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the gulf coast drenched by tropical storm lee. how much rain is coming, and how bad will it get? we have that in a new report from new orleans. still in the dark almost a week after irene, hundreds of thousands still without electricity. what's taking so long? unraveling the jobs puzzle. does anyone have a solution to unemployment? will the president go big with a new plan? plus, the new clue uncovered in the case of an american tourist missing in aruba. good morning. i'm alex witt and welcome to "msnbc saturday." we go first to breaking news on tropical storm lee, which is growing stronger by the hour as it dumps massive amounts of rain along the gulf coast. that storm is expected to turn

towards new orleans after it makes landfall later today on the central louisiana coast. right now the city of new orleans is under a tornado watch as well. the torrential rainier the gulf could last all weekend. parts of louisiana and florida could see as much at 20 inches of rain. let's get to the latest on this storm now from nbc meteorologist bill karans. where is it heading? >> it's moving. that's important. we were worried about this storm system lingering along louisiana for two or three days. now that we have forward motion with this storm, i don't think we'll get the historic 20 hinch rainfall totals that were possible yesterday at this time. the forecast has yooufed. as it moves it brings rain and wind to many different the areas, but it's not concentrated in one spot all weekend long. let me show you the latest of this storm. we've been watching mike seidel getting blown around. there's a push to lake

pontchartrain around interstate 10 where it intersects with 55 with 59. that's where we deal with the worst of the weather. down along the coast, there's not a lot of rain. some dry air has moved and wrapped into the middle of the storm. actually the weather right now from new orleans it to mobile is a lot worst than where the center is from new iberia down to houma. we have rain south of panama city, pensacola, all that rain has to move onshore during the night tonight. the weather along the gulf all the way from new orleans eastward is who will get the worst of this. that's where the water levels will be the highest at high tide, minor storm surge problems. as far as the rainfall totals, notice the red color on the chart is about 4 to 5 inches of rain. once you get to the purples, we talk 6 to 9 inches. this will be a ton of rain, but this area has been pretty dry all summer long. they can handle it better than new jersey or vermont did last weekend. we will see flooding, but we shouldn't see historic flooding

and people underwater widespread. it will be isolated. there will be trees down and pourt outages but not a historic storm. it's a significant storm interfering with a lot of people's weekend, but it's not historic when we talk about lee in the past. now, the path of the storm over the next five days it's a slow walk across the southeast, but at least it will be moving. i don't want to forget we have a hurricane out there. now, this storm is looking better and better. it's looking more and more likely that this forecast is going to turn at the last second, alex, before approaching the east coast. rip currents and large waves, but at this point it doesn't look like katia will make a direct landfall on the eastern seaboard. that's the least thing we need. that's next weekend. next weekend will be a close call, but i think it will be offshore. >> a lot of people say please let's hope that's the way it goes. we'll have a live report from mike seidel in new orleans. we'll go to nik in a few

minutes. a new twist this morning in the disappearance. robyn vanished on august 2nd. her traveling companion says she went missing while snorkeling. with a good morning to you, lilly. what's the latest? >> reporter: this morning a different search is under way in aruba, this time for potential eyewitnesses. authorities, prosecutors there in aruba released a surveillance camera showing a white hyundai car that was driving at the exact same time along the same road where the suspect says he had parked his rental car while he went snorkeling. and that's when he claims that gardener was pulled by a strong current and disappeared. now authorities are urging the passengers and the driver of this car to come forward if they have any information. they're hoping they say the car, they saw gardener, giordano or potentially what happened on

that day. he's been in prison for about a month as a suspect of this potential murder, but there has been no body. he's not been charged, and authorities are saying now a judge ordered that he has to stay in prison for another two months while they try to find even more leads on this case with so much missing evidence. >> how cooperative has he been? i think that there were reports at first that he was okay. has that continued? >> reporter: absolutely. he has been giving authorities every information they provide. also investigators and the fbi have been tracking his home. they gathered evidence in his house. other people have come forward talking about his relationships in the past with other women, but he's providing information. it's that the story doesn't seem to make sense. >> absolutely. thank you so much. from there to the economy and job creation grinding to a halt. the labor department says there was absolutely no job growth in

august. the rate is 9.1%, though some industries fare better than others, but every job gained in august was matched by a job that was lost. the health care industry added 30,000 jobs, professional business services added about 28,000. those include engineering, accounting and legal services. on the losing end, the government shutting 17,000 positions as well as manufacturing and construction down 8,000. august job reports also highlights a growing racial divide. while the overall unemployment rate is unchanged, the jobless rate for african-americans has shot up from 15.9% to 16.7%, which is the highest unemployment rate for black americans in 27 years. president obama has a busy week ahead of him focusing on jobs. tomorrow he'll visit the storm damage from irene and spend labor day in detroit meeting with workers and families. on thursday he delivers a major primetime speech on job creation before a joint session of congress. on friday he's promoting that jobs initiative from thursday

night in richmond, virginia. we invite all of you to watch the president's speech before congress at 7:00 eastern right here on msnbc thursday night. let's go back to tropical storm lee baring down on the u.s. gulf coast. it's winds are growing stronger by the hour, but the real concern right now is from the massive amounts of rainfall expected to soak the region this weekend. i'm joined live from new orleans by mike seidel who last hour when we checked was proof there was a lot of rain coming down. it's subsided a little bit it seems. good morning. >> good morning, alex. i have the hood down for the first time all morning. we're getting a break now. the heaviest rainfall is rota rotating north of lake pontchartrain in walker in livingston parish. we have flash flooding up there. south of here they have mandatory evacuations in jefferson parish because of rising water from all the rain. symptom areas like over in assumption parish, they've had over seven inches of rain

measured. some of the rainfall estimates are upwards of 7 to 8 inches. meanwhile the storm, tropical storm lee, the center is just off the coast drifting north-northwest at 7 miles per hour. it will make landfall later on today, but it's a slow process to get through louisiana. the good news on the back end is this moisture is heading up towards alabama, mississippi, northern parts into tennessee and even georgia. these areas are in desperate need of rain, much like here, although as they say too much of a good thing too quickly is not great because we've had the flooding issues. as far as new orleans, doing okay. we're not getting the rainfall rates it would take to cause an issue with the water backing up in a city already underwater or i should say below sea level. sometimes it's underwater like we saw with katrina. speaking of that, this is not a katrina. there are no issues with the levees. corps of engineers keeping a close eye on the entire flood protection system. they revamped it up spending $14 billion since katrina which was

a little over six years ago. alex, from that standpoint we're fine. we have 30 ,000 customers withot power. that tripled since a few hours ago. these winds gusting 50 to 60 miles per hour are knocking out some power. that may be the biggest issue for a lot of folks and localized flooding. so far so good with this one. >> you know what? i want to reiterate what you've been saying and what bill has been saying. even though we hear 15, even 20 inches in places as a result of lee, this is not anything compared to irene? >> reporter: no, because first of all irene didn't drop that kind of rain. it was moving faster. we had some double-digit totals in north carolina when it was moving slow this time last week. we were talking to you from a wind-swept beach in nags head. last week it picked up speed, and the rainfall is proportional to the speed. if you cut the speed in half, you double the rainfall. it's a mathematical equation.

it sped up through new york city and new england and was moving at 20 to 25 miles per hour. so rainfall totals in vermont were 5 to 7 inches, but up there we have mountains and hills and in new jersey and we have a rockier soil. down here it's very flat. there's no elevation, and the the soil is sandy. so we're not going to have nearly the issues we had up there even with twice the amount of rainfall. we won't see the horrible pictures we had up in vermont down here. >> okay. that's what we want to hear. thanks so much, mike. did libya help the cia in the war on terror? we're going to talk about new reports surfacing this morning addressing that. also, authorities in aruba releasing a new surveillance picture in the case of a missing maryland woman. plus, the higher gas prices and the labor day holiday. did more people choose to just stay home? we'll talk about it on "msnbc saturday."

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250 soldiers into vermont to help with the massive cleanup following tropical storm irene. hundreds of roads and bridges remain closed or damaged nearly a week after the storm slammed into that area. our colleague msnbc's craig melvin is live in lud low, vermont. craig, if you look around you, it's been a week since irene went there. how are the folks coping? >> reporter: you know, it really depends on where you are, alex. here in downtown ludlow, we're on main street. as you can see behind me, businesses here, followings here starting to get back to life as usual. this is one of the 13 towns where just a few days ago it was completely cut off from the rest of vermont in terms of electricity and in terms of the ability to get supplies in there. that was, of course, due to the 260 roads that were damaged throughout vermont.

scores of bridges as well wiped away by those floodwaters. workers here have spent all week sort of rebuilding that infrastructure. then last night there was a charity concert not far from here, and the idea was to give folks who have been dealing with all of dhaj athat damage and destruction to give them an opportunity to get away from it all. but signs here, literally signs that life starting to return to normal. there are two major concerns right now. the first concern being that tomorrow they are calling for rain. in fact, there's flash flood watches in effect for parts of vermont, which are certainly not what folks around here want to hear. the second concern is whether vermont is going to be ready in time for the fall foliage season. again, that's $300 million that this state gets every year. all of those leaf peepers, tens of thousands that come to the state to watch the leaves turn colors, there's some concern that will the roads be ready,

and will the restaurants and hotels that have been forced to shut down able to re-open in time to accommodate all of those gues guests? >> how much money does that bring in? >> reporter: $300 million. it starts sort of late september, and it runs for about a month, month and a half. >> that's way too close. only three, four weeks away. craig melvin, thank you so much from ludlow, vermont. here's a breakdown of where they stand right now. vermont has less than 1,000 homes and businesses without power this morning, but 123,000 are in the dark in connecticut. utility crews are working feverishly. they hope to get that number down to about 100,000 by tonight. fewer than 25,000 remain without electricity in new jersey, although pse & g says they have 160 out in their whole service territory right now. they said that the -- the governor says the board of public utilities will hold

hearings on the performance. there are also quite a few people without power in new york. the latest count is at 97,000. why is it taking so long to restore the power? a bit earlier i asked a professor from columbia university that question. >> it's because of trees, basically. a power line is put on a tree, and trees fall down. when you have big storms. the only way to get around that is, for instance, the very high voltage transmission line, the big aluminum towers and their clean cut of trees along swaths across the prairie basically as they lay those. they weathered the storm pretty well. it's the -- it's the trees that are the problem. it's not rocket science. >> that was roger anderson, professor from columbia. are you surprised it's taking so long to get power restored? talk to me on twitter.

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be face to face on wednesday at the gop debate hosted by nbc and politico. perry enters surging in the polls. he's six points ahead of romney and 13 points ahead of the next candidate. joining me now is democratic strategist peter finn and hear from robert trainem. i'm glad you're laboring with me on this labor day weekend. robert, do you think mitt romney's in trouble here? >> i'm not sure he's in trouble, but there's cause for concern. remember, mitt romney has been running for president for a year and a half, and every single poll he's been at the top of the polls. the reason why is because there really hasn't been another top tier candidate to go against romney, if you will, in terms of a former governor and business acumen and so forth, until now, which is rick perry. during the last other republican presidential debates, no one has gone after romney. it will be interesting to see coming up whether or not if

romney goes after perry or perry goes after romney or the lesser tier candidates go after both of them. >> the poll had interesting responses for the presidential match-up. perry is trailing the president by three points while mitt romney is tied. who do you think is more electable of the two, romney or perry? >> i will tell you, knowing both candidates, i think that romney is definitely more electable than perry is. you know, that's not a strategy to run on, alex. robert is right in the sense that so far it's been romney and the pygmies, you know. the fact that michele bachmann won iowa and then she's got this boomlet amongst extremely conservative voters, everybody is looking at this saying this woman is not going to get this nomination. nor is newt gingrich or rick

santorum nor are the other candidates that are third tier candidates. what you've got now is a battle royale between romney and perry. this debate is crucial because my sense of it is that the smartest thing for romney to do is, of course, to focus on obama. every republican will, but i would take a couple of shots to the right jaw of perry with what he's written in his book. >> yeah. >> i would go after him. >> i want to talk with you both about that. i guess i'll pose it first to you, robert. it's the book he's talking about, "fed up." he calls social security a ponzi scheme and talks about repealing the 16th amendment which is for national income tax. how does this play for him deeper in the primary stone? >> horribly. it's horrible. it's clear when governor perry was writing this book, he was not thinking about running for president, because everything that you think and say you don't put in writing in the context of what governor perry is doing.

so this is probably the gift that will keep on giving for the other republican presidential candidates out there. there's no question about it. it's an opposition researcher's dream. it's not what people are thinking, it's what he thinks and says. what you really have here is governor perry having to defend himself, which is the worst position to be in running for president. >> to both of you, i'm curious what you think is the most inflammatory thing in this book "fed up," and also the question to you, peter, were rick perry it to win in the primary, would this be the kind of thing that absolutely torpedos him with the independents in a general? >> i think it makes it very difficult for him. it's interesting about this, because way back in 1980 when ronald reagan was running, a lot of democrats thought that the comments that he made about medicare and social security were really bad for him. well, those comments, alex, were made 20 years before. they were made in the early '60s before medicare was even passed.

these comments are recent, and as robert says, it is a dream for an opposition researcher. what it does, i think, about perry is you have to question his judgment. if he -- if he wants to repeal the 16th amendment and he also talked about the 17th, which is the direct election of senators, if he feels this way about social security, can you imagine any voter over the age of 50 who gets the message that this guy wants to deep six social security? that every program that came out of the 1930s in the new deal is suspect according to him? >> do you think, robert, that's the most inflammatory thing he writes about in the book, or is there something else that comes to mind? >> i think so. peter is absolutely right. it boils down to judgment. if this is what you think. when you're running for president, i have the right as a voter to challenge your thinking and thus in the process to make my decision based on your thinking.

when you make comments about social security and texas leaving the union and so forth, those call into your judgment and whether or not you're qualified and fit enough to be president mentally and physically. >> peter, if rick perry is supposed to go -- if he said something like, never mind. i don't know what i was thinking. i didn't mean it. let's move forward from this point, would that clear the slate for him? could he move forward and do that? >> i don't think so, alex, because this isn't just a casual statement and answer to a question. this isn't just one example of him being sort of all hat and no cattle when it comes to his statements. this guy has continued in his whole career both as governor and as a public official to take these stands. as we've said, they aren't old. they are new. they are current. they are here and now. for him to suddenly reject what he's been saying for the last ten years would call into

question his integrity, his belief in anything, his -- you know, his ability to be a leader. >> peter and robert, we'll have you back next hour. coffee break time. see you shortly. thanks. you can see the full field of the republican contenders squaring off for the first time on wednesday, september 7th right here on msnbc. tracking lee. the latest on the path of the storm that is soaking the gulf coast. [ woman ] jogging stroller. you've been stuck in the garage while i took refuge from the pollen that made me sneeze. but with 24-hour zyrtec®, i get prescription strength relief from my worst allergy symptoms. so lily and i are back on the road again. with zyrtec® i can love the air®. exclusive to the military. and commitment is not limited to one's military oath. the same set of values that drive our nation's military are the ones we used to build usaa bank. from free checking to credit cards to loans, our commitment to the military, veterans, and their families is without equal.

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tropical storm lee's outer bands are slamming parts of the gulf coast right now. let's get the latest from bill karans. where is this headed? >> a lot of people don't need all this rainfall at once. that's what we're dealing with. we'll show you the radar. the storm is about to make landfall. down in the southeast, inner, tighter bands. this is where the center is. it's going to cross on the shore here probably in the next couple

hours. what has my attention, this is a tornado watch box. that means that's a threat of isolated tornadoes. that's going to have some possibility of tornadoes with it and also strong, gusty winds. new orleans is doing okay. we've had some dry arrow at a timing into the storm, and that's helping to bring the end of the rain to areas from new orleans southward. so some good news with this storm. you have to watch out for the potential of isolated tornadoes. hurricane katia is still way out in the atlantic. bermuda is up here and the bahamas. it will take a path in between two of those storms. usually those storms maybe tletden the east coast and do a swing and miss. right now the hurricane center takes it on a northward jog on the end here, category 2 hurricane. our computer models have shifted. notice the trend at the edge here. all of them hook to the north. that will take the storm it looks like away from us, and alex, this is what you're

looking at here is one of the our computer models we look at. there's the hurricane at the very end, in the very bottom of your screen coming northwards. it looks like it would just miss new england. we don't need next weekend to cover another hurricane. >> we do not. that with 9/11 as well as and the anniversary. no thanks. appreciate that. new jersey this morning, the aftermath of muhurricane irene. almost 25,000 customers still without power in new jersey, and residents are cleaning up. as we're going to show you in paterson, new jersey where the president is scheduled to visit on monday morning. if he looks at the passaic river behind you, it will be apparent what's happening the last week. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. you said it. look at the river and the speed that water is moving. it's the speed and level of the

river. it's about two feet above floot level, so the waters are receding from those floods that happened as a result of hurricane irene. this entire area was flooded. you see -- >> all right. something has happened to mara's audio there. we'll try to get it fixed. you see the passaic river and the kind of flooding that's receding. she made that point. we'll go back at some point. we have renewed speculation about where sarah palin may make a white house bid as she speaks in iowa and new hampshire this holiday week. this is the reception she got after an unexpected stop in an iowa restaurant. listen to this. >> run sarah run! run sarah run! >> you heard it, run sarah run. palin will be in indianola, iowa today for a tea party rally. she travels to the granite state

monday. congressman ron paul toured a gun holster factory in new hampshire on friday and asked about the august unemployment numbers he fired shots at the president's administration saying no progress has been made on the economy. all right. we didn't have that sound bite. we're moving on to mihm rotnei who had a scathing assessment of obama's economic record. speaking in tampa yesterday, let's listen to him. >> this president has been an extraordinary failure, and he said three years ago on the "today" show if i can't get this economy turned around, if i can't get it turned around in three years, he said, then i'm looking at a one-term proposition. he failed. >> romney will attend a tea party rally in new hampshire tomorrow. the republican presidential candidates are very busy this weekend. former utah governor john

huntsman is in new hampshire today at a gun show, and joining me on the phone from concord, new hampshire is nbc's jolene kent. what is governor huntsman doing in new hampshire today? >> reporter: good morning, alex. he's trying to take advantage of what he hopes is a bounce off of his jobs plan that he unveiled. he was here ain concord touringa gun show, looking at bullets and antique guns. john huntsman often says with a name like huntsman that voters don't need to worry about gun rights. alex. >> that's interesting there. how is he doing with the voters in the latest polls? >> reporter: alex, he's still pretty low in the poll numbers. still suffering in the single digits. they're here in hamnew hampshir before heading to the nbc debate. tomorrow he's shaking more hands with people at county fairs.

they're hoping to get momentum. they're wondering if it's too little too late. alex. >> i can imagine. give me a sense from what you see the people that gather around him not only behind the scenes in the campaign but the people meeting with him, is there that sense of excitement that is something has been suggested is lacking with his campaign? >> reporter: well, alex, i think it's mixed reactions. there's a lot of people very curious about learning more about john huntsman. there were some supporters behind him, and there's a whole lot of people in new hampshire who stilt don't know who he is. he has a lot of hand-shaking to do before he gets to the point to be a well-known entity. the campaign is working harder and voters are listening. we'll have to wait and see what happened in new hampshire. >> we will, indeed. back to the job market now. the new unemployment report, zero jobs created in august. the jobless rate will not drop. it remains at 9.1%, which is

unchanged from july. that's the bleak reality that job seekers are facing at they line up at job fairs across the country. >> i've been looking for over a year now. >> to get my foot in the dpoor with a company, ild be willing to take a pay cut. absolutely. >> a lot of employers are looking and listening and just don't get calls back. >> i'm joined live on the phone by the mayor of atlanta, georgia, mr. reed. good morning to you. thanks for joining us. >> good morning, alex. >> those job-seekers we heard from, they are georgia residents, and the congressional black caucus wrapped up a full month of job fairs across the country, and that included stops in atlanta. were those fairs a success for your con at this time gents. >> anytime we bring it into how important it is for the nation to be focused on skwob creation, the overall number of jobs was not significant but i think drawing into the issue is

important and i'm hopeful that members of the congressional black kak cuss work very hard to pass infrastructure investment, which is the most important thing they can do to move the needle on job creation. >> fl mayor, specifically what kind of thing with infrastructure and job investment? >> i'll be very specific. our states and cities have been advocating and requesting an infrastructure bank to help us fund our infrastructure needs for some time. we have not included that in the transportation bill. we still don't have a long-term transportation and infrastructure bill as you and i sit on the phone. we don't even have a two-year funding bill. the treasury department has done an extensive study that shows that of all of the money that was invested in the american recovery and reinvestment act, infrastructure is where you get your bang for your buck. it has been a traditional area of bipartisan support. i don't know why the republicans and democrats can't get a deal,

but anyone that stands in the way of getting an infrastructure deal that allows us to improve our roads and bridges in cities and towns across america, he needs to be held in account. they're not focusing enough on it, and i think if they did, we would be able to move the needle on job creation and bring down the unemployment numbers. >> clearly, mr. mayor, you're in favor of what the president was suggesting this morning about the transportation bill. let's talk about august job numbers. they're not yet in for the atlanta met row a met row area, july we know the unemployment rate was 10.4%. did people express an overall dissatisfaction with the president in his efforts, or is there a feeling the president is not getting help? what is it? >> i think that the blame was shared. i think there's some frustration with the president. i think there's just as much blame on congress. i think people feel that the conversation changed too quickly

from health care to deficit reduction, and the thing that people cared about was job creation. but i don't think that they are blaming the president for it. we've now had 18 months where we've been adding jobs. the president has added 2.4 million jobs that he does not get very much credit for. we need to remember that at the end of the bush administration in 2008, we had lost 3.6 million jobs. so it's a long road back. i understand that people are losing patience. that's what we saw in atlanta. we saw thousands of people show up really for the possibility of being hired for somewhere between 90 and 150 jobs. but we're doing our part in the city of atlanta. a significant infrastructure project are moving forward like heart hartsfield mif jackson international airport, and the president funded the atlanta

streetcar which is a $90 million infrastructure project. we're doing $2 billion in the water and sewer space. so every public project that is ethical and appropriate, we're moving forward with aggressively. but the national government does need to change its policy and really reward municipalities and state governments that take on significant infrastructure investment. right now the country does not have a policy to do that. we need to change direction right now. >> we will see what comes from the president on thursday night addressing the session of congress there. mayor of atlanta, georgia, many thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> we invite you watch the president's speech at 7:00 eastern on thursday night on msnbc. well, the dme may have an impact on this labor day weekend, the travel that is. aaa says the roadways won't be as busy this year. the economy may be due to hurricane irene. we're joined from washington,

d.c. by charles leoca, the director of the consumer travel alliance. good to see you. good morning. >> how is it going, alex? >> it's going great. i headed to work this labor day weekend. are americans heading out, and where? >> fewer americans are traveling during labor day times. in terms of driving, the driving is going up. we've got a number of things working against travel this labor day period. some of it you've been talking about all morning, it's the weather. we have irene that just came through, katia is on its way and lee down in the gulf coast wreaking havoc so that will hurt travel. the price of airfares have gone up by 13% and the price of gasoline is 20% more than it was last year. there were real things working against people traveling during this holiday period. >> what about people heading -- are they doing city travel at all? are they doing, uyou know, resot

travel? you hear about the dizsneylands and disneyworlds being so popular. where are people travel sintrav? >> other surveys show that friends and family are number one in terms of where people are going. that normally means relatively close to home. if you try to go somewhere far away from home, you have hassles, and it's hassles with airlines in terms of added fees all the time. you get to the airport and don't know what the final price of your frip is going to be. you have hassles at the it tsa. it seems they have a desire to inspect diapers and depends these days, and people don't really understand what's happening then. even if they go through the whole body scanner, they still get inspected by the tsa people. >> yeah, yeah. >> we have those kind of problems. we have problems with amtrak left over from the old hurricane and so on. so we've got a lot of things

that people are fighting against, and i think that we're going to find them sticking closer to home during this holiday period. >> i got to say, that full body scanner you talk about the radiation, i know people don't make much of it. personally, i hate going through that thing. i always say i don't want to go through there, and then i'm treated like a terrorist. they stop everything. they stop all the other lines while i get examined. i go, are you kidding me? i don't want all this radiation. anyway, it's my own little hangup, but it's a mess. >> i'm with you on that one, alex. >> okay. charlie, thank you. it's good to see you. >> take care. college students learning lessons from 9/11. how studying homeland security has turned into jobs for graduates. you're not seeing things. this is a preschooler -- no. you're going to say a preschooler driving a car in traffic if we get that tape right there. one quick glance at youtube shows she's not the only one.

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we're going to move to libya where the hunt for gadhafi continues. rebel forces on the outskirts of the city have given gadhafi's hometown one week to surrender. sirte is a city, where they believe the leader may be hiding. new documents show close ties between the cia and former gadhafi intelligence. let's go to stephanie goff. most interesting story here. good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning, alex. grupt human rights watch found these documents in the libyan security agency building. they show the close ties between the cia and libyan intelligence in their rendition of terror suspect. the most high profile is the terrorist picked up in 2004. at the time he was a leader of the libyan islamic fighting group, which has been disbanded. it had close connections with al

qaeda. it is of difficulty now for u.s. official because bel haj is the director of rebel opposition in libya right now. >> where are the three cities? are they close together or scattered randomly about? >> well, there's a pocket to the south of cities that are his stronghold. they include the city of ben walel and the city of sirte to the east. there's a stronghold there stwl. there is fighting looming here. there are a lot of people that don't believe that this group, that the holdouts are actually going to negotiate with the rebels. they are going to fight. they have a week from tomorrow to lay down arms and many think they won't do that. alex. >> stephanie gosk in tripoli. thank you. it the lessons learned on college campuses from 9/11 and how they have translated into

jobs for new graduates.

a new report from the "los angeles times" examines protfound effect 9/11 has on college campuses. colleges are placing importance on majors like homeland security. there are microbiology programs that study germs like anthrax and ebola. an explosion of federal dollars to fund programs makes domestic security one of the faste fastest-growing areas of study. i'm joined by scott gold, reporter for the "los angeles times." good morning. >> good morning, alex. >> in your research did you find students actually major inning these fields have an easier time finding jobs once they graduate? >> yeah, i did. this was part of an ambitious series of articles we're writing in "the times" available at latimes.com. the other pieces touch on thing

that were more intuitive. air travel and police work has changed, but i was unaware of how systemic and transformative the change has been on american college campuses and i would like to think i didn't go to college in the stone ages. yeah, a lot of colleges are offering these programs because they view them as what they call differentiators. so i met students, for example at purdue university in indiana who recently graduated with a masters degree in public health. in this job market, of course, many of their peers have struggled to find work. there were 2 million college graduates out of work right now in the united states. i met students who were snatched up immediately. one of them, for example, was hired straightaway by the state of indiana to help coordinate the state's response to large scale public emergencies because of her specialty in homeland security. >> it's interesting, too, specifically that woman you interviewed from purdue she worked with retired military officers as well. so she's getting a broad-based

education on that front. there's a homeland security official who also says students now view college as part of a mission that is bigger than themselves. did that feeling come across in students you spoke with? >> very much so, yeah. you meet students now who are arguably turning away from the humanities, the classics, some people would say to a degree that is not necessarily healthy for american higher education. they're turning toward practical applications and responses to september 11th, and the shift has been systemic at many colleges including purdue, where they have something called the homeland security institute, which is a stand-alone institute. they offer courses in homeland security. it is run by two former army veterans who retired as lieutenant colonels. they offer a number of courses and use living laboratories in indiana to study the response to mass casualty disasters.

they take students to the site of the indianapolis 500 and stage a mass casualty disaster there so students learn about the response to emergencies. >> i'm so out of time. how much money is spent on the programs, and does it mean the extra funding goes to these programs and others are losing money like these classics you talk about? >> universities argue that the as cent of one discipline don't mean the decline of others. the fact is universities have always chased money, particularly when the economy is poor, as it is now. these are universities that are hiking up tuition and facing budget cuts, and the reality is this is one growth area where the government continues to pour money into education. >> scott gold with the "l.a. times." many thanks. >> thank you. we're minutes away from an update of tropical storm lee in the gulf. the latest on the storm's path at the top of the hour. now, when you want powerful wifi, you've got it. with a verizon mobile hotspot, you can connect up to 5 wifi devices to the internet with lightning-fast verizon 4g lte speed.

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