a big week ahead for president obama. just a few hours, the president will address thousands of union members and their families at a picnic in cincinnati. his main objection is reining in the debate on health care. and how could speech to the nation of the schoolchildren steal the headline? we will talk to a doctor about how to protect yourself from the swine flu and your students. a woman found guilty of violating a sudanese law against decency for crime wearing trousers. we will explain. good morning, i'm david shuster live in washington. this hour, president obama heads to cincinnati, he is spending labor day ramping up support above of his big health care speech ahead of congress on wednesday. his audience is the afl-cio, the nation's larger labor union and a ally in the health care fight but is this the most appropriate place for mr. obama to regain his efforts to gain control of

the debate? mike viqueira is live at the white house. they are insisting the public option be part of reform. what are we expect to go hear from president obama to that audience today? >> you're certainly right and many of president obama's key constituencies both in congress and in labor all want to see a robust, is the word they are using, a robust public option. but the question is will the president insist on that being part of the bill? essentially, they are facing a choice. two choices if you really look at it. they can try to appease moderates and leave it out of a final bill or try to appease the base democrats and their party and put it in a final bill. the other choice may be between passing a bill and not passing a bill and many people who are looking at the math, counting noses on the hill have a feel what is going on saying something with a public option cannot pass and why we saw hedging yesterday on the sunday talk shows yesterday from david axelrod and robert gibbs, two highly ranked white house

advisers who say the public option, yes, is a valuable tool to keep costs down and offer americans an alternative in terms of a health care plan but would not go so far to say it is essential and the president will insist on anything coming out of congress having the public option in it. david? >> mike, also intriguing remarks over the weekend from senator ben nelson saying he may be open to the idea of a trigger for the public option. a lot of the liberal democrats say, no, no reason to have a trigger, let's just have the public option right now. is the white house betting in these conversations with labor leaders today with progressive democrats tomorrow the white house might be given breathing room for that sort of option as sort of a trigger in order to have some negotiating room? >> well, i think it's clear, after gibbs' comments yesterday on one of those talk shows, that the president is still going to voice support for a public option both today when he speaks in cincinnati so that annual picnic of the afl-cio and on wednesday when he is on the grandest stage of all speaking

before a joint session of congress and the nation. the question is will the trigger, is this some sort of fallback position where he can appease both sides? i think eventually if a trigger is in the final version of these bills, there are going to be a lot of very unhappy liberal democrats but they are going to be told by democratic leadership in the white house, hey, you have to go with us on this one because the choice is not having a bill. that appears to be, appears to be where this is heading at the moment. david? >> the other big story is by conservatives is all of those people angry the president is giving a speech to schoolchildren tomorrow encouraging them to stay in cool and to work hard. does it sway the concerns the white house is relieving the speech today? >> that's right. so parents and teachers can look at it a day in advance. a number of concerns raised around the country. first, people opposed to president obama and his administration and his policies say this is promoting the socialist agenda they consider it an intrusion into the

schoolroom, into the classroom. they say that he is somehow promoting a cult of personality around himself. there are other school districts said, look, this is the first day of school for many of us. we have our lessons all planned out. the president will be beaming this live. he is at a local high school here in the washington area and it will be beamed live on the internet and on c-span but the school district is saying we can't drop everything. we will take this and record it and perhaps put it in a package later as part of our curriculum. >> mike, thanks. this labor day, more than 6 million americans are out of work and receiving unemployment benefits but the good news is the pace of layoffs is -- vice president joe biden says because the stimulus is exceeding expectations and created or saved up to 750,000 jobs. he and senator specter kicking off pittsburgh's annual labor day parade today. the city is one of the state's

worst unemployment rates at 7.7%. sudan, a female journalist convicted of wearing long pants in public will not be flogged as some people feared instead a 200 dollar fine. that will not be the end of it. she insists she will not pay the and would rather go to jail. her case made international headlines after she and a dozen others were arrested for wearing long trousers. ten of the others were fined and flawed. thousands of allegations of fraud are threatening to derail afghanistan's presidential election. western and afghan officials tell "the new york times" that supporters of president karzai counted thousands of ballots for their candidate from sites where no voting took place. karzai is currently leading in the vote count but officials say they have to sort through the charges of misconduct before declaring a winner. joining us now is retired army colonel jack jacobs, a

recipient of the congressional military of honor and msnbc military analyst. what do you make of the election chaos over there? >> it's not surprising in view of what has always happened in that part of the world. we saw a lot of the same thing in iraq, too. but iraq at least has had some history of having elections and afghanistan has had no history of having a central government to which there's any -- for which there is any allegiance from the provinces. that kind of stuff is not surprising. there's lots of corruption in the provinces as well. and the impact of the fraud, alleged fraud lens about the election there is less on inside afghanistan than it is on the american political process. that's going to have a great effect on the congress who has to write the check to increase the size of the forces, american forces in afghanistan and continue the mission there. >> jack, as we've note there is

a debate shaping up in washington and, of course, oorned around the world about the u.s. mission in afghanistan. a couple of conservatives suggesting the u.s. can contain afghanistan and pull out most of our troops, launch fighter bombers and what not from outside afghanistan where need be. from what you hear from people inside the pentagon, do they see any kind of option like that, or is the main and only option right now to increase the troop size in afghanistan in order to get done what the administration wants? >> no, it's the latter. using precision guided munition we decided not the way to do it and the guy running the whole operation now, general stan mchrystal, an old special operations guy, was hired specifically because he has a great deal of experience not just dropping bombs to kill bad guys, but, instead coalesce in certain areas to shore up the local governments and the local tribal chieftains and to eliminate through work in that

reason, not just military work, but also social work and economic work to increase the capability of the local -- the local chieftains to control their area and keep the taliban and al qaeda away. just dropping bombs on people has already proved to the defense department's satisfaction, that isn't going to work. >> retired army colonel jack jacobs, thanks so much. appreciate it. >> you're welcome. in massachusetts, they are gearing up for a contentious hearing over whether the governor should be allowed to appoint interim replacement for ted kennedy's senate seat. the governor says the state should have two voices in the senate now and not have to wait until that special election which has been scheduled for january. now that the state senate president or the house speaker has said if they would back the move, the hearing is scheduled for this wednesday. in san francisco today, transit crews working overtime to fix a crack in the san

francisco bay bridge which connects san francisco with oakland. the bridge is supposed to reopen -- before tomorrow morning but crews now say commuters may have to wait at least one more day. kntv chris can sanchez joins us with the late e- >> yeah, the word from caltrans in charl of this project is telling commuters 260,000 of them to brace themselves for another day of closure. they expected to work through this weekend but did not expect to find a five-inch crack on part of the bridge that wasn't even the object of the retears. it doesn't look like much but the caltrans crews said they did significant. it was found by inspectors on saturday by doing a top-to-bottom sweep. crews say they believe that it is three to six months old and unrelated to this weekend's work on that bridge. that work was slighted to be a new piece of roadway. the crews on that project joined the new steel to the old steel and expansion joints and smooth

the driveway and driving around up there. still, everybody is not celebrating that just yet because they do have the crack on their mind that is compromising the safety of the bridge potentially. caltrans says an arizona steel contractor did work over the weekend overtime to create the welds they needed to do that repair. rather the welds were flown in by charter jet but again, the projected reopening time was 5:00 for tomorrow morning in time for the commute. that may not happen. the spokesman for the agency saying have a plan b. in san francisco bay area, chris sanchez. >> to put this in speaker perspective for people not familiar with that area, people from oakland need to get into san francisco and can't use the bay bridge they have to go down to san mateo and use that bridge and come up which could add an hour and a half to their commute? >> well, an hour and a half and that is if things are going smoothly but considering a lot people will be doing that if the

bridge remains closed that could be much bigger headache than just an hour and a half. >> chris, thanks for the update. there was some excitement in new jersey on this labor day. just last hour, state police arrested two people after high-speed police chase in the new jersey turnpike essentially ended at a toll booth plaza. as you can see, the driver essentially got out of the car, but within moments, he and his passenger were swarmed by officers. police say the suspects threw what appeared to be drugs out of the car window several times during the lengthy chase but, again, quite a scene at the toll plaza just outside new jersey this morning. it is back to school this week and new fears that the swine flu could spread rapidly as students return to the classroom. there are already more than 2,000 cases at washington state university. the case load is skyrocketing coast-to-coast and affecting at least 77 colleges and universities from mississippi to kansas, colorado, to virginia.

and the vaccine will not be available until next month. we're joined by dr. robert laheda, chairman of the department of medicine and professor of medicine at mt. sinai hospital. how concerned should parents be about their children back in school and particularly the college campuses? >> this is a serious condition right now, because the swine flu is going to be in season beginning now actually as well as influenza a and we are encouraging everybody to get both vaccines. of course the influenza a first and the swine flu vaccine when it becomes available. nursery school, high school, elementary school, college, kids are at risk and precautions should be taken. that is hand washing and when an upper respiratory infection is in evidence you should be wearing a surgical mask if you can get them. this is all very, very important. of course, quarantining is

important and children who are exposed to other students that have what looks to be either influenza a or the swine flu should get tamiflu or the medications available through prescription from your doctor and that will continue for ten daze after exposure to the infected person. >> doctor, talk about the difference between ordinary flu and swine flu. should people be nervous if they get swine flu or is it a more severe version of the regular flu we are all familiar with? >> it is a more severe version. with swine flu the typical symptoms are nausea, vomiting and die raer and usually don't see that with the influenza a variety of the flu. the new swine flu can be serious, particularly because it can affect pregnant women, young children, young adults, those who are over the age of 60. about a third of the people over the age of 60 have a natural

immunity because they've lived so long or had many, many vaccinations. however, one should not be too careful. >> dr. robert leada, thanks so much for coming in today. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. president obama is again going prime time to push health care reform. what exactly will his message be to congress on wednesday? plus, what is it going to take to get his bill passed? also this hour, sharks! they've shut down several popular beaches this labor day weekend. give you the details next on msnbc. achoo! (announcer) what are you going to miss when you have an allergy attack? achoo! (announcer) benadryl is more effective than claritin at relieving your worst mptoms. and works when you need it most. benadryl. you can't pause life. we will not be quiet.

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this labor day weekend president obama is working on his health care address to the joint session of congress. wednesday night could be the president's last chance to regain control of the debate. but of course, it won't be his first. you recall, of course, he had a nationally televised press conference in july and also those three town halls he held in august. sam youngmen is a white house reporter for the hill. sam, a number of white house officials keep saying, look, this is not the end only the halfway point, but, still, you usually only get to play the joint address the congress once outside of the state of union. would they have rather have used this perhaps later in the process when it was down to the tough negotiations in terms of the reconciliation committee? >> i think most analysts i talked to feel like they should have used it earlier, that maybe they could have done a better job keeping the -- winning the message control battle if they had done this earlier. i do think the reconciliation process if that is the avenue they choose to go, then a joint address would be critical.

i think it's important to remember wednesday night the president is talking to the american people, he's not talking to congress. >> sam, here is what david axelrod said on "meet the press" yesterday when he was asked about the public ogs and how much of a priority the public option will be for the white house. watch. >> there must be an exchange where people can get insurance at a competitive price. he believes in competition and choice. the public option is a important tool to help provoke that where there is no competition. the public option would be a valuable tool within that group, that package of plans that would be offered, private and public. he believes the public option is a good tool. now, it shouldn't define the whole health care debate, however. >> we've heard -- there we heard him talk about it being a tool, so to speak, three or four different times in terms of cost containment. the white house is reported that they are having conversations tomorrow with progressive democrats and there were conversations last week. the president is going to hear

from labor leaders today about the importance of the public option. where is the white house coming down on this? do you get the sense they are signaling to these progressives, yes, some sort of formal public option but saying how much man veverability can you give us? >> they are looking at more of a trigger option for the public option. that said, we just don't know for sure because they are creating confusion every time they come out and say we support the public option but won't draw any bright lines in the sand. robert gibbs said don't expect any veto effects in wednesday night's effect. we continue to hear we want the public option but not willing to hear how far they want to go to get it. >> what are the details coming out about the wednesday night's address? >> i'm still trying to figure out some of those my elf myself. i know the president will make a case for what axelrod said yesterday is the remaining 20% were republicans and democrats who don't agree and that is

really further than we heard him go before. all we heard is a lot of the talk about the 80% where they do agree. i think we are all waiting with bated breath how the president figures to get the other 20% done. >> sam, thank you. >> david, thank you. is it a beach day for you on this labor day? let's get your labor day weather forecast. bill karins has the forecast for you. >> happy labor day to everyone. temperatures are going to cooperate in a few areas. other loks a locations a little cooler than we like. what a weekend in montana and heat temperatures in the 90s. hot yesterday in texas. thankfully in l.a., all of the firefighters out there on the front lines, we had cooler day yesterday, only 84 in l.a. today is going to be a little bit different. you will notice that we're much cooler in the northern plains. montana only around 74. we're still wet and dreary for all of our friends in the

northwest. seattle, chance of showers, only in the low 60s. that is sweater and jacket weather. cool and chilly along the eastern seaboard. you are going to have a three or four day period of heavy rain and also windy and cool especially at the beaches. we started off nice but it looks like the tail end of labor day is struggling for a lot of beach lovers. back to you. >> bill, thank you very much. we will get you the details on where the sharks have closed down the beaches later. ahead, many schools are reporting an overwhelming number of students thought to have swine flu. coming up what one new york doctor is helping kids to stay well. emotional show of support for jaycee dugard kidnapped at age 11 and held prisoner for 18 years. a live report is straight ahead.

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in a secret room of his grandmother's home. the boy and his mother disappeared after she lost a custody battle. authorities thought she was at the grandmother's home all along but couldn't do a search until friday. the two are now behind bars. the boy is preparing to be reunited with his dad. it has been a weekend of celebration and healing in south lake, tahoe, where the community is welcoming back jaycee dugard 18 years after her kidnapping. >> we love, we love jaycee! we love, we love jaycee! >> as many as 2,000 people gathered to mark jaycee dugard's safe return and to raise money for her and her two daughters. nbc news gina kim is live with the latest. >> yeah, you can say this was a party that was nearly two decades in the making. i mean, if the nation and the world were stunned by jaycee

dugard being found after 18 years of never hearing from her and after fearing the worse, you can only imagine the reaction of the community that where she was lost to begin with. they were just absolutely jubilant, happy, hugs, tears. you name it at this parade yesterday, where over 2,000 people showed up and some of them, as you see in the video, aren't even old enough to have known about this case in 1991 but it was their parents, those who are now almost 30 years old remember going to grade school with jaycee and her classmates, as well as her teachers, the city leaders and, david, some of the people who showed up yesterday were police officers who helped search for her 18 years ago. so you can imagine this is very much a closure, a very happy event for all of them in south lake tahoe. >> nice to see, indeed. jinah kim, thanks so much. one person dead and several others injured after a van carrying prisoners drove down an

embankment in mississippi. the crash happened yesterday morning killing the driver. two guards and a prisoners eight of them are in the hospital. it's not clear yet what caused the accident. firefighters are making headway on a massive wildfire burning in southern california and it looks like the weather is on their side. an update is ahead. there was a time i wouldn't step out of the house without my makeup. now, it's no problem. (announcer) neutrogena tone correcting night serum with high performance soy to even skin tone and active retinol to speed cell turn over. clinically shown to visibly fade brown spots in 14 nights. i even out my skin at night so it looks younger, flawless in the morning. (announcer) neutrogena tone correcting now you can fade and prevent discolorations all day. new tone correcting spf 30. i'm more active, i eat right, and i switched to new one a day women's active metabolism. a complete women's multivitamin plus more for metabolism support.

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how many washes did it take cheer brightclean to get this from dingy to bright? one might be surprised. twelve. no.

uh, excuse me! four? one... would think it would take that many washes. ten? man & woman: okay, we got it this time. yes? it's six. seven. why? why is... one-derfully bright, hmm? oh, one... yes, yes! hundred. cheer brightclean. welcome back to msnbc. i'm david shuster. today, iran president mahmoud ahmadinejad says the country will continue its disputed nuclear program and will never negotiate on its, quote, obvious right. the comments are likely to disappoint western leaders, including president obama, would was giving iran until later this month to take up talks on their nuclear program. venezuelan president hugo chavez is announcing a deal to sell gas to fuel-strapped iranians. the announcement came at the end of his two-day president to the

islamic visit. it ends an investment deal aimed at developing their oil sectors. shark sightings off the coast of cape cod are forcing officials to close some area beaches all social oceanside beaches in chatham were closed on sunday after several sharks were spotted. now, those sharks are common in the waters off cape cod. great white sharks are not. officials tagged two great whites on sunday off the coast of chatham. one of the great white sharks was ten feet long! the white house says president obama's position on health care reform and a public insurance option will be clear after his big speech on wednesday, but on msnbc's "meet the press," senior adviser david axelrod insisted a public option should not define the debasement debate. >> we want to create a pool that people can get insurance at a competitive price and a public

option would be a valuable tool within that group, that package of plans that would be offered, private and public. >> we may not have to wait until wednesday night's speech. the president will be urged to come out in favor of a public option at today's afl-cio picnic. leaders of that organization say unless the public option is included they will not support health care reform. menendez is a democratic strategist and doug is a republican strategist. any room for the republicans to give on this and say go was public option trigger to make sure the centrist democrats are on board? >> i absolutely think there is i think david axelrod gave us a preview what the president's speech is going to look like. listen. public option is to make sure this entire thing works and, at the same time, it shouldn't be a deal-breaker. i've been reading this book about fdr's first 100 days and the first cabinet member called herself a half loaf girl.

you take what you can now and come back for the rest later and i this think that is what the obama administration may learn in the next two days. >> doug, we have seen the obama administration paint the for profit health insurance companies as being evil, trying to make the argument that their hefty profits essentially come out of people's fees and what you get for health care. any concern, any nervousness at all that the president might be able to use this big speech to get republicans on that side and republicans supporting enron-like companies? >> there is always a concern when barack obama gives a speech. he does it very effectively. one of the things the white house does is whenever there is a problem they put barack obama out there to give a speech because they know how good he is. you hit the nail on the head in the intro, david. when you said that the white house said it will be clear what barack obama's position is. that means that they haven't been clear. you look at what david axelrod said yesterday. it may be and it may be out.

there really seem to be playing the hokey public here. take the public option in and take the public option out. we will find out on wednesday what it is but it's still a question. >> strategically for the republicans, they ought to stay out of this? you've made your position clear and you don't like what the white house and democrats are doing and really the democrats could do this conceivably without republicans if they can get their side of the aisle together? >> absolutely. democrats have the votes if they want it. the challenge is the battle has been between democrats. charlie cook the other day was quoted -- >> see, i don't know that that's fair. >> charlie cook is pretty independent observer. no stranger to david's audience. said democrats ought to be terrorized. harry reid is down 11 points in nevada and branch lincoln is down and a real concern for democrats and it ought to be. >> i think the fact the democrats have engage odd this is a good thing and i think most americans would rather have people hashing it out over whether or not we need a public option, what the other options

are than to have republicans instead of doing the hokey-pokey haven't danced the dance at all and we haven't heard much from them in terms of their their plan is. i think americans would like to hear every american family deserves access to every public access. >> it doesn't seem to a lot of americans like republicans have been made to pay any price for their position. i mean, for all president obama's efforts something bipartisan what has he gotten in return? i mean, have republicans paid any price so far for their opposition to him? >> no. i actually agree that they have not and i think that will be one of the interesting thing that fares out if the public option comes off the table. it's going to be a lot harder for republicans to say that they can't vote for this legislation and i think those that don't, especially those that are in competitive districts, are going to face backlash when it comes to 2010 and 2012. >> doug, quickly -- >> go ahead. >> that is also a risk for the

blue dog democrats and conservative districts. it's a real risk, absolutely. >> and i think that is his audience on wednesday, both of those groups, more moderate republicans, more moderate democrats. >> i think you're both right. doug and alicia, thank you both for coming had today. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thanks, david irks you're welcome. in southern california today, weather is expected to aid fire crews who continue to gain on the deadly los angeles area wildfires. today's cooler temperatures and higher humidity are expected. the fire is now 51% contained. however, it is still growing. more than 157,000 acres of the angeles national forest have burned so far. cleanup crews on stand by in the philippines watching for a possible oil spill from a sunken ferry that was carrying more than 200 tons of fuel when it sank yesterday morning and killing at least nine. rescuers saved at least 950 people although two are still

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very unusual for this time of the year. >> nbc's ron allen is following this story. what kind of precautions are being taken to minimize the effects of swine flu across the country, ron? >> colleges and elementary and high schools have been on notice this could happen as students come back to school and some parts of the country, for example, washington state university out in the northwest, there are already 2,000 cases that have been detected the past couple of weeks. emory university in atlanta has set up a separate area in the dorms where students with flu are being quarantined essentially. that seems to be one of the key things a lot of this is about personal responsibility. a lot of this is about isolating yourself and taking yourself away from other students if, in fact, you have flu symptoms. for colleges, that's a bit difficult because a lot of students, of course, have traveled to get to campus and they can't just go home. it's different for kids in high school and elementary school where parents are encouraged to isolate their kids out of school for some time until the flu

symptoms disappears and the fever breaks for at least 24 hours before they return their kids back to school. it's unclear how many cases of swine flu we're going to have detected. the federal government has big numbers because students, children, young people and adults are so vulnerable to this because so few have immunities so it's unclear how this is going to play out this year. >> ron allen, thanks. government health official are looking at new ways to educate people about the threat of swine flu, whether you it kget it at football games and what not. the medical doctor of the long island railroad, that's right, the medical doctor of the long island railroad is a finalist in a contest that produced the best swine flu public service announcement. check out this viral video from rapping dr. john clark. i recommend you wash your hands for protection and count in seconds. why it makes germs die when you rub and let it dry.

don't touch your eye mouth or nose or face and how you get infected so better play it safe. long-term outcome ♪ >> we are joining now by rapping physician dr. john clarke. what was your inspiration for this video? >> the inspiration was the fact i know that using rap music in this manner and i call it health hop s a very effective way to reach new england people are health information. the majority of cases of swine flu are among those ages 5 to 24. which is an ideal population to reach with this. and my wife, who is actually a nurse, she actually suggested back in may that i do write a song on swine flu because i've been doing this since 1997 and i've addressed several topics, including asthma, hiv, so this actually is something that i believe will benefit young people all over the country and the world because rap music is popular globally. >> i was going to say, it was very well produced and looked

terrific the way you did it. would you be disappointed if you don't win this contest? >> not really, because i believe with the exposure that i've gotten so far that enough people are aware of the video that people, i believe, are already learning from it. so i think the contents is great and that was great way to get it exposed but, more importantly for me, i'm happy that people are actually looking at it and realizing that this is something good that will benefit young people. >> we were showing video in the last segment with ron allen showing football games and talk about the universities. can you pick up the swine flu at a football game being in the stands, being in a big crowd like that? >> most definitely. any time you're around a lot of people, it's contagious by way of touching. so any time that a respiratory droplets that contain the swine flu, if you touch it, you now can in fact, yourself and also can infect others and it can spread exponentially. it's important to use the advice

of watching your hands and using hand sanitizer and really trying to eliminate that route of spread. >> good advice whether you're at a football game or a college dorm. dr. john clarke, terrific video and thanks for coming in. >> thanks for having me. go to flu.gov to vote. >> we will rig the vote for you, dr. clarke! appreciate it. thousands of allegations of fraud have thrown the election for afghanistan's next president into chaos. right now, hamid karzai holds a solid lead with the count nearing completion. however, "the new york times" quotes western and afghan officials as saying thousands of ballots were counted at sites where no voting took place and that is part after string of allegations of misconduct that have been pouring in. officials will resolve those questions before naming a winner. richard engel is nbc's chief foreign correspondent and joins us from kabul. how much after mess is it over there, richard? >> there are -- every day, there

seems to be more allegations of voter fraud that the elections that took place last month were not the success that many people thought they initially were. just today, we spoke to the electoral commission and they said they received about 3,000 complaints all allegations of fraud and that 700 of them are so serious, that they could impact the result of the election. most of the allegations are charged against the campaign of president hamid karzai. they said that he took advantage or his campaign took advantage of taliban threats, particularly in the south, and that when so few people turned out to vote, it was an opportunity for his supporters to stuff ballot boxes and rig this election. these are, at this stage, just allegations, but western observers and diplomats say they are credible and provided evidence to show there was ballot box stuffing and underage voting, a whole variety of irregularities. >> how much or how little does the election, difficulties

there, how much or how little do they impact the u.s. mission in terms of our military goals? >> well, it impacts the mission directly. i was with american soldiers recently who said they witnessed ballot box stuffing. they were with afghan soldiers at the time, but they stayed away from the polling stations because the u.s. mission here is to not interfere directly in afghan politics so they didn't do anything. but although they are charged with not interfering in afghan politics, their fate is very closely linked to what happens politically in this country. the u.s. mission here overall is to try and build a credible afghan government and afghan security forces so that eventually americans can leave and hand over this mission. but if there is not a credible partner and so many doubts about the current government, which is not -- have been placed yet because of this controversy, that means the u.s. mission lasts longer and it means it doesn't have a reliable partner.

>> nbc's chief foreign correspondent richard engel, thanks for the report from kabul. appreciate it. it is being called another sign that the lockerbie bomber may have been released in exchange for lucrative oil contract with great britain. we are live in london with that story next. your body needs sleep to feel healthy... to feel better. tylenol pm quiets the pain that keeps you awake. and helps you sleep, in a non-habit forming way. i'm finally going to get a flat panel for my home theater. - ( cheering ) - ( laughs ) thank you. what should i get? uh, you. you should check out our new leds. the picture's better than life. okay, but i don't want to pay too much.

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wall street gets a day off for the labor day holiday today but the markets are open for business overseas. asian stocks finished higher today with major indexes in japan, hong kong and china adding about 1% or more. markets are also sharply higher in europe. kraft food takeover bid for cadbury has been rejected. kraft says their over undervalued the company and kraft says it will work on another offer. congress returns from summer recess this week and at the top of their agenda, extending

unemployment benefits. one consideration is providing another 13 weeks with funding and the state unemployment rate above 9%. the son of moammar gadhafi says the country will not compensate the family. british papers have now published documents that show the british government did not demand compensation. during discussions over the release of the lockerbie bomber, a lot of people say it's evidence the british government avoided the issue out of concerns it would jeopardize valuable oil contracts. nbc's stephanie gosk is live for us in london. this seems to be another layer suggesting some sort of collusion between the british government and the libyan government. >> well, there are a lot of people that say that it does suggest that, david. it's a bit complicated but essentially the british government is saying that oil contracts, valuable oil

contracts did not have an overafternooning effects on the decision to release megrahi and not to support these compensation claims by i.r.a. victims. all of this was sparked by the letters you mentioned earlier printed in the sunday times over the weekend written by prime minister gordon brown to one of the lawyers of this victim's group saying the british government would not pursue their claims to valuable strategic partnership with libya, that they are an important ally on the war on terror but also they are -- they do have important business ties with the country as well. now, the victims group is pointing to those letters as proof that the british government has other objectives and its own people in mind when it comes to their relationship with libya. now all of this of course, in the context of megrahi being released and the accusations that was done as well for oil contracts, a growing chorus here, david, that the british government is taking it easy on the libyan government because they are so interested in all of

that oil money. david? >> stephanie, what is the level of outrage among the british public over all of this? >> well, it's really greng one of the problems with this particular claim is these victims of the i.r.a. bombings, now the act 6:00 is libya supplied explosives and weapons to the i.r.a. during those years that they deserve compensation from the government but the other thing, too, is the united states actually struck a deal with libya worth 1.5 billion dollars to compensate american victims of terror attacks perpetrated by libya or supported by libya. that includes a handful of americans that were actually injured in some of these i.r.a. attacks in this country. so if you're a british citizen that was entered in those attacks you're wondering why you're not getting similar compensation and you're blaming your government for not pursuing it as strongly as you think they should. >> steve knee gosk, thanks for the update. one of the nation's busiest

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you can serve a nutritious breakfast from walmart for just over $1 a person. one breakfast a week saves a family of four over $800 a year. save money. live better. walmart. live pictures outside washington, d.c. andrews air force base is marine one about to land on the tarmac. president obama will get off and board air force one for his trip today to cincinnati, ohio. the president will be speaking in cincinnati at an afl-cio picnic. the umbrella organization for several unions. the president will be taking his message directly to union members on the holiday, celebrating their movement. while millions of americans are out of work on this labor day, labor secretary hilda so