two week leave, just in time for thanksgiving. they're going to get to spend thanksgiving together, he's on his fifth overseas deployment. they are here oerbgs the whole family, for giving himtous. bill: and we give thanks to the men and women overseas. martha: happy thanksgiving. have fun with all 22 people on thanksgiving. >> wish them luck! they're going to need it. see thank you weekend. jon: good morning to you, i'm jon scott. jenna: hi everybody, i'm jenna lee, we're here in the fox news room and "happening now aps, a brand now warning from north korea. should the north attack again, after the rogue north shells an island.

this attack reportedly killed two south korean marines and set dozens of buildings on fire. the south quickly returned fire but the north now warning of even more strikes to come jon. jon: the white house is condemning north korea and watching the situation very closely, the north, not only a nation with serious nuclear ambitions but some 30,000 u.s. troops are just across the border in the south potentially in the line of fire with when -- if this firefight gets any hotter. jennifer griffin, live at the pentagon, how serious an escalation is this? >> reporter: they're taking it very zeroo seriously, talking about it behind closed doors. we understand that the incident itself took place over 90 minutes. there were 200 artillery shells fired, northie -- korea fired first, two south koreans were killed, 20 residents were injured. we understand residents from that island are fleeing the island as we spaoefpblgt this is the most serious

escalation since last march when the north koreans sunk the south korean frigot, killing 36 south korean sailors at the time but it's also the first time we've heard of artillery being fired since the armistice was signed in '5 three. jon: so no official reaction from the white house? >> the white house has had a official reaction and the pentagon is referring us to the white house reaction, the white house condemning what they call belligerent actions by the north koreans and demanding an immediate halt. again, it was a very scary situation on the island today. take listen to two residents from south korea who were on the receiving end of those shells: >> >> i was lying down and watching television when i heard the bang, when the bomb went off near my house and the house broke down, i thought wi die, so i stepped outside of the house and i

stayed still. >> there was not just one location hit by artillery, but fires were everywhere and it was chaotic. i tried calling my wife at home but i could just hear darling and the phone was diswebgt dollars. >> reporter: pretty scary stuff. this comes on the heels of north korea revealing they have a second track to a nuclear weapon, jon. jon: jennifer griffin, keep an eye on it for us. jen i'm joined by former u.s. ambassador to the united nations john bolton, also a fox news crib tofrplt ambassador, you just heard from jennifer tkpwr*euin response from the white house and the pentagon whafplt do you think of that response far? >> i think it needs to be stronger. you know, the north koreans have a history, a very successful history from their perspective of acting in a belligerent fashion, and then, extracting tangible economic and political benefits from the united states, south korea and japan, and given the coincidence in time between

revealing their new nuclear activities, their new nuclear reactor, their expanded uranium enrichment program and these hostilities, i think this is part of a north korean strategy which as i say has worked for them in the past. jenna: what do you think they want? >> well, i think they want subsidies and economic benefits from south korea, the united states, japan and others. i think they're going to try and bargain as they have successfully done many times over the past 20 years to promise to restrain their nuclear weapons program, they promise they will prompt -- a promise they will promptly violate in exchange for the aid that will prop up the regime. jenna: walk us through this, the president is awoken by 3:00 in the morning while most of us are thinking about the holiday ahead and he's told that north korea and south korea are exchanging fire but he also has to think about afghanistan, iraq, pakistan, russia, iran, venezuela, yemen. there's a whole list of

international issues that the president has to think about. how does this figure into those priorities? >> well, it would be nice if he'd just pay more attention generally to american national security, but this is a case study in not knowing how to respond to belligerent behavior. as i say this is not simply a criticism of the obama administration. i think we've got to make it very clear to north korea that we don't bargain in these kinds of circumstances, and we've got to tell the chinese we've got to get more serious about their capability to restrain north korea. this is not a situation where we should reward this kind of aggressive behavior. we should make it very clear that we're not interested in negotiating with north korea, either bilaterally or in the 6-party talks, until this behavior stops, and i think that's a point china has to emphasize. jenna: you emphasized also that point in an editorial in the l.a. times where you say we must avoid repeating

recent errors and you say this about the previous administration as well. does that mean we send ships, does that mean we have a stronger response, other than condemning the north koreans? what does that actually look like? >> we have to define more precisely what our objective is and i think our objective has to be the reunification of the korean peninsula, not that that's going to be easy but we have to squeeze the north korean regime, the threat, the nuclear threat, the conventional threat from northie korea is not going to end until north korea ends. we need to make it clear that inevitably the two koreas will be reunited and they've got to get on the right side of history. it won't be easy but we need to move in that direction. that ought to be the focus of our policy, not appeasing north korea's belligerent behavior. jenna: finally in the more immediate future over the next 24, 48, 72 hours, what

do you think happens next? >> i think the next step lies with north korea. i think south koreans made it very clear they're not backing down on this so if north korea torques the pressure up again i think we've got to be prepared for a crisis situation, the president is going to have to turn his attention away from domestic affair, that's very hard for him but a president's first responsibility is protecting the united states against international threats and we may be seeing one emerge right here. jenna: ambassador bolton, thank you very much. >> thank you. jenna: we certainly want to hear from you on our top story, how do you think the u.s. should react, do you we with -- do you agree with ambassador bolton, click on the link, fox news.com home page, send us an e-mail, happening now, foxnews.com. jon: we will continue to watch the korean situation as we also cover domestic politics. pork, earmark, whatever you

want to call them, some lawmakers stay they want it stopped. supporters of a ban on earmark say it's a powerful some bowl -- symbol of the fight to cut the decifit but some say it won't save the tax pairs a dime and could hand over a lot of power to the president. jim angle is live in washington to explain. >> earmarks may only be a small part of the federal budget but they cause a lot of unseemly political maneuvering, as well as nasty exchanges among lawmakers as senator claire mccaskill, a democrat, learned a few years ago. i can tell you at one point several years ago i offered an amendment to pull out own of the earmarks that was dropped dead in the night by nancy pelosi out of the farm bill and one of my democratic colleagues came up to me on the floor, got right in my face and said don't ever ask me for an earmark again if do you this. >> now, mccaskill does not seek earmarks and the republican caucus in both house has imposed a two-year

ban on them but some lawmakers don't agree on exactly what an earmark means. senator john mccain, a long time foe of earmarks defined it as something slipped into a bill in the dead of night and never scrutinized or voted on by lawmakers and senator mccaskill agrees. >> what an earmark is, it's the prerogative senators have to unilaterally decide what projects are funded. it's an arbitrary system, it's not -- there's no process of merit assessment going on. it's just one senator's judgment that this is something i want to fund. >> reporter: but the current ban goes much further than that, banning any congressional directive spending item, no matter how worthy, no matter how many lawmakers think it's a good idea, no matter if it has bipartisan support, which is why many democrats and republicans opposed a broad ban for fear it puts power to the president who submits a budget full of spending

items. senator inhofe opposed the ban saying otherwise the executive would possess an unbounded power, the ledge shraeuftive branch backs up, he said, only the ledge shraeufture has the power to spend money, so even some who support the ban worry it gives way too much power to the executive branch or to the democrats who have not agreed to such a ban. jon, all that will play out in the new congress. jon: interesting points there, jim angle, thanks. >> yes. jenna: fox news alert, a big announcement, coming from aruba today, expected really at any moment. is a jawbone found on the island that of missing u.s. teen natalee holloway? we could know in the next few minutes. we have a live report next. a major announcement from buckingham pal kwrarbgs we now know where and when prince william and kate middleton will tie the knot. the latest on the royal wedding plans, just ahead.

jon: right now we're waiting for an announcement that could be a sign of a major breakthrough in the case of missing teenager natalee holloway. in aruba authorities are set to reveal whether or not a human jawbone found on a beach there belongs to the missing kaplz teenager. phil keating joins us live on the phone outside the aruba prosecutor's office. when exactly are we expecting that announcement jon? -- phil? >> jon, we are in the afternoon now and the basic

press release of the forensic conclusion of the analysis done in the netherlands over the past week is ready to go and the spokesperson for the aruba office tells me basically they are just dotting their is and crossing their ts to finalize the document before it is mass e-mailed out to media really worldwide who are interested in this case, which is of course an unsolved missing persons case, officially, although the dutch police and investigators do consider it a murder case, even though natalee holloway's remains have never been found. # days ago, last monday, that is when this jawbone with 1molar was sent by aruban authorities to the netherlands forensic institute for analysis, they also sent natalee holloway's dental records or x-rays of her dental -- of her mouth, as well as tooth and teeth impressions. it's all that has been

analyzed. you can extract dna from the jawbone as well. they're analyzing that. so this is either going to be the jawbone of natalee holloway, which would be quite shocking because this beach where it was find by an american tourist almost two weeks ago is a heavy trafficked beach outside of a major hotel resort here in aruba. otherwise, it is going to be perhaps an undetermined jawbone of unknown origin. so a lot of anticipation, a lot of expectation. it is either going to be a major breakthrough in the case of natalee holloway or yet another disappointment. bill phil keating, thank you and as soon as that announcement is made, we'll bring it to you as quickly asly can. jenna: in other news the big today set, we're learning when prince william will marry kate middleton, the royal wedding set for

april 29th at westminster aby, it's the same spot where both queen elizabeth and the late queen mum were married, it was also the site of princess diana's funeral, by the way. the government plans to make this big delration, declareing it a public holiday, so mark your calendars, april 29th. jon: i'm there! there's a crisis on the korean peninsula, the north hraufrpbging a deadly attack on the south as seoul threatens to retaliate. what can the world do to curb any aggression by the rogue nation on the north side of that border? we'll go in depth. also a brand new controversy over plans to build a mosque near ground zero in new york. eric shawn is live in downtown manhattan. eric. >> reporter: well, here's the question: would you want your federal taxpayer money that you worked for to go help build the so-called ground zero mosque? they do. i'm eric shawn, i'll have the details coming up.

>> reporter: i'm harris faulkner at the breaking news desk, welcome back to helicopter happening now". -- welcome back to "happens now". in ontario, canadian explosion at a high school, a science student somehow mixed something in the science lab at brenon high school that blows up, at least two students are hurt. we don't know the extent of their injuries. this is about an 18 minute drive that detroit, emergency crews responding. it will take some time to get pictures from there but brendon high school is pretty big in that area, main high school, so windsor, ontario in canada, just across the way from detroit. we'll keep our eye on this one, students hurt in this science experiment gone wrong, jon and jenna.

>> we'll keep you up to date on that news. in new york city, there is controversy over the plans to build that mosque, islamic cultural center near ground zero, now applying for funds and the money will come from plans to rebuild manhattan in the wake of 9/11 attacks. eric shawn, what's the deal? >> there's anger and outrage over the proposed ground zero mosque. there's a federal fund of $17 million. it's suppose to go to groups and organizations here in lower manhattan, to help reright shraoeuz lower manhattan in the wake of the attacks of the 9/11. well, the ground nero mosque so-called supporter, they reportedly want almost one third of that money to help build the project and also

for social services, they say. some people coming out against that vehemently, among them, congressman peter king, a republican who is likely to become the next chairman of the homeland security committee. he says that the request goes against the spirit of the fund. he also calls it a slap in the face, and says it shows gross insensitivity. >> it's an affront to the memory of those from 9/11, it's effect taking money that was appropriated after the attacks, taking hard earned taxpayer money to use it to help build a 13 story edifice which would be in the shadow of ground zero. >> 265 groups are vie fog that $17 million, but no decision on which groups will get that. jenna: lots of groups and quite a bit of money, eric, right? what are the developers saying about this? >> the developer is shaf ear ao*e al gamal, behind the

project known as park 51 and in a statement, he said among other things, quote, that park 51 is committed to exploring all sources of revenue and funding to build the community center, the grant would, in part, he says, fund social service programs for all residents of lower manhattan, among those programs, they say, are homeless outreach to veterans, teaching arabic and other foreign languages and dealing with immigration services, and in a statement he does not specify how much of the federal money could be used to help construct the mosque. they reportedly need about $140 million to build this thing, which may be one reason why they have their hand out to the government, jenna. jenna: interesting story and still developing. thank you very much, eric shawn for us in lower manhattan. this stirs up a lot of feelings on all sides of the issue. we want to hear what you think about this, should the new york city project or islamic cultural center get

those funds? click on and see what other folks are saying about it there on foxnews.com. jon: brand new developments on our top story, north korea's most dramatic confrontation with the south since more than a half century ago, that according to the u.n. secretary general. right now reaction is coming in from around the world. the u.s. condemns the north attack on that sort korean island urging the rogue nation to halt its belligerent action, the u.s. also pledging support for the south but saying no additional u.s. military assets will be heading to the region at least for now. kwraurb is calling the north's action quote, a colossal danger and pushing for resumption of talks to stop the communist country's nuclear program. japan, also strongly condemning the attack, calling it unforgivable. but china, the north's only real although i, seemed careful not to take sides, calling on both koreas to do more to contribute to peace. meantime, the nato alliance, the european union and great

britain all condemned the attack, they expressed concern and called for restraint. joining us, joe cerentioni, author of bum bomb square" and mike at oslan, director of japan studies and resident scholar, asian studies at the american enterprise institute, or aei. let me paraphrase what the white house is saying, president obama is going to speak to south korea's president, he is saying that northiea is not living up to*euts obligations and also that it has a history of provocative acts, no real headline there, but so far, the white house, joe, with a very measured response. if you are advising the president, and first you, joe, what would you tell him to do. >> i would say the president has to respond confidently but cautiously to this situation, he has to back south korea here, he has to also reach out to china to indicate to them that this north korean regime as it

now stands is a strategic instability in the world, china has to get serious about embracing this problem, but you have to be careful here. here's why. this is the most heavily militarized area on earth, over a million men under arms, tens of thousands of rockets and artillery tubes on the border. there have been 150 military incidents between the north and the south in the last 50 years, that's about three a year. this is one of the most serious. and here's the kicker. this comes at the beginning of a massive south korean military exercise involving 70,000 troops, right in that region, off the north korean coast, the largest ever staged in that area. one missed calculation, one misinterpretation and this tinder box could go up. jon: michael, what would you tell the president? >> i think joe has pegged it right in terms of the seriousness. i think the fact is we need to get a little stronger ourselves. you look at the video that's playing, it looks like something out of pearl harbor. i think there's a couple of things we can do, one, you move the george washington

up into the yellow sea. we've pulled it back twice, that sent the wrong signal. number two, you start moving american, korean and possibly japanese bmd ships up into that area to let the north know if it starts firing off missiles, if it does does anything else, we're prepared to respond. number three, i think we rule out the idea of talks with north korea until the behavior changes. i mean, this i don't think is designed to get us back to the table over the recent uranium nuclear revelation, but it is designed to intimidate south korea and keep them from doing these exercises. we need to be there, not just with words, we can condemn this until the cows come home. we need to be there with more action and let the north then understand that we're serious about backing our ally. jon: joe, back in march, the north sank that south korean ship, 46 sailors, killed. no real reaction from the world, except a lot of finger pointing. is this the follow-on to that? >> well, it led to a series of sanctions but i would agree that that is not

enough. north korea has a history of taking actions, military actions, that are way out of proportion to anything that possibly could have led to those actions. the answer to this, and many of your commentators have noted this throughout the day, it's really china. we have to encourage china to get serious about resolving the problem with the north korean regime. i disagree with my colleague here, i think this is exactly the time for diplomacy, this is exactly when you want to engage north korea to back them down from this. you be tough, you don't back down, you show south korean allies that you're with them all the way, but you've got to be reaching out to china to get north korea back to the bargaining table to deescalate this. jon: if you're president obama what do you say to china to get them to do that? >> i don't think there's anything we can say to china, quite frankly. if china wanted to be helpful in this situation, they'd be helpful, we'd know it, it's common sense. the fact is they don't want

to be. of course i agree with joe that it's better to talk than fight and we all want there to be a diplomatic solution. it's not happening. so i think the first thing do you is you have close consultations with our real ally, south korea and japan and let china know when it wants to play a positive role, it can join in those. sanctions are another thing that china has not supported at the u.n., we're not going to get serious sanctions out of it. what we do need to show is resolve. that i think will bring people back to the table. that means moving our military assets into the region and not being intimidated by north korea. you know, we live in an alice in wonderland world with north korea. jon: once again, no sign from the pentagon, the pentagon says it is not moving any additional assets into the area, no naval assets, et cetera, of course, we do have a ships on the north korea-south korea border. michael oslen, joe, thank you very much. >> thank you. jenna: we're keeping an eye on the headlines as they cross because we're awaiting an announcement from aruban authorities, any moment now,

set to reveal as a results of the tests on the jawbone found on the beach there. could this finally be a break in *t natalee holloway case? live in aruba ahead. >> the president knows he's going to face a republican rival in 2012 but could he face a challenger for the democratic nomination, too? we're going to talk politics, but we have breaking news. jon: we just got the word jenna from the aruban authorities, the jawbone found on the beach there by an american tourist does not belong to natalie hol waeufplt that was the mass e-mail that aruban authorities sent. this is coming to us through the associated press. there had been so much speculation that a jawbone found on the beach which was said to belong to a young female might be that of missing american teenager natalee holloway who disappeared five years ago. it turns out it is not natalee holloway's jawbone. who it belongs to we do not yet know but according to

dna evidence it does not belong to natalee holloway. jenna: there are several reports coming out as we work through some of the news. we're seeing some of the reports, as you mentioned, from the associated press and dutch television network as well reporting this, that the jawbone does not belong to the loss missing u.s. teen natalee holloway. of course she disappeared may 31st of 2005 and it's been well over 2000 days that she's been missing, and as we've talked about on our show several times, there's been a lot of false starts, a lot of deadends when it comes to actually finding out what happened to this missing person, and phil keithing in aruba pointed that out to us moments ago that this is still a missing person case, that there hasn't been any evidence to suggest that natalee holloway was murdered. of course you had all those different reports coming from joran van der sloot, who's now in prison in central america. jon: and part of the reason -- well, part of what he offered to do was to extort money from natalee holloway -- i'm sorry, from beth hol

weigh twitty, natalee holloway's mother, extorting money from her in order to show her where the body was buried but again, this is not the jawbone of natalee holloway according to aruban authorities who have done extensive dna testing, as well as dental testing on the jawbone that was found by an american tourist, walking on the beach. they then turned it in to the hotel desk at the resort where they were staying. we have a map that shows essentially where that bone was found. it is not too far from the hotel where natalee holloway disappeared but once again, it is not hers. whose is it? we don't know. jenna: that's a good question. we can't forget that we have yet to officially firm, and a forensic pa tholgz will join us. is this actually a human bone? there were several reports that it was indeed belonging to a young female but the dutch authorities have been very quiet what -- about

what they officially said about this bone that was discovered last week. jon mentioned that van der sloot tried to extort money from natalee natalee holloway's family, he tried get $250,000 from them in return for the disclosure of the location of the body. obviously that was uncovered, and that did not happen. but there's been a variety of different rewards. the holloways have offered a million dollars reward just for any information and her safe return, yet here we are again, five years later, waiting for any new breaks in this case. jon: one of the persons who went to aruba after natalee holloway disappeared, our own harris faulkner has more information from the breaking news desk. >> reporter: i want to make the point you guys were talking about, the family there. i had talked with and have continued to keep contact with the family's attorney, john q. kelly, throughout this whole jawbone find. they have not officially made a statement because they wanted to wait and see,

just simply as jenna brought out, they've been down this road so many different times with different types of so- called evidence and findings and so on and so forth, and as they are hanging on this morning, you know, they have known about this, they knew that the jawbone belonged to a caucasian female, but the odds of it washing on shore, even though local islanders told me the storm system brought up so much old debris on the beaches that they weren't shocked that something would watch up, the family knew all along they would sit by the phone and not make a whole lot of public statements until they really knew the details of this. very sad for them because they are so desperate to find closure. back to you guys. jenna: joining us is dr. michael bauden, a fox news contributor that has joined us several times to talk about this case and interesting talking to you ahead of the show today, as the hours have ticked by, have you grown more optimistic or less optimistic about finding out about these results?

>> less optimistic that it was natalie, because at no point did they put any police security around the site where the bone was found. if this were natalie, and a possible homicide, they would have immediately surrounded that area in aruba to see if there were any other bones involved, but now still they've got to identify who it is. it's some person, some human being, that now has to be identified and the family notified as to who can do that from the dental, and from the dna. >> we have our own phil keating on the phone with us from outside the prosecutor's office in aruba. phil. >> the prosecution's team here obviously wasn't sure what to expect, when they released this statement but clearly it's not going to be the mad house of media frenzy they were anticipating as this piece of jawbone with one mow lar still embedded in it has been ruled by the netherlands forensic

institute as not that of natalee holloway but the statement by the police also divulges that it is not i.d.ed at all, they don't know whose bone t. it is definitely a human jawbone but the origin of this bone is undetermined at this point. talking with locals here in aruba, they speculated this could have been anybody that maybe tried to illegally swim to shore and drowned trying to reach the island nation of aruba over time, but the bottom line here is for the holloway family, this is yet another possible lead to break the case that has ended as a false lead. jon. jon: phil keating in aruba, phil, thank you. so dr. bauden, it's a lot easier if you have a name that might be attached to some human tissue. it's a lot easier to do a dna sample and find out whether it is that person, but if all you have is a

bone, it's a lot harder o tell who that belongs to without parents or some other dna sample to compare it to, right? >> surely, but what the aruba police should be doing is going through how many missing people have there been in the past five or ten years that have not been found and is there anybody who had been reported drowning while swimming, falling off a boat and get that information in, because as soon as somebody goes missing, the first thing police do is get the dental x-rays, so they probably have dental x-rays on file on all the reported missing people and they can compare that to the bone, because whoever that person is, they should be identified. >> let me add this quickly, it looks like because of the condition of the bone there's going to be some limitations going forward in using parts of it for further dna examination, so it will be interesting to see if we get anything further from this story. that is what the investigators are saying at this time. jon: are they conforming there was a tooth involved?

>> it looks like there has been a tooth, but they said this, that there is still a possibility that the mow lar from the o-- the molar could be used for efforts to have a dna profile but it would inhibit future research into identifying who the bone is connected to. >> the root. pulp is protected by the tooth and we've identified dna80 years later in the tooth pulp and what they want to do, they're not using their research, they want to make a dna on that tooth. they don't have to keep anything further than that and once they make a dna in that then they can compare it to the relatives of anybody else who's been missing from that aruba, because probably somebody from around aruba or from a boat near aruba, somebody falling off, and reported as a missing person. jon: again, you have to feel

sorry for tphao*tally's parents. >> it's interesting. think of natalie's parents. if this had been natalie, it would destroy any hope that she's alive, so the family is in a bind, wanting a conclusion but wanting natalie to still be alive. jon: dr. michael bauden, nice to have you on, thank you. states faced with huge budget shortfalls are now forced to consider cut medicaid. might they actually end that federal health program for the poor? that's coming up.

jenna: president obama faces a new gop majority on capitol hill, republicans gear town run against him in the next election and he could even face a democratic primary challenge in 2012. james rosen is live in washington with this story. james, a number of the most likely democratic challengers to president obama have already ruled out running against him. is that the case? >> that's true but scenarios like this, whenever they do

come to pass always begin as preposterous, unspeakable heresies but they have quoted a damaging primary challenge for president obama is not unthinkable. the two figures seen as the most likely -- likely if not necessarily objectively likely are senator russ feingold of wisconsin who cron ceded defeat and said it's on to 2012 and former vermont governor howard dean who thought the obama health care law not revolutionary and urged senators to vote against it. the last to face a challenger was jimmy carter who prevailed in the primary but lost the white house later that year. the author of that study says there are similarities but not enough to count out president obama just yet. >> i see that there's clearly a wing of progressives within the democratic party that are upset with what is clearly obama's cynicism -- obama's

criticism, that is the picture shared with 1979-1980, what i don't quite see is the personality and a personality that has a kind of power to it which ted kennedy had. >> some analysts say a more likely scenario, a challenge from an independent candidate and there the figure who looms largest in this kind of speculation is new york mayor michael bloomberg who ran twice as republican and switched his party affiliation. bloomberg is considered one of the most successful chief executives in history and one of the richest men in america, however, bloomberg turns 07 in 2012, right smack in the middle of primary season. jenna: happy birthday, right? what better way to celebrate, more politics. james, thank you very much. >> thank you. jon: for more on this challenge from the left, we're joined by ron clink,

also matt sclapp, former political director under president george w. bush. welcome to both of you. ron, this is one of the most liberal presidents we've elected in recent years. isn't he? why would the left flank of his party want to challenge him? >> i think some would portray him as being far more liberal than he's been. clearly the left was -- well, they were happy we got a national health care bill passed finally. they were not happy with the lack of a public option and there were other aspects of t similarly, organized labor was very distraught about the fact that when president obama was campaigning, to build a difference on health care and john mccain was this issue of whether or not you attack the cadillac plans, the health plan benefits that labor fought decades for. he denied that he was going to do it, then established that in the future, they are going to indeed tax it. so there are a lot of people that are distraught and

upset about that and other issues as well. there are democrats in washington, d.c., some who lost, some who had won, who don't think the president was on the campaign trail with enough gumption early enough, that in fact once he was engaged he was fine but he took a long time to get throughout and could have done more earlier, in fact, could have played a larger role in defending nancy pelosi when she was being de phaoepbd and millions of dollars was being spent to demonize her. jon: let's go to matt. matt, if the president does face a challenge from the left i suppose conventional wisdom suggests that he would move left to answer it. would republicans welcome that? >> yeah. i mean, this is a dream scenario. politics, jon, is really about realism in the end. the reason why president obama might have a primary challenge is because the numbers have been so anemic for so long. when you have approval ratings under 50 percent, you're just asking for a primary challenge. what happens with presidents, it happens with

president -- it happened with george herbert walker bush, it happened with jimmy carter, when they have a pry -- they usually sur priv the -- survive the primary challenge jon: george soros is one of those liberal democrats, ron, who is said to be very upset with this president. there was a quote that came out of him on the huffington post, came out of a meeting that he had with other progressives and liberals that says if the president can't do what we need, it is time to start looking somewhere else. if you got george soros fighting against you, ron, how much hope do you have? >> i think think there's a lot of hope. the democratic party is far more than george soros. the fact of the matter is democrats are smarting from a loss they just suffered, the president himself described how catastrophic it was to the democrats, but it clearly was not an admonition just to the democrats, it was really an

admonition to both parties. the public in 2006, very unhappy with the republicans, replaced them with democrats and now in 2010, very unhappy with the democrats, although there really seems to be tea party candidates and others are going to really put the republicans on probation. that's what's really going to make it tough to govern in washington, d.c. jon: and tough to govern for this president, matt, when he has lost -- or his party has lost control of the house of representatives and nancy pelosi has to take a back seat. >> yeah, that's exactly right. they're in a very awkward position up on the hill, republicans won more seats than in many generations, over 240 republicans in the house, and the we'll question, i think the congressman is right, the american people are looking at both parties and they really want to see who's going to step up, john boehner and house republicans have an opportunity over the course of the next year to make really responsible decisions when it comes to government spending and if they do that, in an appropriate way,

which i think they will, they've got a real chance to earn back the trust of the american people, but they only got that opportunity because of what was perceived by independent voters as the radicalism of president obama's policy. jon: matt, ron, thank you. jenna: a massive drug tunnel linking tijuana to san diego. take a look at that. we're going to take you inside of that tum, literally, as we look at america's third war. that's straight ahead.

jenna: big budget shortfalls in several states, considering something that once was unheard of, really, dropping out of medicaid. that's the government health insurance program for the poor. could this actually happen and why is this happening snow michael weinberg is

senior research fellow at the policy program at new america found and tim troy is a senior fellow at the hudson institute. why is this happening now? >> a couple of reasons. first of all, this is president obama's new health care law, he has added 16 million people to the medicaid roll. it's really caused a great burden on the system, and in -- unlike the state of california, which is cash strapped, it's going to cost $5 billion. that's one issue. but also they've taken away flexibility from the governors, and making it hard for the governors to run the system in a way that's most efficient for their state. jenna: mike, do you agree with that or does this have to do with the economy and the fact that california is in a huge fiscal crisis right now? >> jen kwrarbgs thank you very much for having me on. you're absolutely right. the reason this conversation is happening now has nothing to do with the obama health care bill and has everything to do with the fact that tax revenues for the states have fallen off a cliff because

of the economy, so they're looking at everything and every option. it turns out stopping medcade was a bad idea but everything is on the table as we work through this. jenna: do you believe it has nothing to do with health care reform? because it seems to have caused a lot of questions about a whole bunch of different programs that are offered in the private sector and public sector. >> no, i mean, i think that the states are absolutely struggling with their budget situation but health care reform is only going to expand that $5 billion figure. it's only a 2 percent increase in health care spending in california and that doesn't kick in until 2014. 2014 is a few years off. we have to talk about what's going on in the states in 2010. >> what do you think the reality is about cutting away with or doing away with a program like medicaid? >> obviously i think that states shouldn't do that. i think this is a -- i'm not advocate thank states do this. one of the reasons they want to do this, in addition to

the increased number of people on the roll, the federal government is saying we're going to pay a higher percentage in the first few years of this new federal health care program, but governors like mitch tkpwa*pbgel of indiana knows he might get more dollars in the early years but down the road he'll be left holding the bag when the federal government pulls out of the program and doesn't pay quite as much down the road. jenna: final thoughts here. there's a lot of speculation about what happens over the next couple of years but with medicaid as a program that's potentially cut, do you see other programs in that same category? stkpwhraoeu think that whether it's medicaid or whether it's for the states, where they're doing education, they are going to have to figure out how to work with the federal government as adults, stop playing political games, stop talking about things that aren't going to happen and really figure out how to work together. jenna: easier said than done, right gentlemen? that's the truth. one big takeaway. thank you very much. >> thanks jenna. >> thank you. jon: the white house is now condemning north korea's artillery attack on a south

korean island. remember, 30,000 american troops stand right there on the korean peninsula. so how do you think the u.s. should respond? you can join our live chat. log on to foxnews.com or send us an e-mail, happening now at foxnews.com. at least three deaths, massive power outages, sub zero temperatures, resulting from a huge storm system across the northwest. how this storm might factor into your thanksgiving travel plans. that's ahead. and who brings you more natural colors than campbell's condensed soups? campbell's.® it's amazing what soup can do.™

jenna: hi, everybody. well, i guess it's true, what goes up must go down. normally. we're awaiting the demolition of a philadelphia landmark. what you're looking at on your screen is called the spectrum, the former home of the nhl's flyers and the nba's 76ers. those teams play at the wells fargo center now next door. a whole lot of folks on hand to see the spectrum's passing, the

arena making way for a retail, restaurant and entertainment complex. they're going to do it the old-fashioned way, jon. jon: really? jenna: demolition ball. jon: oh, no explosions? come on! [laughter] jenna: we'll keep everybody up-to-date. hi, everybody, i'm jenna lee. jon: and i'm jon scott. it is high noon here in the he's. some hot stories we are following from coast to coast and around the world. all new on "happening now," live reports from shannon bream in washington, william la jeunesse in san diego, amy kellogg in london. first to washington where walmart is fighting a massive class-action lawsuit. shannon? >> reporter: it could be the largest class-action lawsuit in be history, up to 1.5 million tea employees suing the retail giant for discrimination. jon: william la jeunesse with a look at fighting america's third war along our southern border. >> reporter: well, jon, there are dozens of ways to bring

drugs into the united states, but this is one of the latest. it is a tunnel, we're going to take you inside this tunnel which goes from san diego down into mexico. it's about a quarter mile long and, at times, 70 feet deep. coming up, we'll show you what it's like to be inside a tunnel like this. jon? jon: a royal wedding fit for a prince in a church for kings and queens. amy kellogg? this. >> reporter: we finally know when the wedding bells are going to ring and where. the palace planners kick into high gear, we'll bring you the details. jon: a full report from each of them coming up this hour on "happening now." jenna: first we start with what has become the top story of the day. north korea, nuclear north korea launching a deadly artillery attack on south korea, and both sides ended up exchanging fire. the south is warning of massive retaliation if north attacks again. the white house condemning those attacks. president obama saying north korea has failed to live up with

its obligations, and a few other statements coming out just moments ago. wendall goler's reporting live at the white house. tell us a little bit about the white house's reaction here. >> reporter: well, as you say, jenna, the white house immediately condemned the attack. press secretary robert gibbs releasing a statement saying in part, quote, the united states calls on north korea to halt its belligerent action and to fully abide by the terms of the around miscities agreement. the united states is firmly committed to our ally, the republic of korea. no one is interested in escalating this, but everyone is taking it seriously. jenna? jenna: what exactly triggered this? we woke up this morning not expecting this news. where did it come from and when did the white house find out about it? >> reporter: the military was involved in an annual exercise that involves a simulated landing on i don't think by i don't think island which divides

north and south korea, tech technically in south korea, but the island is also claimed by the north. u.s. troops have been involved in the exercise in the past but were not this year, so the victims were south korean civilians and a couple of south korean marines. president obama awakened and informed of this shortly before health care this morning -- 4:00 this morning by his national security adviser. earlier, a report that president obama had phoned south korean's president turned out to be not correct, but we are told defense secretary robert gates did call his south korean counterpart. jenna? jenna: so put this together with some of the other news of the week. we also heard reports about the north koreans' efforts to enrich uranium, there's a lot being said about nuclear efforts there. how does it all fit together? >> reporter: well, those reports came after an american scientist was given a tour of the i don't think by i don't think nuclear facility in north

korea. he noted a highly sophisticated chain of centrifuges, reported back to the state department which sent out stephen bosworth to visit china, japan and south korea to coordinate the reaction of the u.s. and its allies. bosworth says we're dealing with something that is serious but not a crisis. here's a bit of what he had the say. >> also another in a series of provocative moves by the dprk. that being said, this is not a crisis. we are not surprised by this. we have been watching and analyzing the dprk's aspirations to produce enriched uranium for some time. >> reporter: the so-calleddics party talks aimed at ending north korea's nuclear program have been suspended. president obama said when he was? south korea earlier this month, they will resume when north korea gets serious about honoring their commitments.

jenna: wendall goler, thank you so much. jon: it's a volatile situation in a region where tensions have been high for quite some time. let's talk about it with gordon chang, the author of "nuclear showdown: north korea takes on the world." also brett stevens, a foreign affairs columnist for the wall street journal. brett, in your view why is the north doing this? this is a pretty provocative action. >> well, they're doing this because they are experiencing a period of succession from kim jung-il who is ailing to his 27-year-old son, and if you look at the last period in which north korea had a number of serial provocations including against south korean targets, you'd have to go back to the late 19 l 0s when kim jung-il was being groomed by his father to take over power. so something similar is is playing out here again. it's an effort, i think, by the regime -- by the next leader to consolidate his authority

internally and as well as to once again attempt to extort the west for more concessions in terms of aid, diplomatically and so on. jon: gordon, i guess the question is maybe more important than why they're doing it is how we react to it. what should we do? >> i think there's a number of things we should do right away. one of them is we should put in place the financial sanctions that the bush administration imposed in 2005 because that cut north korea off from the banking system. also i think south korea needs to stop the industrial zone because that provides kim jung-il with a lot of money. and then finally, and this is what we have to do in the any event, we have to stop north korea's exports of dangerous materials. nuclear weapons technology, long-range missiles to rogue regimes like iran, syria, burma and also because north korea has links to terror it groups.

jon: aren't they propping up north korea? >> in one way in addition to gordon's recommendations, we ought to be sending the navy into the yellow sea which we have done routinely for decades and which this administration hesitated to do earlier this year over chinese naval objections. and i don't think it's wrong to at least put on the table the notion that the united states should be prepared if necessary to destroy this new uranium enrichment facility that was revealed over the weekend. it's a major proliferation risk. we know from a u.n. report that the north koreans are proliferating to burma, iran, syria, it's not an issue that's relegated to that's asia as well. jon: gordon, what about that? what about destroying that nuclear facility? >> well, i think that is certainly going to be the last resort, but that certainly has to be on the table. north koreans engage in these provocative acts because they know they can get away with them, so they can build uranium

enrichment facilities or they can shell south korean islands because they know we won't do anything, and brett is absolutely right, we have not imposed consequences for doing so, so they will continue to do this, and we know there are going to be more and more incidents until the obama administration and the li administration in seoul move away from this rhetoric. we heard it in march. jon: all right. if destroying that plant is maybe a last resort, what would you -- on what would you put sanctions, brett? >> well, you know, the sore spot, the achille's heel for the north korean regime is their access to foreign currency. we had a very effective program in the middle of the last decade under the bush administration sanctioning this one particular book, banco delta asia through which most of their financial transactions took place. now, stuart levey has, in fact, been going after north korean assets, certain offices that are engaged in proo live ration.

but to the extent that we can hurt the regime itself, it's access to hard cash, closing cay song, as gordon mentioned, is a useful step. those are the things that squeeze the people at the top rather than the north koreans who are suffering below. jon: brett stevens and gordon chang, thank you both. jenna: that's a big story, isn't it? jon: scary. jenna: very scary. we have the busiest travel day of the year looming, and tighter security measures at airports are effecting even more people. so whoo dangerous items have these screenings actually flagged? steve centanni is lye with more, and this is a big question from from a lot of our viewers e-mailing us, how effective is the tsa on a day-to-day basis? >> reporter: well, very effective. although most travelers don't know it. screeners are possibly preventing any number of crimes by confiscating guns, knives and other prohibited items and

arresting people who could have evil intent. let's take a look at one week from november 8-november 14th. tsa agents at 450 airports found six so-called artfully concealed, prohibited items, 11 firearms, and they arrested six passengers for suspicious behavior. and that's just one week. every day screeners find on an average of two guns that people shouldn't be trying to take onboard airplanes. officials point out it's the tsa's mission to protect the flying public. >> that means trying to prevent prohibited items that would be disruptive, could cause personal injury or cause security incidents onboard an aircraft that would have the effect of delay, that would have the effect of preventing people from wanting to fly at all and could have the effect of actually having bodily injury or harm done.

>> reporter: so the tsa actually quite effective. most people don't actually see it. jenna. jenna: some interesting statistics, steve. when it comes to those patdowns, though, the next question from our viewers is what about explosives? do we have any thattistics on explosives being found on passengers? >> reporter: no. the tsa usually wants to keep that secret for intelligence reasons unless, of course, it's a high-profile case where an obvious terrorist attack has been attempted. now, the christmas day underwear bomber from last year and the 2001 attempt by shoe bomber richard reid are the most high-profile incidents in recent years, but that kind of threat is is always there, and one former tsa screener told us just this morning c-4, an especially adaptable explosive is a problem along with box cutters, liquids that could be made into explosives, all kinds of things. in just a two-year period of

2006 and '07, the agency confiscated 20 million prohibited items, jenna. jenna: unbelievable. steve, thank you very much for that report. steve centanni, thank you. jon: strange update in the case of a missing north carolina teenager. his mutilated body was found in massachusetts. now police say he might have fallen from a plane. how's that possible? this harris has a live update from the breaking news desk ahead. also, fox news on the u.s./mexico border with a look inside a smuggling tunnel connecting tijuana and san diego. our own william la jeunesse takes you inside straight ahead. mom, have you seen my green shirt?

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jenna: a fox news alert for you now. prosecutors in aruba saying a jawbone found on a beach does not belong to missing alabama teenager natalee holloway. harris, you have more? >> reporter: i do. i just got off the phone with the editor of the "el diario", and he was telling me there was more than one bone found, and just down the stretch of beach where they found this female caucasian jawbone which we now know was not that of natalee holloway, there was another rib found, a rib bone. they also looked at that. that, though, was pretty much early on determined to be that of a dog. so they've had a lot of storm systems in recent weeks, and local islanders have said a lot of old debris is washing up on the beaches, but more importantly this jawbone is not

nat he hold washington i -- natalee holloway, and it would have been a good specimen because it was a lower jawbone. it had an intact lower tooth that they were hoping to do impression information with from natalee's records. unfortunately for her family and the authorities there on aruba, no match there. back to you. jenna: all right, harris, thank you. jon: right now a look at america's third war, immigration and customs enforcement has a big job on its hands, trying to shut down huge networks of tunnels built by cartels to smuggle drugs and illegal immigrants into america. our own william la jeunesse gets a firsthand look, he joins us live from san diego. more and more of these tunnels underground that we're seeing. why are they going that route, william? >> reporter: well, jon, i'll show you why and tell you why. number one, just east of san diego, the border is just on the

other side of that warehouse. this is the busiest commercial port of entry in mexico. now, when they hit this, this warehouse about three weeks ago, they found 32 tons of marijuana. and, jon, as they have hardened the border with drones, horses, 20,000 agents, the big push out of mexico with drugs right now is coming, number one, maritime off the pacific coast, but also tunnels. now, when they arrived here, this wooden cabinet was over here, and then you open the doors and, bingo, you find this tunnel. now, i'm going to go inside. you can already feel the heat coming out, a lot of moisture. this thing runs about a quarter mile all the way into mexico. as you can see, it's kind of a tight fit. this wasn't made for smuggling aliens, this was for drugs. and they had electricity in here, they had ventilation, fresh air so the workers could basically work around the clock. and then this stuff, it's actually very hard clay. you can see i can put my fingernail into it, but it's

still very stable. so it's easy to get in. they use jackhammers and concrete saws, stuff you can buy at home depot. it took about a year, probably cost about a million dollars, and can yesterday we spoke to the san diego tunnel task force, and here's what this man had to say about why they were able to do this and go undetected for so long. >> in this area of san diego, you fit right in. there's commercial industry all around us on both sides of the border, so if you can get a tunnel complete from warehouse to warehouse, you could bring your tractor-trailers, load your drugs inside the warehouse and just fit right into the everyday business. >>[audio difficulty] jon: we're going to get william back. it appears that for the moment we have lost his signal to that underground -- jenna: did he get lost in that

tunnel? [laughter] jon: it runs a quarter mile, he could be down at the other end. no, we think we're going to get back to him but, you know, it's an amazing engineering feat to be able to do that. i always wonder what happens to all of the dirt, how do they get the dirt out of there without being noticed? because that's an awful lot of dirt from a quarter mile long tunnel, but they've been doing that kind of thing for years, it's a lot tougher to find those things than you would think. jenna: shows how determined they are. getting all that equipment down there in, obviously, not great working conditions, but william's down there, so we'll find him and bring him back. [laughter] we've heard a lot from you about your concerns about radiation scanners from the tsa scanners. experts are raising alarms about high levels of radiation at a place we all visit. why your children may be more at risk there than going through those tsa scanners. plus, we've got harris logged on to our live web chat. >> reporter: it is my guilty

pleasure, i love being on the live chat. i just want to quickly tell you how, foxnews.com. go to the top center part of the page. look for jon and jenna this' beautiful photo, and there's a clickable portion in red where you can share comments and thoughts. right now a heated discussion on what the united states should do in getting involved with what's just happened overnight with north korea taking a shot at south korea. we're right back after this. [ me had a heart attack caused by a completely blocked artery, another heart attack could be lurking, waiting to strike. a heart attack that's caused by a clot, one that could be fatal. but plavix helps save lives. plavix, taken with other heart medicines, goes beyond what other heart medicines do alone, to provide greater protection against heart attack or stroke and even death by helping to keep blood platelets from sticking together and forming dangerous clots. tarian holdfarenthold. protection that helps save lives. certain genetic factors and some medicines, such as prilosec,

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jenna: right now radiation and your kis edentist. there's growing concern that a lot of dentists are still using old x-ray equipment, and more of them are also using scanners that deliver brilliant 3-d images that pack a lot of radiation. you have old equipment, new

equipment and radiation. let's bring in dr. manny alvarez, senior managing editor of fox news health.com. >> radiation, radiation, radiation, the buzz word of the week for everybody, for the love of god. [laughter] look, in dental practices, for sure, there is a trend lately of overutilization of x-rays. there's new technology like the 3-d x-ray machines that a lot of orthodontists are using and, of course, kids are going to the dental office, which is good. the big question is whether these technologies are exposing children to excessive radiation, whether these technologies at the end of the day are beneficial. jenna: what do you think? >> well, i think in some cases, yes -- jenna: yes, it's beneficial? >> yes, it's beneficial, yes, it's necessary, yes, the technology is good. but at the same time i do agree that a lot of dentists because this is not an industry that's regulated, you know? when you buy a piece of equipment, there's a lot of promotion from the manufacturers to buy it and they kind of, you know, you think about the

marketing angle in your dental practice, and you then begin to use a tool that perhaps you don't need to use excessively, and i think this is bringing the attention to many societies like the dental society of america and some states' regulators to pay attention to how much radiation kids are being exposed to. because at the end of the day, yes, excessive amount of radiation could be quite dangerous to kids. jenna: "the new york times" mentioned that some of the den fists were ill-prepared -- dentists were ill-prepared to use them, so as parents what questions should you ask? >> again, if you go to a dental practice and they want to keep taking x-rays over and over again, stop. jenna: it's expensive, too, right? >> if you go to a dental practice and say, look, i'm going to take x-rays for your kids, ask how modern is the equipment. if you are using equipment that is very old, those older pieces of equipment do tend to give off more radiation than the newer ones so, again, you ask ask the question. you're a consumer, and excessive

amounts of testing as we all know and we have seen the stories that we did about cat scanners for adults can give a lot of radiation to your kids. jenna: you know, a big question from a lot of our viewers this week, how does all the radiation add up? how much radiation do we get in a dentist's chair versus some of those new scanners? what do you think? >> i think that back scanners, you know, that's a back scanner type of machine, i'm going to be traveling with my kids this thursday, everybody's going to go think the machine. i think they're relatively safe. so that that -- i'm not concerned about the radiation exposure in the airport. i am concerned about the amount of radiation exposure we tibet in the health care -- get in this health care system, and follow it up because i think there is a lot of validity to it. more information on fox news health.com where we have all the articles relating to the scanners if you want to know how dangerous they are. jenna: i'm sure a lot of our viewers definitely do, doc. thank you very much. he's got that do.

jon: all right. scary times in the midwest, jenna. rare late of-season tornadoes hitting there. a string of storms ripped through several states leaving behind tons of damage. janice dean is live in the fox weather center to update you. also, we're awaiting more reaction from the white house on north korea's attack on south korea. the latest developments and diplomatic reaction all new on "happening now."

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jon: severe and scary weather across the midwest including rare tornadoes in november. plus, blizzard conditions. those same storms now pushing their way toward the east. fox meteorologist janice dean is in the fox weather center with a look at all that. >> reporter: those damage pictures out of illinois, jon scott, are unbelievable. you're not traveling this thanks giving, are you? jon: i am not, no. >> reporter: i think miss jenna lee is, and i'm going to

keep her posted. jon said it, tornadoes and blizzard conditions, okay? this rare tornadoes striking portions of illinois and wisconsin. eight reports of tornadoes. you saw the damage, incredible damage, we have injuries, a school bus overturned, really kind of unexpected. but because we have this clash of two air masses, arctic cold front coming in and then we have this warm, moist air across the south -- record-breaking warmth -- we could see the potential for more thunderstorms. i don't think we're going to see the threat for to tornadoes tod, but tomorrow we could as this storm moves into the central u.s. across the west. right now i want to show you where we have blizzard warnings. i haven't seen widespread blizzard warnings like this in i can't even tell you when. six states under blizzard warnings. that means strong winds, blowing snow as this arctic air mass comes through. we already have road closures across portions of idaho, i-15

from idaho falls to montana, the montana border there and, unfortunately, i believe we're going to see more road closures. of course, tomorrow is the busiest travel day of the year, jon scott. we are going to see some major problems on the roadways and in the air, and we will be following it from the fox weather center. back to you. jon: you're going to be busy, janice dean. >> reporter: okay, you bet. jon: thanks. jenna: well, american military leaders say it's too soon to say how the u.s. might act to deter yet another north korean attack on south korea. already we have more than 28,000 u.s. forces stationed in south korea, and the pentagon says no new american military assets are moving to that region, at least for now. so how should the u.s. respond to north korea's latest attack? it's the focus of today's power point, and chris stirewalt is is joining us. chris, today the president and the vice president are in

indiana focusing on the key domestic issue, the economy. what sort of challenge does this pose the president and his administration with this developing story in south and north korea? this. >> jenna, you sort of hit it right on the head, haven't you? i mean, when you're the president, you can script things out, plan whatever discussion you want to have, but in the end foreign events can intrude very quickly. and what we see in many north korea, and this is very serious business, is that the president is going to have to respond, and we've seen through the day the white house has escalated some of the rhetoric in talking about north korea, denunciations that the president is very upset about this. and trying to focus in. but this is a huge, very complicated, very risky game of chess that's being played against an opponent that maybe has less to lose in all this than we do or our allies. jenna: okay, chris, play adviser to our president.

he was blamed we're not focusing enough on the economy, and then today we hear the obama administration should increase pressure on north korea's patron, china specifically. so that's a bigger issue and a bigger story. if you were his adviser, what would you tell the president today, chris? this. >> well, the first thing is for the president, as we said before, foreign events have to be dealt with as they come up. we'd like to talk about the economy, but that's a long-term, structural problem. you have to deal with foreign affairs as they arise. and certainly what republicans are saying and even more hawkish critics inside the democratic party behind closed doors, what they're indicating is, look, we haven't had a workable solution with north korea for more than two administrations. this dates back well into the clinton administration, and there hasn't been a good answer. and usually at the end of the day as the congressman pointed out, it's china that is the protecter, it's china that acts as the parent for north korea, and people have to address that issue before you can get down to the nitty-gritty.

jenna: real quick, chris, would you have told the president, don't go to indiana today? >> reporter: tsa a call the white house has to make. now, he can talk -- you can talk about whatever you want, wherever you are. so i'm sure he's going to take some time to talk about this issue, but it just shows what a devilishly complex job the presidency is, especially when you're trying to roll out a political message as they are now. jenna: and you're getting woken up in the middle of the night, you have no sleep. >> reporter: that's right. the 3 a.m. call finally came. jenna: yeah. sleep deprivation and a lot of issues. chris, thank you very much for joining us today. >> reporter: you bet. jon: now to someone with direct knowledge, deputy special envoy for north korean human rights. christian, a lot of observers say north korea just revealed the capabilities of that nuclear facility, must much more capabln people thought.

and as a follow-on to that, they have launched this attack on the south korean island as a diversion, would you agree? >> i don't think it's a deversion -- diversion, i think it's part of an overall strategy trying to get north korea to get foreign assistance. i'd say it's an overall concerted effort to get our attention again, and, you know, restart the goodty ma cheek. jon: all right. so like a petulant child, they have launching these attacks, causing trouble and hoping they'll be rewarded for it? >> i think that's right. unfortunately, the response to that needs to be to, essentially, call their bluff. what's going on is kim jung-il trying to bring the north korean military closer to him. we should react and make it appear as though this is futile, but also counterproductive. just ignoring north korea -- which is what the obama administration is doing now essentially and what has been its policy essentially since the beginning of its

administration -- is not sufficient or wise from a security point of view. jon: one of the fears, obviously, is that if you get too tough on north korea, if you bring in, you know, a carrier group or something like that you might agitate the chinese. would they really be all that upset if we were to respond in that way? >> they might. frankly, agitating the chinese is what we should be doing. it was unfortunate over the weekend to see chairman of the joint chiefs of staff mullen argue or at least say we're going to be working this issue through beijing. china will pay lip service to helping us in north korea but does virtually nothing. it's north korea's biggest trading partner, so if you predicate policy on chinese cooperation, your policy is going to fail. we should be doing things to make china see the downside of propping up this government. jon: north korea has a huge army, up with -- one of the largest in the world, but their supplies are antiquated, 50 and

60-year-old tanks. they're not that much of a military threat, are they? >> no. the main threat posed by north korea is the number of around artillery systems they have within distance of seoul that they could wreak a tremendous amount of devastation on seoul in fairly short order. but we shouldn't allow that to paralyze ourselves. you know, this is a third act of war, if you will, from north korea in recent months. there's the sinking of the south korean naval vessel in march, the announcement of an entirely new line of uranium-based weapons program to compliment the plutonium one many of us suspected was there, and now this opening of artillery fire against south korea. very dangerous situation and, again, not one we should be ignoring or playing it cool on. jon: christian wyden, thanks. >> thanks, jon. jenna: certainly a lot of big news today, jon. unfortunately, we're not going back to the power play, otherwise that would be a little déjà vu. we just got done, but we wanted to show you something really quick if we could. we've been watching this breaking news out of philadelphia.

you know, they're supposed to demolish this big center, and we said, hey, they're not exploding anything, they're using this demolition ball. we've been watching it, and it's a little ineffective, right? this. [laughter] jon: boy. jenna: i don't know if we have a wider picture, we're depending on this helicopter shot -- jon: can't they at least send it into the bloses? it would be a little more dazzling. jenna: we wanted to brick you these pictures -- bring you these pictures -- jon: that was a good one, that was a good shot. jenna: we wanted to bring you these pictures and sometimes it doesn't go according to plan. jon: there you go! jenna: it's a big building. jon: i imagine there's some philly fans who are sad to see it go. jenna: well, there you go. slightly ineffective. if pictures get better, we'll bring it back, but just thought

we'd show you that. we're talking a lot about what's happening in the korean peninsula, and it's interesting to see that effect on other news stories around the world. for example, we want to take you down to wall street. it's been a rough day, stocks down 157 points. we have a lot of news playing into this as well. word from the fdic that the number of problem banks rose in the third quarter. you want to see that number go down. and nicole petallides from the fox business network is watching this. nicole, it's supposed to be a holiday week, a little relaxing. stocks not looking so good. >> reporter: without a doubt, jenna. certainly not an upward trend this week. your diagram showed all red on the screen. you were just focusing on the tensions between north and south korea, and that certainly is playing a big part here on wall street. it brings uncertainty and volatility, and when those markets open over in this asia, that could effect our markets tomorrow, so that's something to keep an eye on. you also mentioned the fdic third quarter bank report showing problem banks are at the

highest level since march of a 1993. the good news is banks are earning 14.5 billion, that's more than versus the two billion a year ago. certainly not back to the prebanking crisis levels. we are seeing so many things that we're digesting. we're digesting the euro zone debt and, obviously, irish bailout, the tensions between north and south korea, and the fbi raids here at home at the hedge funds, so there are pressures on this market. and the energy stocks, in particular, are leading us down. j.crew is soaring. jenna: takeover talk, of course, the headlines, but the big christmas shopping ahead. nicole petallides, thanks from the floor of the new york stock exchange. jon: the world's biggest retailers now faces one of the largest class-action lawsuits in history. why more than a million women are joining to file suit against walmart and what walmart is doing to get that suit thrown out. also, new details about britain's upcoming royal

wedding. prince william and kate have set the date, and now we can tell you where they'll exchange vows. also, the home where dr. j played will be a memory soon. the philadelphia spectrum is going to be reduced to rubble one swing of that wrecking ball at a time. there it goes, right through the ceiling. seems kind of slow, as jenna said, but, you know, they'll get it done. i guess it's a shovel-ready project. jenna: i was just going to say. [laughter] jon: at any rate, they are taking down the spectrum. julius irving was on hand for the ceremonies that will send the home where he once played into a dumper the.

megyn: hey, everyone, i'm megyn kelly. a fringe group of un-american race cysts -- at least if you believe the tea party's detractors -- now has as much support for its policies as

president obama, so says a new gallup poll. what a day for the tea party. plus, doctors already struggling to stay afloat have something new to look forward to. lawsuits paid for by hedge fund guys. the folks behind the sexual revolution are unhappy, unpeoplal and unsatisfied with their love lives, how did that happen? dr. ruth is here. and she says her child is allergic to scented sprays and perfumes, and now she wants it banned throughout the school. an expert witness in kelly's court, see you top of the hour. jon: north korea's envoy to the united nations says that shelling incident, north korea lobbing shells at a south korean island, should be discussed between north and south korea and not by the u.n. security council. no surprise there, of course, the united nations headed right now by secretary general ban ki-moon who is originally from

south korea. he has said this is the most serious provocation between the two nations since the end of the korean war. we'll keep you updated. jenna: well, right now the u.s. supreme court huddling behind closed doors meeting to decide which cases to hear. one of them, a gigantic class action lawsuit against walmart of all places. and this is covering hundreds of thousands of female workers. what's this all about? is shannon bream is live for us from washington d.c. shannon, what's at stake here exactly? >> reporter: walmart is arguing this class could include up to 1.5 million female employees and claims could run into the billions of dollars. the retail giant argues there is no way a class action of this size should have been approved or certified because they argue it violates the rules of civil procedure. a number of big companies and business groups are weighing in because they know it could have a huge impact on every business here in the u.s., jenna. jenna: what exactly are the

specific allegations against walmart? >> reporter: it starts out with betty duke, a woman who's worked as a cashier and greeter. back in 2001 she filed a lawsuit alleging sex discrimination saying men within walmart get a much better or opportunity. an attorney for the plaintiff claims betty duke isn't alone. >> we've collected evidence for years now that show numbers of women -- and men -- who report that women when being told that they're not going to get a pay raise are offered as a reason that men have family to support, and they don't, or that men belong in management and they don't. >> reporter: those allegations and many more. again, this class could be more than a million females if everyone gets involved. jenna: wow. a million females and some pretty serious allegations as you were just talking about, shannon. what response is there, really, from walmart at this time. >> >> reporter: well, a little bit earlier this year here was a

bit of their response, quote: >> reporter: so the class stands at six now, whether it turns into 1.5 million today is up to the supreme court. jenna? jenna: very interesting. shannon, thank you very much. jon: well, the date is set for kate and william. new details on the upcoming royal wedding. that's next. ♪

jon: president obama and vice president biden on their way to indiana right now. a state hit very hard by unemployment. the president is is pushing the success of the stimulus. he hasn't sold everyone, but he does have a big announcement for the area. mike tobin live in kokomo, indiana. i know chrysler is that town's largest employer. do people in kokomo notice a change? >> reporter: here particularly at the plant they do, jon, and that's because chrysler got some $7 billion in stimulus money. when they got that money, they were able to send $340 million to kokomo. this plant was retooled and updated to make cars more fuel efficient. through that process chrysler was able to recall some 400 employees who have been laid off, and that is why you have the president and vice president

coming here to tout the success of their stimulus package. they're also going to talk about unemployment numbers in the town of kokomo which were 6.8% when barack obama took office, shot up to 20%, and they've been able to beat those numbers back to 12% unemployment. you have a lot of people in town, the town itself has received a lot of money, saying that's not success, that the town is is a little bit of a ghost town, and you also have people, the local merchants in the shop, one in particular, saying he hasn't seen things this bad since the depression. >> unfortunately, the young people are all leaving because there are no jobs here. of they get out of school, they get some training, and they have to go to indianapolis or chicago to find work, and, of course, they relocate. so what we're seeing is a city that's getting older and older. >> reporter: now, the president of the economic development alliance in kokomo is actually touting the success of the stimulus money that came into town because he believes it

secured jobs with the big manufacturers, and once those jobs are secure, the smaller manufacturers and the suppliers are attracted to town, jon. jon: so the people who had jobs at the plant, have all of them been called back? i mean, are they all working there today? >> no, not all of them, ask they're not working today, and that's because the first shift has been sent home simply because of lo logistics with the president coming. they have been sent home for the day, and they will be receiving half day's pay, jon. jon: all right. the president comes to tout his stimulus program, and they lose half a day's paycheck. there's an irony for you. mike tobin, thanks. >> reporter: see ya, jon. jenna: new details just announced on prince william's royal wedding. we're learning when and where he's going to tie the knot with kate. any surprises here, amy? >> reporter: everyone, jenna, has been speculating that the venue would be westminster abbey, and that speculation only

solidified when photos emerged last thursday of kate middleton having a late night, private tour of the abbey, but it was all confirmed today the wedding will take place friday the 29th of april next year in westminster abbey. it will be a national holiday, and fittingly it happens to be the feast day of st. katherine. the royal couple is said to want a lot of control over the details, and the families will be covering the costs jointly. the bookies here in london are already paying out those lucky enough to bet on an april wed, now they're taking bets on things like will kate middleton use the word obey in her vows? and who will be the designer of kate's desk? this. jenna: and that's all jon's really worried about. jon: i was going to place bets on that myself. jenna: you can bet on anything, that's amazing.

jon: that is weird. a bizarre twist reported in those peace talks between the afghan government and the taliban. president hamid karzai on one side and a taliban imposter on the other? this what did karzai say about that? @k@k@k@k@k@k@k

john: yea, well, there you go. beth: yea, so what else is new? john: well, i just changed my medicare plan. beth: open enrollment? john: yup. i compared plans and found better coverage for me. beth: of course you noticed the new benefits we get under the new healthcare law. john: what? beth: well, like 50 percent off brand name prescription drugs for people who are in the donut hole. john: really? i didn't know that. beth: you have to keep up. john: come on. i'll keep up. anncr: it's open enrollment. time to compare and review plans at medicare.gov or call 1-800-medicare.