>> good morning. i am heather cheryleds. >> i am heather nauert. thank you for getting up with us and watching "fox & friends first". >> we begin with an extreme weather alert. all eyes are on tropical storm isaac right now as he threatens to de rail the national public convention in tampa. let's get the latest from janice dean. >> things have changed a little bit over the last 24-hours. the track has shifted a little more west ward. tampa you are still in that cone

but because the cone has shifted west ward so is new orleans. there's the storm system. we got the lathes advisory. 5:0024 -- south of his pan yoyo see some of the outer bands reaching puerto rico and wind gusts of 35 miles per hour. we expect it to strengthen in the next several days. here's the latest track again as of 5:00 a.m. still tropical storm as we head to saturday over right here the hespaniol hair yaw haiti the area devastated by earthquakes. 00,000 people a 00,000 -- 100,000 people are still in tents. that's a concern. it will tell us how much of a

strengthening process we will see. there is miami there's the keys moving ore as a tropical storm. there is tampa still in the cone. we will see rain and wind from the system. the worst of the storm looks like it has shifted west ward. we think the center likely right now across pensacola but look how close new orleans is. they do not need a strike of a hurricane on wednesday afternoon. we will continue to watch the situation obviously tampa a little bit better situation for them. new orleans not so much. people need to watch this carefully. isaac is threatening the national public convention. it is set to kickoff in tampa. a look at how they are preparing for this in florida. >> residents and rnc officials are hoping for the best but they are preparing for the worst.

the state has not been hit by a major hurricane since 2005. the folks are not being complacent. you can see them here stocking up getting the bottled water canned goods, flashlights, batteries, you name it. many gassing up their cars just in case they have to evacuate last minute. as for the rnc officials are sounding more hopeful isaac will veer to the west of tampa bay. if not there is a contingency case. worse case scenario it can be move to do orlando. rick scott doesn't expect that to be necessary. >> this afternoon i had a chance to speak with governor romney letling him know where the state was with regard to this tropical storm. the time to have a discussion about this is after it leaves cuba. right now full speed ahead. we are going to have a great convention. looking forward to the delegates. we are a hospitality state that

knows how to deal with hurricanes. >> even if it doesn't hit tampa directly the storm could cause problems in terms of security for the rnc. police officers are supposed to come from all over the state to work with the convention. he is prepared to send in the florida national guard. heather? >> we will have more on this through out the morning. >> your 5@5:00. the top stories making news at this hour. we start with a fox news alert. in a norwegian court ruling right wing extremist is sane and sentencing him to at least 10 years behind bars for his murder spree last year. the maximum is 21 years but can be extended sloengs he is considered dangerous. it left 77 people dead. a man who opened fire inside of a conservative group headquarters in washington, d.c. heads to court for a preliminary

hearing. floyd crocker was indicted and charged with transporting a gun over state lines and assault with intent to kill. he shot a security guard at the family research council headquarters. banned for life the u.s. doping agency announcing it will ban lance armstrong of cycling forever and strip him of his titles a move after he said he would no longer fight the agency over doping charges. he denies taking enhancement performing drugs. he said it was a witch hunt. in a statement he says there comes a point when he has to say enough is enough. for me that time is now. the tole this has taken on my family and my work and our foundation and on leads me to where i am today finished with this nonsense. was the writing on the wall? prosecutors claim suspected dark knight shooter james holmes made

threats before the movie massacre. prosecutors say they did know about these threats. we are also learning that holmes failed a crucial exam at school before he was banned from the university of colorado six weeks before that rampage. prosecutors suggesting for the first time that this may have been his motive. they are asking a judge to release holmes' school records which included a notebook he used to map out his plan of that attack. other people want to know why for sure. >> you can now watch the curiosity rover landing on mars in high def. >> nasa releasing this video it's from mission control during that historic landing earlier this month. it has been included. it starts with the heat shield falling away and the view getting closer and closer to the red planet. this video a higher quality than

the one that was originally released but it is still missing some frames, though, pretty cool. >> that is your 5@5:00. >> like the heat shield. >> let's talk politics. we have brand new fox polls on the presidential race. these were just released. they show mitt romney is surging just days before the start of the national public convention. peter doocy is live with us from washington. what did pollsters find out? >> this is the first time this year fox news has conducted a poll of likely voters as opposed to registered voters. we can't line it up directly with past polls. a week before the gop convention kicks off 45 percent of likely voters choose the romney ryan ticket for president, 1 percent more than the 44 percent of likely voters that choose the obama biden ticket. it is well within the margin of

error but it puts romney and ryan ahead. the ticket is up 10 points among independents 42-32 a major advantage. notice the 26 percent of independents about 1 in 4 who either choose someone else or say they aren't sure who they will choose. back to the likely voters right now. facebook put mitt romney and ryan ahead by a point over obama and biden. they are more certain in their opinion of who most media members want to win the election. a vast majority 61 percent say the media wants to see the president re-elected. only 15 percent say members of the media want mitt romney to win the election. roughly a quarter of those mo pick -- who picked the president. 26 percent say they are not sure who the media wants to win. while it shows a lot about mede kwlau bias, it can't have a direct impact. members of the media can only

vote once. peter doocy, thank you so much. romney standing in those polls is what karl roaf is talki-- ka rove is talking about. he said what he thought the problem spots are for romney and obama. >> he said they have an issue with the gender gap saying where he stands with men is not on track for democratic candidates. >> the presideoblem for preside obama there's a big gender gap. the bigger gender back is among men. he is losing among men by a much larger margin than do the normal democrats. he is trying to offset that or trying to run up the numbers among women. he made a determination, his camp made a determination it is tougher to narrow the gap among men than it is to try to widen the gap among women which they have done the things like the war on women. there is a gender gap. let's be clear on what it is. he is running way behind what a

normal democrat does among men. he is trying to offset that by running up numbers by woman. the problem for the republican candidate is the american people want to know more about him. mitt romney has a big challenge in sharing more of who he is. both men and women i think this is particularly drew among women want to know what makes him tick, where did he come from what's the ark of his life, what are the values ingrained in his heart, the more they get to know him. you said late in the game. for the people who have not yet made up their minds the 6-8-10 percent undecided the 12-15-18 percent that might be persuaded or undecided this is relatively early. they have haefrd about the campaign they paid attention about it they don't want to know as much as they want to know. they are going to start absorbing more information to help them make up their minds. >> rove also predicts this will

be a very close election. it may start to widen during the debates like the 1980s. >> pretty cool. it is time to brew on this. here is today's topic. how big is your circle of friends? we are not talking about facebook friends. no, we actually mean the people that you meet with in person from time to time. >> it turns out those of us who surround ourselves with a whole lot of friends have a great certains of well-being. new research finds this to be true for middle aged men and also women. those of us who have 10 or more contacts regularly have a better mental health and better sense of mental health than those who don't. >> besides friends what do you think is the key to a better sense of well-being. tweet them to us at fox friends first or tweet them to us.

casey anthony is officially a free woman. her probation is now officially over so what is next. >> take a look at this. a mother holding her young son stumbles on to the tracks. you will never believe what happens next. >> isaac could hit florida during the convention. >> florida is ready for it. >> thanks to president obama's economic policy.

>> good morning. it go it is 15 minutes after the hour. casey anthony is officially a free woman.

her year long probation ended at midnight. it happens after a year after killing her daughter caylee. she served probation on unrelated check fraud charges. anthony has been hiding since then. dole is recalling more than a thousand bags of bagged salad after random tests tested positive for listeria. dole with the use by date of august the 20th. it shipped to 8 states in the united states. no illnesses have been reported. >> now to stories you can bank on this morning, if your wallet seems to have never recovered from the recession, you are probably right. here to explain that is dennis neil from the fox business network. you are going to start with maybe some good news. income levels have come back up. but they need to come back more. right? >> good morning. good news bad news thing. since the recession began and ended we recovered only

one-quarter of the ground we lost in our income. progress is stalled in recent months. 2.2 percent rise in median household income the past year through june. that is adjusted for inflation and pretax. this remains 7.2 percent below where we were in the start of the recession in december, 07. it is still almost 5 percent below when the great recessions supposedly ended in june, 2009. the worst thing about it the upturn happened in late 2011. the median income has just slipped a bit in the past year because of inflation. with all of those numbers that means all of us need to do a little more bargain shopping and apparently target is the place to go. >> yes. this is a battle for reputation out for real dollars. target has lower prices than wal-mart this month. a survey says for the first time since october target was ahead by the largest margin in two

years bloomberg says mainly because of groceries. that is the reason. wal-mart is bigger in food than target is. their advantage in that area fell 4.5 percent taj points fell from that to 1.4 percentage points. the real difference shopping at one or the other works out to be really small. out of $100 you spend $0.46. so if you drive two-miles difference in your car it will wipe out the difference by going to target instead of wal-mart. >> it makes you feel a little better when you say $0.42. the race for the white house was judged amazon the gop would be winning. >> it sure would be winning. amazon wants to cash in on the election and put up a heat map to show sales on what is conservative verses liberal. this heat map i was looking at this morning right wing books crushing left wing books. 56 percent to 44 percent. but the surprise is blue books

are winning only in 4 states new york, massachusetts, vermont, rhode island, maryland and minnesota split. even in liberal california and liberal new york conservative books are out selling liberal books. i think liberals like to read conservative books and build up the hate. >> that is a very interesting take on the up coming election. thank you so much. >> the time now 19 after the top of the hour. coming up some products you use every day that could contain chemicals that could be harmful to your health. what you need to know that is up next. >> what celebrity is caught channeling her inner lucille ball. we will take a look at who is under that question mark and you may not believe the stunning resemblan resemblance. take a look at this morning's prices at the pump. the national average at 3.70 a gallon. [ pilot ] now when you build an aircraft, you want to make sure it goes up and stays up. [ chirp ]

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>> it is 22 after the top of the hour. time for some quick headlines for you. police in missouri storming a home there to arrest a man that they believe murdered a former st. louis university volleyball star. they raised another 18-year-old man believed to be involved as well. they are accused of killing megan boga -- boken during a robbery. a 3-year-old baby abducted right from his mother's arms. 19-year-old briana moore wander nude the hospital room dressed as a nurse and told her she needed to take her son for a checkup. they found moore and the baby five hours later. he is back with his parents and doing just fine. moore is behind bars.

>> heather thanks. now it is time for your fox health fix with a roundup of this week's medal story. there are dangerous hazards that may be lurking in your home right now. anna kooiman is here talking about products you should look out for. >> common products can be harboring harmful chemicals. in your bathroom for example read the product labels carefully. products like toothpaste air fresheners may contain toxic chemicals. if it has a product you can't pronounce or ends with paraben. don't microwave plastic containers or pure hot liquid into them. use microwaveable safe nonplastic bo nonplastic bowl instead. here's another one we can relate to. in our closet air out your dry cleaning. estimated 85 percent of dry cleaners use a solvent.

although it cleans delicate fabrics inhaling perc at high levels can cause liver damage and memory loss. what else is going on? >> we are talking about poor audio skills. they are contributing factors to autism and attention definite s disorder. some are using ait if they have children with special needs. they use devices like the audio penetron they believe they deliver music at different frequencies and it is helping their children. using it may be one way to improve autistic children social and emotional growth. lack of research based conclusion leaves many unconvinced of the effectiveness. >> tattoo infections, what's this all about? >> this is scary. u.s. food and drug administration say people who get tattoos may be aware of

having contaminated tattooing. analysis released says contaminated tattoo leak led to 22 skin infections. it prompted an investigation. it uncovered 22 confirmed cases or probable cases and 27 possible cases of contamination related infections in new york, washington iowa and colorado. the food and drug administration recommends they get medical attention if they get a rash or other abnormal malties. >> it is 26 minutes after the hour. the heat is on at homeland security once again. janet napolitano sued by her own employees. they say she is forcing them to ignore the law. we will tell you about that. do you know who this guy is? he just fooled a bufrn of people into thinking he was someone famous. how did he do it? it was all caught koonl raw. we will tell you about it.

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>> it is time for your shot of the morning. are you ready for a little country music?

>> you are listening to rodney atkins. he is here life getting ready to perform at the summer concert series. it is the last of the season. you want to tune in to that or stop by later. >> they are doing a little warm-up. >> they were there before we got here this morning. >> they get here very, very early, don't they? >> i am heather thaurt. i am heather childers. it is 31 past the top of the hour. now to an extreme weather alert. tropical storm isaac coming toward the caribbean. folks from florida to alabama bracing for a possible land fall. it could prevent a huge problem for the thousands who are set to gather in tampa this monday for

the republican national convention. rick scott insists they have a backup plan should it make land fall there. but it is too early to tell if this need to use those backup plans: >> anywhere from new orleans to the florida keys you need to be paying close attention to the storm. it is frustrating as a meteorologist because you want to be able to tell people where it is going to hit. but at this point in time we just don't know. 4-5 days out we don't have a good indication. one thing is for sure the storm is trueing to get its act together. you see the deeper reds and purples that is colder cloud pops that indicates a strengthening process but almost looks like it is splitting in two. it is a huge storm. once it moves into the bull of

mexico it is going to reach many different areas in terms of flooding and threat for winds. even on the right side of the storm so let's take a look at the latest track. as of saturday moving over southwestern haiti port-au-prince area devastated hundreds a couple years ago. many are still living in tents. that could be defer stating. florida keys area south florida. what does that mean? means more of the gulf coast needs to be on alert. southwest alicea, alabama, mississippi, into the florida panhandle you need to be on alert. ladies i want to point out the longer the storm is over warm

water over the gulf of mexico the stronger it gets. we could see a cat 3 depending on what shape this storm is as it crosses over land. those are the tropical models we are looking at. looks like a lot of consensus of the florida panhandle. >> that is a big concern if it is category 2 or 3. you will be busy. >> we will be here. now time for your 5@5:30. the top five stories making news at this hour. homeland security secretary janet napolitano facing more heat. 10 immigration units suing her over the immigration policy. a suit who is also an advisor to mitt romney says the administration is putting politics over the law. the obama administration ordered federal law enforcement agents to break the law to ignore the law they are supposed to enforce and break federal law

that is say you are supposed to deport certain people. in each case the obama administration seems to be doing so for political reasons. >> homeland security defends the policy and says it is focused on teenaged offenders. a teenaged girl escaping her kidnaper nearly two years after she was abducted. she was assaulted preetedly over the past two years. she also told them the man impregnated her and her child was still inside that home. while police and swat teams were able to go in and they were able to get that child. they also arrested the suspect a 24-year-old man. the word is his mother may have helped him hold the girls and that child against her will. autopsy results released just recently in the death of rodney king. officially ruling it as an accidental drowning.

toxicology tests say he had alcohol in his system as well as cocaine pcp and marijuana. he plunge nude a pool and then drowned. king long struggled with addiction. draw dropping video. watch as a mother walks off a subway platform and falling on to the subway tracks. it happened in the middle of a rush hour commute. the woman falling so hard she dropped her son and couldn't get up. luckily a group of good samaritans jumped into action helping both of them to safety. no one was hurt. thank goodness for that. talk about faking it until you make it. you are looking at brett cohen a student who went all out to make people think he was a celebrity. he hired body guards even paparazzi to follow him around new york city. his plan worked. hundreds of people stopped to ask for pictures and autographs.

some claiming they were his biggest fan. >> what was it like? >> i love him. >> i think he's absolutely awesome. he has a great future in the movie business. >> that is larl why yous. >> all of this part af social experiment cohen and his friends were doing. >> time for the 5@5:30. >> probably get a reality show out of it. >> let's talk about the politics. the latest fox news polls just released. they are painting a troubling picture for the president. >> doug luzader is live for us in washington. what did we find in these polls? >> the real headline here is it is a one point spread between the president and mitt romney. from there it become as pretty complicated picture. try as they might continual

attacks on both sides don't seem to make a whole lot of difference. >> they don't really have a plan. oot plan they have got won't work. >> one out of 6 americans have fallen into poverty. the president's policies have not worked. it shows a one-point difference well within the margin of error. this is not just registered voters but likely voters which is supposed to be a much better snapshot of where the race really stands. here's the numbers romney campaign really likes. with independent voters they are leading by 10 points even though among that group there is a large margin of error. 127 point margin don't like how the president is handling the economy. better news for the president

when asked who would do a better job in the economy it is a tossup with romney just two points up. the real winner? bill clinton. he has a 65 percent approval rating. no wonder they are trying to tap into some of that clinton magic. he's featured in a new ad and will have a prime time address at the democratic convention. romney supporters have more overall enthusiasm which may explain why the president has been trying to whip up support among college students. thank you so much. the poll numbers which ae are a watching that. charles krauthammer was talking about this. >> krauthammer gave his analysis on what the lathes results mean to romney's current standings in the race. >> i think this is good for the

republicans. it bodes well. romney has been under negative ads unlike any scene in recent american history. he is now in a dead heat. he has been husbanding his resources. he hasn't spent nearly as much as obama. he is husbanding it for the last couple months. campaign. as soon as he is nominated it frees up $106 million which he is going to unleash. when you hear obama talking about the fact that the other guys fight a little dirty obama side is running ads ausing romney of killing a woman with cancer. he has foul troubles in the 4th quarter they are pretending they are victims of it. you think for romney after the personal attacks, debate all of the variations of that i think

it means he's in a very good position. >> for the republican national chairman committee person also talking this morning. earlier we showed you joe biden will be head wiheading to tampa monday. that is the first day of the national republican convention. this move ignores an unofficial tradition of campaigns. last night on "hannity" they reacted to the move. >> joe biden and his crew we will have a -- we will layout the welcome mat for you. we will give you all of the passes you need. joe biden is the best surrogate. the more he talks the better off we are welcome joe biden to tampa. e spoke with the national weather service they don't see

any scenario in which they can't start the convention. the fireworks fizzled for these two. john mayer and katie perry have fwro broken up. the pair was nevever official about dating each other but rumors had been swirling through out the summer. a jersey shore star nicole palezi known as snookie ready to pop. she admitted as she gets closer to her due date the more nervous sgheets about maybe she is going to be a bad mom. that's what she thinks. can you tell the difference? sophia gets a lucille ball make-over. she posted it on her twitter account with the caption "lucy i am home." she pretty much nailed it. >> what a resemblance right there. >> try to do bhoois impression

there. >> the time now 42 after the top of the hour. coming up, did president obama just discardnal noland? he was going to -- the cardinal said -- anyway, we will talk about that. >> he was invited to speak at the democratic national convention. the dnc turned it down. we will tell but that. do you want an indicator of who will win this year's presidential race? look no further than twitter. clayton morris comes in our tech guru.

. . >> welcome back. we just showed you brand new fox news polls that have mitt romney gaining some ground. is there a better way to tap into voert sentiment? twitter is trying just that. the social media site developed an index to see who is getting the more favorable tweets.

we have fox and friends clayton morris. i tweet. i know you tweet as well. it is going political. >> voter sentiment. whether it devotes is another thing. they are analyzing the millions of tweets that are going out there every day. 400 million tweets. who is getting more favorable tweets? is it obama or romney? they have mitt romney up a little bit up 9 points. this was a rough week for mitt romney. a lot of what was going on wasn't effecting him on twitter. people were rallying to his defense. overall how much does it translates into the votes it will be interesting to watch in november. >> do they zero in on the number of hits that say romney or obama? >> they are looking at the mood. you can look at parts of the

country where interesting mood shifts are happening. they may say look into the midwest to see there's a lot of excitement for mitt romney. you might look on the east coast and say maybe there's more excitement for president obama. they are looking at the names at what is going said about them. i am excited about mitt or president obama's platform. y where else do we get people -- i think people take to twitter like my wife yesterday. shea tweeted there's a guy on a motorcycle with a parrot on his shoulder. you instantly go to twitter because you are feeling a certain way. so never before have we had measurement tools that we can capture in a moment how someone is feeling about a candidate. does it translate to them going to the voting booth and pulling a lever? i don't know.

pollsters can't get a hold of young people. >> in 140 characters or less. >> they can't get people on the phone to find out if they are going to vote for a candidate. >> you think this is a trend that will continue to grow as twitter has itself? >> twitter one are the major driving factors of getting obama elected. getting out the youth vote was a factor. social media is where younger people are hanging out and talking about things that effect them. >> thank you so much. you can tweet us at fox and friends first. 49 after the top of the hour. we are going to toss it over to heather who will tell us what is coming up. >> cardinal dolan will make his blessing at the republican convention. the same offer he gave at the democratic convention but he was turned around. >> it is the last chance to answer the question of the day. a new study says a lot of

friends, well that is a key to a sense of well-being. what do you think is the key to staying happy and healthy? we will reach our e-mails next. now time to check in with steve doocy to see what's coming up on "fox & friends". >> the key to happiness is tuning into "fox & friends". we are tracking tropical storm isaac does it have tampa and republican national convention in the future? we will talk about that. we have great guests lined up. bob mcdonald geraldo rivera, chris wallace and rodney atkins performs for the finale of the all american summer concert series. kicks off less than 10 minutes from right now. right here on the channel you are watching. ♪

why not take a day to explore your own backyard? with two times the points on travel, you may find yourself asking why not, a lot. chase sapphire preferred. there's more to enjoy.

some are calling this a cardinal sin. new york post reporting that president obama turned down an offer from cardinal atm dolanto deliver the benediction. he is the most important catholic official. the night that mitt romney accepts the nomination. dollan insists that the prayer is not an indorsement. -- endorsement. >> despite being a catch. the rules say she has to do the job herself . no one can bring that in.

earlier in the show we asked you to brew on this. a new study finds that middle aged people who have more friends have a greater sense of well being. what is the key to better sense of well being? michelle e-mails us and writes, having a first belief in your faith provides: and brad tweets: >> there you go, brad. >> everybody had a good sense of perspective there. thanks everybody who responded. keep those comments coming. the time is 5 minutes until the top of the hour. this no match for convertible. >> can you figure out what our word of the day is? here's a little hint.

stick around for the answer in just a minute. you've got to be kidding me. this is good. vamanos. vamanos. vamanos. gracias. gracias. gracias. ♪ trece horas en el carro sin parar y no traes musica. mira entra y comprame unas papitas. [ male announcer ] get up to 795 miles per tank in the 2013 passat tdi clean diesel. that's the power of german engineering. see your local dealer for special lease and finance rates during the autobahn for all event.

♪ >> good morning, one minute on the hour. first the good, bad and ugly. shop for a car this weekend. you can save 25 percent on regular clearance items in macy's tomorrow. >> and the bad. the woman said her gas pedal got stuck. the suv reaching speeds of 110 miles per hour and traveling 60 miles before slowing down enough so a cop could climb in and force that car into park . >> and the top of the convertible proves no match for the bear. and here's the hungry bear. >> it is time to get