partof the block this hour. and we begin with a true test for president obama, one day after the dow saw the biggest drop ever, the president is getting hit from all sides of the fiscal crisis. and american voters are ready to start another wave of elections that could change the power in washington once again. and looking at the stocks rallying up 200 points today, but with all of the uncertainty spooked investors are looking for solid answers from the president, and answers they did not find when he addressed the credit downgrade monday. >> markets will rise and fall, but this is the united states of america. no matter what some agency may say, we have always been and always will be a aaa country. >> nbc's kristen welker joins me life from the white house, and the president is getting more criticism today, because he attended a fund-raiser last

night where he said he inherited much of the current debt problem, so is the white house caught flat footed by this crisis and underreacting to how the american people want to see the president respond? >> well, thomas, the white house would argue no they are trying to make the case that the president is remaining calm and restorem so optimism given the difficult economic times. we have heard him talk for some time that we are in the process of recovering, and we have made some gains since 2008 when he took office, but there are certainly headwinds that we will face, and continue the face. but the question is, is that message resonating? and as you said the new "usa today"/gallup poll said that 51% of the respondents say that the president should not be re-elected but he faces an unnamed responder. and also congress is getting a

lot of the blame. so we are starting to see the themes come s coming out in 20, the economy and the downgrade. >> and now in several swing states the gop candidates are hammering him on the right, but take a listen to this though? >> the fact nthat we cannot dea with the issues is because of lack of leadership. and the leadership starts at the top. >> for the first time in the history of america lost the aaa rating and it happened under president barack obama. >> well, we have a president who is asleep at the switch. >> what is interesting is that as we watch everybody out there on the stump and congresswoman bachmann who voted no about the debt deal and is fine to go out there to talk about who is to

blame, and any way that the president is planning to get a hold of this while he goes out on the campaign trail? >> well, there is certainly enough blame to go around. you heard the president yesterday that the decision by standard & poor's was a political one and not one based on economic facts. he reiterated the fact that he feels that the country is a aaa rating, and we are likely to see him get ahead of the issue with jobs and economy and visiting the battleground states with polls, and he has a trip planned around the midwest and he will face iowa and talk about his vision to try to improve some of the jobs numbers. so that is certainly going to be one of his strategies in terms of dealing with it. thomas? >> and kristen welker, at the white house, thanks. and we want to bring in msnbc

contributor and cnbc columnist ron insana and ezra klein, a msnbc contributor. what can we expect from the president, ron? >> well, given how deeply the dow futures were down about 370 points after yesterday's 600-point sell-off and then markets around the world began to rally back. so it appears they are putting a lot of the pressure on the fed to say something strong, to say there is a qe 3 that the fed will engage in more stimulative efforts to prop up the economy and we don't know the shape lit take, because the fed has bought in excess of $2 billion in treasury bonds and mortgages to keep down the interest rates, and there are other things that they can do, but i'm not sure that is what we will hear when the statement comes at 2:15 eastern time. >> ezra, because president obama has been hit on all sides because he is not showing the leadership as we talked about

with the poll numbers with kristen, does he need to stop blaming the bush administration and say what he is going to do the solve this crisis, because we know that president obama takes a calm, cool and collected approach, but that is not what america is begging for right now. >> if you talk to the administration the only thing that has kept him afloat is that he has had a high support edge, and it is largely because people don't like the economy, but they believe he has inherited it, so it is a strong story line for them, but at some point it does not matter because the american people will vote in the election and vote on whether or not obama or the republican opponent have a better plan for jobs and other economic elements of the country going forward and, yes, he does need to offer an economic project going forward and he mentioned in the press conference yesterday he will be offering deficit reduction ideas to the xhishgs bcommission, but not enough, because the white

house needs a more persuasive message on jobs and growth, and other than that nothing compelling has been coming from them. >> ron, we saw a big drop from bank of america and are there more fears of big banks taking major hits? >> well, it is not positive. the banks have led the correction down, and bank of america, itself, fell sharply yesterday, and the banks on average fell 11% and they have been falling for several months and they are well capitalized and not 2008 overextended and going into the soft patch or double-dip recession without adequate capital. and they are stressed for that presumably, and bank of america has a lot of litigation issues over mortgage unresolved and not yet quantified so that stock has been hard hit, but having said that, it is among the biggest winn winners in terms of the percentages as the market bounces back. i would hope that if financials weaken, banks will have a

problem being a darling of wall street again, and until they turn in a convincing way, it is hard to imagine that this market will turn in a manner that is equally convincing. >> and ezra, you wrote on the blog that the worse it gets the less congress will act to stop the bleeding, and that is an act of treason. >> well, kim wrote that on the blog, but it is an act of treason if the economy is in bad shape, and obama is looked as weak. but it is not cynical that mitch mcconnell and john boehner retire to the lair and plot of how to fix the economy, but people look at what their self-interests requires them to believe, so they look at what barack obama is going to offer the economy will not help and so they fight it in many ways and gridlock is a good recipe for not moving forward and we do need government action and the more we paralyze and collapse

into partisan bickering the less we can do to move the country forward and that is not good in the end game for barack obama. >> and let me amplify that point, because the one thing that is sold and said to be true right now is that deficit reduction in the short run will help this economy which is not running on all cylinders, and that is flatly untrue. if yu throw hundreds of thousands of government workers out of their jobs in and economy of 4.6 applicants for every job, the unemployment will go up, and the reductions in the unfunded mandates is the key, and the pressure that the s&p have put on the congress will make them do some hasty decisions to undo the economy. >> thank you, ron insana and ezra klein. and now a national manhunt for three siblings. they shot at a police officer trying to the pull them over for speeding in florida before

fleeing to georgia where they robbed a bank. the officer's dash cam catches the trio and later while in pursuit the cop radios back that he has been fired on. >> fired several more shops at me. >> and they have a flat tire, too. >> seems i will not be able to keep up with him, because i can't go much farther. >> cliff van zandt is a former fbi profiler and msnbc contributor. you used to work in the atlanta office so what are they doing right now to actively track down the three fugitive siblings. >> well, a combination of the fbi and the police efforts and using bulletin boards and credit cards and relying on the public. these are the three best known pictures in america right now of fugitives. i would suggest that anyone who sees these people, and you know, simply call 911. i think that the reality is that these are not, thomas, not professional criminals and not used to being on the run, and

they are probably hold-up some place in an apartment somewhere and when the authorities find them, i hope they do the smart thing. listen to the negotiator to tell them this is not that bad, and nobody has been shot, and nobody has been hurt, and in is not a good day to die and put down the guns and come out. i hope that is hopefully how it is going to be resolved. >> clint, one of the siblings wrote, ryan, in a text to his mother, at some point we all have to dishgs ae, and does tha you an insight of how they are roaming around the country? >> well, with these three, thomas, the leader is probably the older which is the oldest sister, and hopefully, you know, as much as she writes on the blog that she likes to shoot at guys and wreck cars and do things like this, this is time for a healthy dose of common sense. they are in their 20s and want to see the 30s and even though

individually, they havele cha e challenges going on, there is nothing to be unresolved. cliff i want to talk about a breaking news there in broward county, florida, there is a swat situation at a check cashing store where one person was reportedly shot and unknown if it is a victim or the suspect, but as you see the s.w.a.t. team rolling in on this, and very close to the store front there of the check cashing operation and it looks like guards are moving up to the front door, what's their first actions right here to make sure that everybody gets out safe, and that no one else was harmed. >> well, they are doing two things. they want a strong interperimeter which is swat, and if they have to make a tactical entry, they will go in and then an outer perimeter of officers to track down, and a trained negotiator to yell through the phone or bull horn or call on the phone to say i'm here to help you and get it resolved and have to talk to

people inside. most people, thomas, with the chance of going up against the s.w.a.t. team and coming out to face a judge will choose the latter. hopefully in this case like the one we talked about with the three fugitives, whoever is inside of that check cashing facility makes the same good decision. >> as we have been talking to you two of the s.w.a.t. team members were breaking a window, and t and t and t and t and the s.w.a.t. team is looking like they may be going. we will continue the watch the standoff. thank you for joining us. >> thank you shgsyou, thomas. and is rick perry ready to make an announcement? and michele bachmann is with a new challenge, this "newsweek"

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welcome back, everybody. we may be days away from an official announcement from governor rick perry from texas to run for president in 2012. and more reason for him to run, the "usa today"/gallup poll shows that he would pull conservative votes from michele bachmann, and we are followed by carrie dann who the race in south carolina, what is the governor's next step going to be? >> well, the people that i have talked to in austin, people who have worked against the governor and people who have worked with

him always say that he is not the kind of candidate who feels it necessary to play by all of the rules of every campaign and check all of the boxes, and he also has sometimes has been known to have a flair for the dramatic. i think that is what we are going to be seeing saturday. he is going to be attending and covengs of conservative bloggers in charleston, south carolina, and key primary state he is hoping to do well in, and we are told he will get strong hints act his intentions about the presidency. from there, he is going to go to new hampshire, also, have a very key primary state and hold a house party there, and you are to keep in mind this is happening on the same day as the ames straw poll where most of the key contenders and the people he is going to be trying to get the same voter are going to be duking it out on their own in ames, and yet the morning we wake up after the ames straw poll we will be talking about two storylines. one is the winner of the contest in iowa and one is what rick perry says in south carolina.

>> well, timing, timing, timing. campaign reporter carrie dann. right now, people are headed to the polls in wisconsin to weigh on the decision of stripping work ers of collectiv br ga bargaining rights, and now if the democrats win three seats today, they will take the majority in the state legislature and two democratic state senators face recall elections a week from today. and joining me is john who is back home today. good to have you with us. >> thank you, thomas. and fill us in on the campaign rhetoric that has been filling people's tv sets as we have been leading up to theday. >> well, it has been ugly in wisconsin. no doubt about that, but then again when groups outside of the state and groups within the state spend well over $30

million on just six recall races they can say pretty much anything they want to. we have close races all over the state of wisconsin right now and no doubt of that and all about getting out the vote. democrats tend to be bert at that than republicans and hopefully that is true today. up in lacrosse in western wisconsin, democrats are in good shape there, and battles all over the state. and we need three victories tonight to send a loud and clear message to governor walker and the rest of the republicans in the nation in office, you cannot go after worker rights and suppress the vote like you have been trying to do, and hopefully we are successful tonight. >> as you point out, $30 million spent on to get out the vote efforts by the outside groups who have set up camp in small towns and describe the mood of what it is like in wisconsin right now as so many people are invested in what the election turnout is going to be. >> well, the election turnout we are expecting to be high, and

both sides expect it to be high as a matter of fact. but as far as the mood goes, thomas, when you have family members who cannot talk about politics and golfing buddies who refuse to talk about collective bargaining because they will get into a fight and from one state to other and i have been around the state four or five times since i got back from illinois, and people are very divided. that is governor walker's fault, and that is no way to govern, but in tend, hopefully the democrats prevail tonight, when you start to build the states and bringing it back together, but the mood is surly in the state, no doubt about it. >> if you get the majority back in the state senate, how will it affect the legislative approach there in wisconsin? >> well, it is pretty interesting, because governor walker will have to sit down to talk to democrats. he didn't sit down the talk top republicans when they put the budget repair bill through and introduced in february which caused this to happen. but at the negotiation he will have to compromise and govern the entire state and not just

who he wants to which is important here in the state of wisconsin to bring us back together as a state. i would predict strong bipartisan efforts to make wisconsin stronger and restoring worker rights and creating jobs and protecting the environment and so on. >> thank you, senator. i want everybody to point out that you can watch the results of the historic election and as i said earlier, ed schultz is there from the ed show right here on msnbc tonight at 10:00 p.m. >> i want to go to the breaking news in south florida. the sheriff saying a s.w.a.t. situation at a check cashing door. a swat member went inside of the door there after breaking a window to the right and then the team went inside of the main front door. one person is reportedly shot, but it is unknown if it is the victim of a person being in there and we don't know whether it is the customer or the

suspect who has been shot. we will be back after this. what's up, smart?

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this week msnbc is focusing on education and all leads up to a two-hour special on sunday called "making the grade." today, we are looking at the role of television as a teaching tool, and now many child experts believe that kids learn less by watching tv, but they say that one character in particular is having an enormous positive impact and call it the elmo impact. we are joined by sandra who is a psychologist at georgetown university and talk to us about how the muppets have had a role in making kids smarter. parents will breathe a sigh of relief knowing that the tv set has not hurt the kids over to

the years, although, there are kids who didn't grow up with elmo but they know who he is, and the most famous muppet to come off of sesame street besides elmo. >> well, thomas, one of the things about elmo is that he is so popular with young children, and he sis meaningful to them, and what we had elmo do, thomas, so to demonstrate how to sequence cups, and we compared him to a character who did, department of educatidodo who was popular in taiwan, and we saw children sequence cups which is an early math skill. >> well, they cite stats from 2006 watching tv among toddlers and says that 80% of the kids, toddlers watch video programs on average of two hours ov s of sc time a day elmo or not, and

there are parents who should be concerned about too much television? >> well, you have to look at the media diet, and there is a quantity and quality issue, and so if you look at quality, any time your child is exposed to media, you want to be sure they are looking at the right program and content, and that they have the early teachers and just like we had the early teachers we learned from, and some of the teachers can be on the airwaves. >> it is not bad when elmo is so loved by so many kids around this country. sandra calvert, thank you so much. >> my pleasure. >> reminder that msnbc will air a two-hour special program called "stronger america, making the grade" live from detroit this sunday hosted by tamron hall and jeff johnson, and you can take part in the online conversation. all you have to do is to go to facebook.com/stronger america, and on twitter at stronger the hash tag making the grade. almost tastes like one of jack's cereals.

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good morning, everybody. the remains of 30 service members who were killed in the devastating helicopter accident in afghanistan, are returning home today. troops carried them to dover air force base in delaware. yesterday, leon panetta spoke about their sacrifice in tampa yesterday. >> they were far from home, but we know that they were also where they wanted to be. from this tragedy we draw even greater inspiration to carry on the fight. >> nbc's tom costello has more from dover. tom, explain to all of us that the pentagon decided to close today's dignified transfer to the press. why did they make that change? >> well, they did it, because first of all we should point out 30 men and 22 of them are navy sae s.e.a.l.s and the other men

represent the army and the air force, but there were eight other men, andfgan and special forces troops and 38 men in total, but because of the violent nature of the crash and the ensuing fire, they brought them all back here, and it is here that they will go through this very detailed identification process that will last some time with morticians and experts here at the base working to identify the remains, but because they have not been able to identify each individual soldier or airmen's remains, they are going to -- they could not ask for a particular family's consent or any family's consent. and so, out of respect for the process, the families and the men, they have decided that they are going to close this process, at least this return, if you will, the ceremony here. and we are expecting defense secretary panetta here and the chairman of the joint chiefs admiral mike mullen will be here

as well today, and then we expect this actual ceremony to be in private and the dignified ceremony will be with family members who decided to attend as well as mr. pa net tashnettpanel mullen, and this is a horrific event here, as they welcome home the last time the 30 men and the 8 afghan men, and this represents the biggest loss of life in the nearly ten years of the afghan war. >> and tell us that the pentagon is reviewing the chinook helicopter and reviewing the equipment used to see if it is needing to be put to pasture? is that what i am hearing? >> well, the chinook is a phenomenal and versatile helicopter, but the question is

whether it was the right piece of equipment to go in on this mission, and it was a rapid emergency response mission where the s.e.a.l.s were going in to help colleagues undergoing fire. they quickly got on the chinook and took off. and a lucky shot it is said took it down. whether this is the appropriate response with an emergency on the ground with troops under fire requesting backup and by the way, all of the troops on the ground survived and secured the helicopter crash scene which is an internal pentagon review under way. >> tom costello at dover air force base. thank you. other stories topping the news. the riots in london are spreading across the country and claimed the first life. a 26-year-old found shot dead in south london. britain's prime minister is tripling the number of police on

the streets of london and destrd deploying 16,000 officers tonight. this is the worst looting in 30 years, and it was sparked by the shooting of a 29-year-old man, and since then 100s of people have been arrested in downtown. >> and after a series of attacks called flash mobs mobilize on twitter and facebook and that i am bush people on the streets of philly, and mayor michael nutter said that the city will keep open recreational centers longer to hope to keep teens off of the streets and put the blame on the parents. >> it is ultimately bad decision making by the teens, and we need the parents to step up. if you want to have children, fine, but we will not raise your kids for you. we will help you, but we won't raise them for you. and now daniel strauss-kahn

faces a suit from the hotel maid for thele a ledged attack she says left her in shambles, her life, that is, and strauss-kahn's lawyers say that the suit is without merit. and a historic swim for a 64-year-old marathon swimmer diane nyad chose to end the quest after 29 hours in the water, but rough seas and winds made it unsafe for her to stay safe with her goal to swim cageless. and now anti-mood for washington is being expressed. >> well, that is not true -- >> that outbreak is with senator john mccain in gilbert, arizona, and tea party activists are upset with the way he portrayed them and the rest of congress is

feeling the heat. in a new "usa today"/gallup poll say that 24% of congress should be re-elected and only 56% of their own representatives deserve another term. so are we looking at another wave of elections for 2012. michael burgess joining us live from dallas, texas, to talk about this. sir, good to have you here. >> good morning. >> the morning when we hear the poll numbers, what will it take for congress to regain the approval of the american people? >> well, it is a difficult path ahead and obviously as you pointed out, we didn't make things any easier for ourselves in the last couple of weeks. i voted for the eventual debt limit agreement that was passed. it was not an easy vote, and certainly not something that i

would have constructed given the wherewithal to do so, but in the final analysis i had to ask myself a day before the august 2nd deadline, was i willing to let the country veer into the area of the unknown, and i was not. i have been criticized for that, and maybe rightfully so, because standard & poor's pushed us into that area of the unknown with the debt downgrade, and the fact of the matter is that know one knew what a downgrade would do, and it is not the president's downgrade or the tea party's downgrade, but america's downgrade. that is a place i did not want to go, and we unfortunately went there anyway and now left for the consequences. sure it is important for the united states congress to get back to washington. we are hearing talk about all of the money that could be repatriated to the country, if there were a change in the tax law or perhaps a moratorium for

a brief period of time on repatriation of corporate earnings, okay. what about a moratorium on the new federal regulations that have come out, the financial regulations, and the moratorium on implementation of the health care law, and all of the things would be enormously important as far as getting the country out of this defensive crouch that it is in, because everyone is concerned about the future. >> i want to play a clip from congressman charlie rangelle on a clip right here on msnbc, and he says that everybody loses in this crisis and the president should call congress back on the situation of dealing with the crisis. >> people have lost faith in the government, democrat and republican, and everything else. there should be no issue that is so important that somebody says i don't want to participate. >> sir, do you agree with that?

>> i don't disagree. the appropriate response is that the country needs leadership, an unfortunately, we are not getting a lot of that from the white house and some argue that we are not getting that from the congress, but this is a good time to come back to establish the fact that congress can lead and if the president chooses to do so, he can as well. >> to your constituents in texas, do you feel ashamed? >> well, people are upset with the vote, but again, i'm not second-guessing my vote on that agreement, and i thought at the time with the information available that is the best vote i could make. i knew good and well at this point oh, about half of the people who voted for me in the election would be okay with that, and another half would not be okay with that. and the folks who voted for the democrat in the last election would not like anything i did, so it didn't really matter. that is one that really splits the republican conference right down the middle.

no, there are going to be people who will criticize what happened. you know, what if we had gone past august 2nd? i don't know what was going on in the minds of the people at standard & poor's and i was more worried about moody's, because of some of the things they had written, but standard and poor's had made the decision to downgrade on friday after the markets closed and they were going to do that whether we passed this debt agreement or not. yeah it would have been nice to know the mindset ahead of time rather than blindsiding the american people with what they did on friday. >> and like you said, you didn't want america to go into the place of the unknown and why would the right tie debt to deficit? >> well, that is the -- like it or not, that is going to be the discussion from now going forward. i mean, the equity that the conservatives gained in the last election particularly as far

other conservatives are, you are not going to have a discussion along these lines without a discussion that includes deficit reduction. you saw the continuing resolution in the spring, and you saw it in this debt limit, and you saw it in the republican budget that was passed in april and see it in two months' time when the end of the fiscal year hits and another continuing resolution has to be passed and obviously, it will happen again december 23rd, and this is part of the discussion going forward and that is important and good that we have this discussion and we are borrowing too much money. >> and you don't believe that the s&p wasted any gain that you made by giving us a downgrade again? >> again, i can't get into the heads of the people at standard & poor's and i don't know why they chose to make the decision that they did, and it looks like to me that was a decision they had made, and they were going to go ahead wit regardless of the vote, so in that way, it is unfortunate and it is not s&p's fault, and the president and the congress own this together.

as mr. rangel said and i rarely agree with him, it is up to do congress and the president to show leadership, and the thing that the people are concerned about right no are jobs, and the fact that job creation has completely ceased. as mayor concerned, you won't recover the economy if people don't work. you cannot tax the private sector enough to correct the right without putting people back to work. >> thank you, senator burgesbur >> thank you. and the dow is seeing nice gains plus 180 right now, and we saw it above 200 in this hour, and we will keep an eye on it for sure. so the controversial cover of "newsweek" of michele bachmann was not the only photo up for the cover. we will show you those. and calling her the queen of rage. would that picture have looked

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the campaign is gearing up for a big weekend in iowa, but a potential challenger may steal some of the spotlight away from michele bachmann. jamie is following the bachmann campaign and he is on the phone to talk about it. so how concerned is the bachmann campaign about rick perry throwing his hat into the ring? >> well, the bachmann campaign you could call them calm, cool and collected. that is the public position on this and they say that anyone and everyone can join the race and michele is happy to see the people throw the hats in the ring. they say she is focused on doing well at the straw poll, and continuing to meet voters, thomas, in iowa, south carolina and new hampshire. >> all right. we will wait to see what happens this weekend. nbc news reporter jamie novograd.

well, the bachmann campaign has another challenge from the "newsweek" cover which depicts her as the queen of rage and conservative and liberal groups are calling it is exist. they say that she is focused on straw poll and not the cover. so is this cover sexist, and joining me is melissa harris who is a professor of h political science at tulane and columnist for nbc. members of the tea party, and especially women have been on the receiving end for brutal insults with so many called crazy, and rude di incompetent, and what is the way that bachmann has been portrayed for the cover story? >> well, look, i think it is a mistake on the part of mainstream media and ideological

left media to ever make sort of representations of women in to a tea party or women on the right as inherently incompetent in their person, in who they are. if you have a criticism of michele bachmann and i have plenty of criticisms of her, they have to be substantive and on the points. we can go back to see how hillary clinton was treated in the 2008 primaries and how sarah palin was treated in the 2008 campaign, and it is fine to make criticisms of these candidates, but when it goes into the highly personal it does open up the possible ilit possibility, it is by gender and not political disagreements. well, michele bachmann's camp says that "newsweek" used

their -- preference of photos, and so they say, hey, this is what we have to go with and got it approved by the bachmann campaign. >> that is right. they are going to makechoices. for them, us showing the cover over and over people having critique of it is probably good for sales which all media organizations of course, care about. it may be the right editorial choice in that way. but i do think from a political perspective the question of if michele bachmann becomes the candidate for the gop how will the democratic party make choices about how they're going to characterize her. whether or not -- obviously they're going to say they don't think he's right to be president. i think there are some real challenges that we have to face in how we characterize women as candidates. >> interestingly if we can show the outtakes. there's one of her hands clasped praying, some others on the campaign trail. nothing seemed to be at least

what i saw released twitter seemed to be that presidential or that cover worthy. i think a lot of people might say that this portrait itself, there's some outtakes from the campaign trail. there's one of her praying. i don't know if it would go with the queen of rage if these praying. the queen of prayer maybe. >> that's true. >> there it is. >> the other part that could potentially be sexist is the idea that a female candidate has to be pretty on the cover. when an unflattering picture of a male candidate is taken we don't necessarily see that as fundamentally problematic. we don't necessarily think that male politician haves to be good looking in order to gain our support. it could be that even in leveling this critique, we're sort of in the land of saying if you're a woman and running for office you also have to be pretty or attractive and a supermodel in addition to being politically qualified.

>> you know the men have to have hair. hair makes the men in politics. real quickly track palin has made sarah palin a grandmother again. it's the second grandchild for her. "people" reporting her and his wife welcomed a daughter into the world sunday night. congratulations to all the palins. just one phillips' colon health probiotic cap a day helps defends against occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas and bloating. with three strains of good bacteria to help balance your colon. you had me at "probiotic." [ female announcer ] phillips' colon health.

that is going to do it for me today. thanks for your time. you can watch this show every weekday morning at 11:00 eastern. you can follow me on twitter. for now, contessa brewer is going to pick things up for the next hour. thank you, thomas. appreciate it. we are watching wall street. what a difference a day makes. incredible. plus a family of fugitives on the run and they're armed and dangerous. how the cops are trying to track them down. and london, burning. more riots and now they're spreading. spreading. we'll be right back. handle morn letters and packages a year. that's about 34 million pounds of mail every day.

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i'm contessa brewer covering the big news from coast to coast. the big story we're watching right now, double dip. president obama fails to calm jittery markets and today fed chair ben bernanke tries to give it a go. here's how stocks are shaping up so far. looks like we're doing well in positive territory today up 226 points. again, above the 11,000 mark. they were buying again on wall street this morning. >> the the panic in the market is now over. >> what a difference is day makes. yesterday investors in a rush to sell sent stocks tumbling. the worst day on wall street in two years. president obama tried to calm fears. >> this is the united states of america. no matter what some agency may say, kwef always been an always will be a aaa country. >> as he was speaking the slide got even worse. thdo