the obama health care plan which is these exchanges in 2014. the governors can do one of three things, they can go along, they can refuse to implement the exchanges in which case the government's going to step in and do it for them. if enough governors opt out, the government's going to have a tough time doing that. or they can implement exchanges that offer consumers choice of a lot of different kinds of health plans and not just the one size fits all plan of the administration and dare the government to try to stop them and withad beenhold subsidies.

if it's something that the consumers want. jenna: let me stop you there because we talk about these exchanges, but it's still a little confusing. what exactly is an exchange when it comes to health care? >> right. well, the exchange under in the legislation, so exchanges have meant a lot of different things over time, but under this legislation basically it's an architecture for administering or providing a government-regulated health plan. the health plans that you'll be able to purchase within these so-called exchanges will basically be a single health plan. the only thing that'll vary is that you'll be able to trade more out of pocket spending, more co-pays for lower premiums, but the basic benefits package will be exactly the same. one plan might offer free eyeglasses or free trips to the gym, but it's not a real choice. what we're saying is that you can use the same exchange structure and offer a real choice by allowing any willing insurance plan that's currently offered within the state to be

able to sell its policies within this exchange and use the subsidies that the government earmarks for these exchanges to subsidize the costs for people who truly can't afford it east because -- jenna: a lot of our viewers are concerned just about government involvement overall whether or not it's federal or state. why do you think there should be some government involvement when it comes down to these state-based exchanges? >> right. well, the level of the involvement would only be insofar as creating a different pooling mechanism. right now the real problem with insurance is we don't have efficient ways to pull people together to band together to buy insurance. the only place where we pool together in large numbers to buy insurance is at work. so the exchange would only function as a place to pool consumers to go into this big marketplace and purchase insurance. ideally, it should be any insurance you want to purchase. the government shouldn't regulate what policies should be offered, so if you want to buy an hsa or catastrophic-only plan or a cadillac plan, you should

be able to do it within this marketplace. the rules that the government sets up should only be on making the marketplace transparent and providing information to consumers. that-and-a-half dr. gottlieb, thank you so much for joining us today. >> thanks a lot. jon: brand new numbers out today on the federal deficit, and for the second consecutive year, the size is staggering. how many zeros in a trillion? and is there a way out of this economic mess? >> there's still a lot of folks without jobs, a lot of foreclosures going on around here, and i don't think coming out of the recession has caught up to us yet. wow! you have got to be kidding me. 80 calories? light & fit has 80 calories versus 100 in the other leading brand. light & fit. irresistible taste. fewer calories. i love light & fit.

jenna: the top u.s. commander in be afghanistan, general david petraeus, now confirming nato has provided safe passage for

top taliban leaders so they can meet face to face with members of the afghanistan government for so-called peace talks. why are they doing that? greg talcott is live in london with this story. greg? >> reporter: jenna, there has been some reporting, but this is the first time we've got an on-the-record confirmation of it, especially someone as high up as general petraeus. here's a little bit of what he had to say about this earlier today in london. >> we do facilitate that given that, needless to say, it would not be the easiest of tasks for a senior taliban commander to enter afghanistan and make his way to kabul if isaf were not witting and aware of it and, therefore, allows it to take place. >> reporter: now, he does say that the contacts have been, in his words, preliminary, nowhere near negotiation, but still this is a significant development.

the general also developed the fighting. he says that in the last three months 300 top taliban figures have either been killed or captured in counterterrorism raids. he says, and get this, the assault rate right now in afghanistan is three or four times higher than at the peak of the surge in the iraq. he says netting 300 taliban fighters, that is in his words a jackpot. i asked him about al-qaeda, the reason why a lot of people think we are in afghanistan. i asked him about the fight, he was a little bit more vague on that. he does say the effectiveness of the network has has been dimini, but he claims his intelligence officials claim the last time osama bin laden wanted to put out a public message, it took him four weeks to get it out because it's got to go through so many hoops, messengers and caves. general petraeus, jenna, will be presenting a review of the situation in if afghanistan for president obama in december, and then the white house will decide

in what direction to go from there. we got a sense of what that review will say. basically, it will say there has been progress, more work is needed and more time as well. jenna: certainly a developing story, greg. thank you so much. jon: brand new numbers due out today, the congressional budget office projects the deficit will exceed $1 trillion for a second straight year. there's the number on your screen. i was asking earlier how many zeros in a trillion? nine, if you get the 29 out of the way. this isn't just a little over a trillion, this is $1.3 trillion. >> yeah. it's the second year in a row, down a little from 1.4 last year, and the administration's predicting it pops up in fiscal year 2011, so we're not seeing any real change here, and that's bad news. we're not seeing it because spending is still out of control, and the economy suspect growing fast enough to -- isn't growing fast enough to increase

revenues. jon: but if you let the bush tax cuts expire, aren't you going to see that deficit come down? >> well, you might if it doesn't hurt economic growth, and i think it would hurt the economy particularly with it being as weak as it is. you get that jolt of a tax increase particularly on small business job creators, it's not going to help increase revenues as much as they think it will. jon: we took a look, i had a brain room come up with some numbers on the size of stimulus spending because a lot of it is buff the stimulus. >> no question. no question. jon: all right. the united states spent clash 841 billion in stimulus money, almost 6% of our gdp. germany spent 130 billion, about 3.4%. the united kingdom spent 1.5% of its gdp on stimulus, $41 billion, and in france only 21 billion, less than 1% of their gdp. i don't see those economies collapsing. >> well, there's not rapid growth anywhere, but germany,

actually, is doing surprisingly well with their economic growth. there's a lot of people in the united states particularly on the liberal side of the economic spectrum who would say we didn't spend enough on stimulus, should have been larger. i think these numbers show you we did spend quite a bit, thank you very much. my problem with the stimulus was it should have been tax cuts to increase incentives. jon: and where did the money go? the roads in new york are still full of potholes. >> a lot went to unemployment benefits, transfer payments from one individual to another which is kind of income maintenance. it's not the sort of spending that increases jobs. jon: you have an interesting guest tomorrow on your show. >> we do. michelle rhee who designed as d.c. schools chancellor, one of the most important reformers on education in the country. she talks about why she left and why that doesn't mean the death of education reform. jon: if you want to hear more of that interview, catch paul tomorrow when he hosts the journal editorial report right here on fox news channel, 2 p.m.

eastern time. and then be sure to stick around because i'll be offended if you don't. [laughter] i'm going to be hosting fox news watch right after paul's program, 2:30 eastern time tomorrow. paul, thanks. >> thanks jon. jenna: well, listen to this. an american citizen on the run. cops arresting him at an airport overseas, what authorities suspect him of doing. the full story just ahead. plus, now it's time to hear from you. our panel is getting assembled. everybody up until the election day we are taking your questions and getting your answers in our new america's town hall. so get those questions in. you can e-mail us directly, "happening now" at foxnews.com, or put your questions right on to our live chat at foxnews.com. we'll sew you in just two minutes n. er ] join yoplait in our commitment to fight breast cancer. for every pink lid you send in, yoplait will donate 10 cents to susan g. komen for the cure. with your help, we've donated $25 million over 12 years. so let's continue to make a difference one lid at a time. fifteen percent or more on car insurance?

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tell your doctor promptly. these may be signs of ttp, a rare but potentially life-threatening contion, reported sometimes less than 2 weeks after starting plavix. other rare but serious side effects may occur. jenna: right now president obama looking to rally the base ahead of the crucial midterm elections. he and the vice president will be in delaware this afternoon. they're trying to keep the vp's old senate seat in democratic hands. poll point that's going to happen. also, a shocking admission in connection to the fort hood shooting, a soldier saying an officer ordered him to delete cell phone video he'd taken during the ram page. it could have been vital evidence to the case, we're watching that story. jon: police arrest a man suspected of murdering his parents earlier this week in new york city. police say arthur and marian baluchi were found stabbed to death just hours after their son eric hopped a flight to israel.

he was taken into custody at the airport in tel aviv on his way to another country. he is now facing deportation back to new york. what's going on there, leland? >> reporter: jon, i talked with a source involved in the arrest. here's what happened about 12 hours ago, early friday morning here in tel aviv. eric was trying to buy a ticket on a flight to china. his credit card was declined, and that's when a gate agent alerted police who arrested him. you can see in the video taken at the airport police station, he was drugged and sedated, police had to drag him out of the police station so they could take him to an immigration jail. that's where he had a hearing. his tourist visa was then revoked here by the israeli authorities, so he's essentially persona non grata in be israel. he arrived on thursday morning on a flight from newark airport here. they said he had a friend here in israel, but he's not a citizen israel.

evidently, he bot got on the flight after stagging both of -- stabbing both of his participants. still not clear why although friends say in the past couple of days and weeks he's been acting extremely strange and very, very erratic. right now here in israel it is the sabbath. most government offices have been shut down, and while there are a couple of american police officers who have flown here from new york, the interior ministry in israel has asked that the extradition be delayed at least for 24 hours. so what's going to probably happen is on saturday night, that's about 24 hours from now, there's a 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. flight back to new york city. he'll be put on that flight either with the american police officers or possibly some israeli officials. they'll fly him to new york, and that's when he'll be arrested on sunday morning for these two murders. jon: a very strange story. leland, thank you. jenna: well, america's asking,

our live chat about politics and the president only here on fox news. harris is joining in from the breaking news desk. great questions, harris, including one we found really interesting going into this chat, how many members of congress are lawyers? >> reporter: right. that one came from frederick plank, and you know what? we all did our newsroom homework here, and here's what our brain room found out. of the 541 members, 37% are attorneys, and that's ahead of the regular population across the nation. one in 300 about according to the american bar association are attorneys. but in congress of all the members you've got 203 that have attorney listed on the resumé. that doesn't some who have jd degrees, and can that would bring the number to 218. so well above the national average for attorneys, lawyers on the resumé in congress. just a little bit of info that frederick plank wanted us to dig up. jenna: it's a good tidbit to

know, right? >> reporter: yeah. jenna: harris, back to you in a few minutes. every day we're taking your questions and getting answers in our new america's asking town hall. e-mail us directly, put questions on our blog at foxnews.com/"happening now." there's also a twitter account, if you like, and we, of course, have that live chat ongoing on our web site to make sure we provide you the best perspective so you can be the best vote or you want to be come november 2nd. today we have peter maw race si at the u.s. international trade commission, also a business professor at the university of maryland. welcome, professor. also terry holt is a former national spokesman for the bush/cheney campaign and a former senior adviser to the republican national committee, and peter was an adviser to the clinton/gore campaign. titles are impressive, and we're glad to have you guys here today. thank you. >> thank for having us. >> glad to be here. jenna: peter, it's beautiful in

its simplicity, why can't we cut spending? >> well, simply, the president has used the recession citizen an excuse to build out permanent spending in the government. we have more medicare, we have more transfer payments of various kind, we have more regulators. you know, when president bush was -- before the crisis he had a deficit of $181 billion, he had two wars, he had his tax cuts. now this president's got a $1.3 trillion deficit projected for next year with some of those tax cuts revoked and him scaling down the wars. this guy just spends too much money. jenna: peter, just to be fair, it's not just the president solo. >> oh, absolutely not. and when nancy pelosi took over, the government spent less than 20% of gdp. now it spends more than 25% of gdp. thai been on a reckless spending binge ever since nancy got the speaker's gavel. jenna: bob had a question about the republicans. if republicans win a landslide

in the midterms, will they retain or gain power in 201? terry, what do you think about that and what do they need to do? >> it's way too early to say that because we aren't even at the midterm election yet, and this is a lot up for grabs. a lot of people think the republicans are going to take over the house of representatives. i still think there's going to be a lot of hand to hand combat before that takes place. but the republicans need to regain the trust of the american people and to demonstrate that they have the kind of policies that can unite folks. on the spending front, for example, let's try across the board spending cuts. let's try to spread the pain across the whole government so that we don't have these dire warnings of people being left out in the cold that, that our defense won't be sufficient. if we have an across the board spending freeze for the next couple of years, we can make a real debit in this deficit -- dent in this deficit and then maybe regain the confidence of the american people again.

jenna: you know, peter -- we have two peters with us today -- that brings up a question, though, and you can feel free to respond to any of the questions we've had so far, but a question coming from william was about term limits, and our viewers are really interested in why there's not longer -- i'm saying shorter term limits when we're in an election when we're seeing so many incumbents that have been in office for so long. why do you think term limits aren't coming to fruition, i guess? >> well, it's a double-edged sword because, you know, as terry knows, i mean, when you -- by the time these folks are elected, it takes them a while to even, you know, find where the cafeteria is, let alone legislate. so the notion of term limits although an appealing one to throw the bums out and bring in the new crew often, you know, isn't the best in terms of achieving good public policy. now, i would not say that folks who have been in there too long that are out of touch need to be maybe defeepted in an election

by somebody and get some fresh blood in there, but i don't think term limits are a panacea to the problem. surface spending is concerned there was, you know, a lot of -- spend manager the last ten years both -- spending in the last ten years have increased the size of the budget deficit. i think what the public is going to look at in the next three weeks is which party's going to take care of my needs. i mean, there are concerns about jobs, there are concerns about, you know, even though health care has been sort of the boogeyman, there were concerns about people's health care and whether or not they could keep it or not and whether pre-existing conditions were going to prohibit them from getting health insurance, so there's a lot of real issues out there, and i think there's a lot of energy on both sides, and as terry says, there's going to be a lot of hand to hand contact. jenna: that's a nice way to put it. peter, one more question coming to the economy. what are the facts -- one of our viewers wants to know -- behind the effects of extending unemployment benefits on jobs and the economy?

do you have any facts on what that does to unemployment. >> well, we saw it in the ford administration, and we had people running for public office while they were on unemployment. we had one guy run for the school board which you tend to see if they last too long, it's people flat out abuse them, and they are not encouraged to change what they do. you know, sometimes there's a reason why you're not finding a job after 30 weeks. you need to retrain a little bit, look in a different place, and folks don't do that if those checks keep rolling in. jenna: peter, thank you so much. i'm not going to say number one and number two, both equals. stand by. we have a lot more questions coming for you. jon: we have more of america's talking town hall coming up, but first want to alert you that there has been some kind of a chopper crash outside st. louis. we are getting more information. it happened in clarkson valley, missouri. we'll get more information on that, and we're also going to be answering this question. one of our viewers wants to know

how -- i'm sorry. one of our viewers -- i'm all messed up here. jenna: there's a lot going on. you've got the chat going on, right? you've got the e-mail, you've got the blog. jon: right. i didn't get my question up. jenna: oh, there's one coming in. jon: harris is rescuing me. jenna: we have a lot more questions to answer coming up after the break. right, jon? jon: one of the questions is do you think john caseic will carry ohio? i don't know.y vo jenna: that's a good question. . what's her advantage? it's speedy alka-seltzer! [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus rushes relief for all-over achy colds. the official cold medicine of the u.s. ski team. alka-seltzer plus. oh, i'll get them to eat veggies. "how?" you ask. i have a way. it's deliciously clever. and they'll be none the wiser. new prego veggie smart sauce gives them 50% of their daily recommended amount of veggies. [laughter] be smart. veggie smart.

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megyn: hey, everyone, i'm megyn kelly. sarah palin takes a direct shot at michelle obama that some are calling beyond the pail. we'll play you the clip and let you decide. plus, the national organization of women says anyone who calls a woman a whore should be fired. they might want to start with their other than directer who had choice words for meg whitman. and a few years ago she was a

male cop in california. now he's become a she, and she wants to play golf for the ladies' professional golf association. what the league did next lands them all in kelly's court. see you top of the hour. >> reporter: welcome back to "happening now," everybody. we are following a situation where our fox affiliate has just confirmed that a missouri patrol helicopter has crashed. we were telling you about this just before the commercial break. details on this are coming this very slowly from the scene. it is clarkson valley, west st. louis county. i've been in this area a little bit. i can tell you it's at horseshoe ridge for those of you close to the scene, but the key detail in many all of this is that our fox affiliate has confirmed this is a missouri patrol helicopter. we don't know if there are any injuries involved at this time or how this has happened, how this crash has happened, but it's breaking. i'm all over it from the breaking news desk. back to jenna and jon now. jon: all right, harris, thank you.

and let's get back to our new america's asking town hall. you ask the questions, and we try to get you the answers you need before election day. let's bring our panelists back in, peter maurici, terry holt and peter. that question asked just before the break which i so cleverly was able to get up on screen through harris' help, do you think that john caseic will carry ohio? peter? this. >> well, that's a close race, john. i don't know. you know, ohio is one of those states as perennially that, you know, it's a bellwether state, it's a swing state, use whatever term you want. i know the president and the first lady are going to be this ohio for a big rally in the next couple weeks, but that one's going to come right down to the wire as are a lot of these other races around the country. jon: all right. here's a question from annie brewer. peter maurici, this might be a question for you although it's

one of those factual nuggets that might not be on the tip of your tongue either, any idea how much seniors have paid into social security? a lot of seniors, obviously, not happy they're not going to be getting cost of living raises. >> oh, i can't tell you how much they've paid in, but i have looked at it and, you know, social security has yielded a pretty good rate of return because if they think about it, the benefits are smaller, and so were the taxes when they were younger. and this process over maybe 30 years of increasing benefits and increasing the tax means people at the end of the system have done better. now, they're not getting an increase this year because the price of gasoline went down in the reference period. they'll get a bigger increase next year likely, but right now it sure seems unfair to someone say, who lives in if new york city and rides the subway! jon: yeah. terry holt, jim asks if republicans do as well as some predict, will they have enough votes to override any presidential see stows? i think i know the answer to

that one. >> i think that's unlikely. the president can veto legislation unless you have two-thirds majority in either the house or the senate. his veto's going to stand. and i don't think anybody's predicting that the tsunami wave that a lot of people are talking about is going to be quite that big. i look for divided government, more balanced goth, and i'm -- government, and i'm optimistic that whether the republicans just increase their size or the numbers in the congress or whether they actually take over the house or the senate that, hopefully, we'll have a little bit more conciliatory tone here in washington, and we can finally address some of the problems that the american people are convinced we're ignoring at this stage. jon: jenna, you know why i don't sometimes like being on television? jenna: why. jon: because when you're on television and you make a mistake, the whole world gets to see it. jenna: yeah, but it's real. jon: so when i don't have a question on my screen to read, i don't know what to do. [laughter] and sometimes when you put up

numbers that our graphics department, i guess, puts together, sometimes they're wrong. steve hartman from lincoln, montana, points out that we were missing about six zeros in our trillion dollar deficit. jenna: no wonder the government can't get it right. jon: we had the number of 1,2 1,290,000,000. jenna: what a -- what's a few billion between friends? >> that sounds like an obama official. jenna: come on! [laughter] jon: we say good-bye to our panel, and we hope you folks are enjoying it. peter, terry, peter, thanks for being with us. >> you're welcome. jenna: thank you for your questions, by the way. all of them were great today. also we have another story coming up, some big time college sports programs blind siding high schools, threatening to take their mascots and go home. jon: oh, no! jenna: if local teams don't pay

up. can you imagine? we have that story just ahead. here, kitty. here, kitty. oh! just come snuggle with mama. [ male announcer ] missing something? like 2 pairsf glasses for $99.99 at sears optical, with bifocalenses for just $25 more per pair. hurry in to sears optical today and don't miss a thing.

jenna: well, some big time college sports programs playing hardball with high schools cracking down on local teams for using their nicknames and mascots without permission and giving high schools a real tough less son in trademark law. is this kind of a david v. goliath situation here? >> reporter: oh, yeah. that's exactly what it's sounding like. jenna, about nine months ago university of florida and fsu, florida state university, both of these big time universities sent out letters to a handful of high schools across the country saying, look, we are glad that you are fans, we love the fact that you're fans, but if you don't stop using anything that

slightly represents our mascot, our logo, our letterrering, if you don't stop it, we'll see you in court. in the tiny town of dublin, florida, folks still quiet down for the pledge of allegiance, then get fired up for their varsity football team. >> here we go, gators, here we go! >> reporter: for nearly 50 years in the school has proudly called itself gators, but earlier this year the other big university ordered a handful of high schools in mississippi, arkansas and florida to stop using images that look like the uf mascot. a move that makes no sense to this small private school in the everglades. >> >> i'm hoping that somebody from university of florida will say, look, enough's enough. let's don't go after these schools, let's don't go after them. they're our feeder systems. we get our kids from these

schools. >> reporter: the university of florida turned down our request for an interview but says the school has an obligation to protect its trademarks. fsu also turned down our request for an interview, some of these schools say it could cost as much as $80,000 if they are required to change everything from band uniforms to sports to any kind of logo that they have on their property. a lot of money. as it stands right now, neither uf nor fsu is backing down. jenna? nan nan lots of money at stake. thank you so much. jon: a fox news alert and the missouri highway patrol is confirming that this is the wreckage of one of their helicopters that, apparently, just went down almost an hour ago, not quite an hour ago in the clarkson valley area of missouri just outside st. louis. we don't know exactly what led to that crash. sometimes when helicopters have an engine problem, they'll try

to autorotate to the ground. the fact that it's on that road suggests that the pilot was maybe trying to put it down in that open area. but there is an awful lot of wreckage there. we don't know anything about fatalities or injuries, but we'll, we are certainly stay on top of this story. a missouri highway patrol helicopter, apparently, has gone down in the area of clarkson valley, missouri.

jenna: you can call it a mcdonald's mystery. a photographer says a happy meal she bought in april shows no signs of decomposing and she tpra*fd it. the only change she's seen in the food for six months is it hardened. jon: mcdonald's says they are freshly prepared in our restaurants, it is not possible to provide a detailed explanation regarding these claims without knowing the condition these food items were kept. we strongly caution anyone from jumping