many sheets. bounty has trap and lock technology to soak up big spills and lock them in. why use more when you can use less? bounty. the clean picker upper. this morning on "early today," rom if i's woes. mitt romney caps off a tough week with his campaign co-chair jumping ship. duck and run. a would-be robber messes with the wrong convenience store clerk. and far east fright. some tense moments as an elderly chinese woman dangles from the some tense moments as an elderly chinese woman dangles from the rail of a balcony. captions paid for by nbc-universal television hello and good morning. i'm lynn berry. and today we begin with target audience. a day after drilling down on immigration issues in florida, both the obama and romney

campaign will focus on florida's aging voters at an aarp convention today. nbc's brian mooar joins us from washington with those details. brian, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, lynn. today the message pivots from immigration to medicare, from latinos to the aarp. the presidential campaigns are reaching out to older americans today, a day after the focus was on hispanic voters in the key battleground state of florida. at a candidate's forum, president obama expressed frustration he hasn't done more on a key issue for latinos, immigration reform. >> and the most important lesson i've learned is that you can't change washington from the inside, you can only change it from the outside. >> reporter: republican mitt romney pounced on that explanation. >> the president today threw in the white flag of surrender again. his surrender was, yes, we can. his slogan now is, no, i can't.

>> reporter: but romney's tone has suddenly shifted. >> it's time to put the politics aside. >> reporter: that change follows a rough few weeks now showing in the latest nbc wall street journal marist poll. the president now leading romney by 8 points in iowa and 5 points in colorado and wisconsin. and wisconsin republican candidate paul ryan's hom state is one of the battle grounds the republicans need to keep in place. >> brian mooar in washington. thank you. with just seven weeks to go before election day, the romney campaign continues to stumble. now tim pawlenty has resigned as romney co-chair to become one of wall street's top lobbyists in washington. the one-time presidential hopeful will become head of the financial services roundtable on november 1st. politico reports he'll earn $1.8 million a year. as a condition for his

employment, pawlenty reportedly agreed not to run for office or accept any position in a potential romney administration. well, every year nbc hosts week long meetings and discussions that include experts from around the country on ways to improve education in america. this year's education nation begins on sunday and nbc's danielle leigh has a preview from washington. >> reporter: new york city's public library will soon host the nation's leaders in business, government, philanthropy and media. >> thank you all for coming. >> reporter: more than 300 people brought together by nbc to seek solutions to the biggest issues facing america's education system. >> we think we can shine a spotlight on what's working and share the results. >> reporter: for the third year nbc spread out across the country from california to illinois. this time to find innovation in a classroom. >> it's good for a news organization to stand for something and we think education is a broad subject matter that

doesn't get nearly enough attention by the traditional news media. >> reporter: nbc news journalists will highlight the programs that work. >> we are talking to teachers. >> reporter: moderate ways to expand them to other struggling communities. >> as a country we want to be able to scale solutions, but this is a start. >> reporter: with the presidential election weeks away, this is taking on a new role. >> we're excited we're going to have president obama and governor romney participate in education nation. it's fitting. >> reporter: it's shaping our nation's educational future. danielle leigh, nbc news. we'll have continuing coverage of education nation all across the platforms of nbc news beginning this sunday and continuing all next week. you can take part by visiting educationnation.com. now here's a look at some other stories making news early today in america. a would-be robber in florida learned never bring a knife to a

beer fight. convenience store workers stopped the knife wielding subject from stealing cash by hurling beer cans at him. they hit the robber with a few cold ones before he dropped the knife and carbon his way out of the store. police later arrested the man on robbery and battery charges. pretty scary stuff. twisted metal is all that remains after an oregon school bus collided with a commercial truck. a group of students had just been let off the bus only minutes before that crash happened. it took firefighters 20 minutes to remove the school bus driver before he was transported to a nearby hospital. and finally, who says kids could care less about politics? at age 18 aziz is running to become the mayor of california's 15th largest city. he's been interested in politics since he was 8 and worked on political campaigns since he was 14 despite no previous elected experience, aziz says he knows how to fix all of free month's

problems. now for a look at your national and regional weather, here is nbc's meteorologist dylan dreyer, she has your forecast. those stories make me feel guilty. i should be doing more with my life. at 18 i wasn't running for mayor. >> i didn't run for school treasurer, school office or anything. he's taken on a whole town in california. good for him. he would are actually looking at some pretty nice weather out that way. that won't be an issue. we're going to see a good amount of sunshine across the majority of the country. we have showers through the great lakes moving through minnesota, chicago, a little bit of light rain, off and on showers. we have a line of heavier storms in southern missouri right now. not so much severe weather but frequent cloud to ground lightening across southern missouri moving into northern arkansas. it is just out ahead of this cold front. that's really the only feature across most of the country right now. otherwise it's sandwiched on both sides by high pressure and things are looking fairly quiet. the rain continues down near miami and we will see some

heavier thunderstorms throughout the day. off and on heavy rain across portions of southern florida and we could end up with an inch or two of rainfall out ahead of some of those storms. that's been the likely forecast for the past couple of days with rain off and on across southern florida. that's a look at the weather across the country. now here's a peek out your window. in boston, 69 degrees today with a mix of sun and clouds. kind of like we saw yesterday. raleigh, north carolina, 82 degrees. pittsburgh will see some scattered showers and storms with highs in the 70s. cincinnati, ohio, highs topping out around 73. and that's your latest forecast, lynn. din lan, thanks. coming up, oracle swings and misses, big corporations dodging taxes. and at least one thing about the iphone 5 that is not fantastic. your early morning business headlines are straight ahead. plus, paris hilton is back in the news for some not so nice things she had to say about gay

men. two teams punch their ticket to the postseason. the giants dominate in carolina. and tiger goes head to head with rory. you're watching "early today."

good morning, welcome back to "early today." i'm lynn berry. hundreds of pakistani protestors fought with police in islamabad yesterday. larger crowds are expected today. the american embassy in pakistan is running tv ads trying to reduce anti-american anger. in syria at least 54 people were killed when a jet fighter blew up a gas station in heavy fighting between the government and rebel forces. in cleveland ohio 16 amish men and women have been convicted of hate crimes for a series of haircutting and beard

cutting attacks. a federal jury found the leader of a breakaway group and his followers guilty of last fall's attempt to shame members of their community. "the new york post" reports brian kate tow cale lynn now says, quote, the statute of limitations has now passed so i can now say, yes, he did it, however, in another interview with tmz he denied the statute of limitations comment and says he only thinks simpson committed the killing of nicole and his friend ron goldman. in china a woman can be seen dangling eight floors phi. lucky because she had fallen from a tenth floor balcony. they got to her with a rope and she was safely lowered down a ladder to the ground. now here's an early look at how wall street's going to kick off the day. the dough closed at 13,596 after

adding 18 points yesterday. the s&p was down a fraction. the nasdaq lost 6. taking a look at overseas trading this morning. in tokyo, the nikkei gained 23 points while in hong kong the hang seng climbed 144. well, a fresh bash of unwelcome data dragged the markets thursday. weak manufacturing and employment numbers served as sobering news on disappointing economic news overseas. after the bell oracle traded lower on soft quarterly revenue. transportation stocks went lower. on the first day of trade, online real estate site trulia soared 41%. walmart has pulled amazon's kindle off shelves as competition heats up between big box stores and the online retailer. a senate committee says mike could he soft and hewlett-packard used off shore

units and tax loop holds to shield billions of dollars of profits. both companies say their strategies are legal. a new chemical analysis shows tar balls washing up are directly linked to the bp oil spill. the trustee playing claims for bernard madoff's $17 billion ponzi scheme says so far $2.5 billion has been returned to victims. apparently undeterred by widespread complaints about apple's new mak app, customers snapped up the first iphone 5s overseas this morning. finally at this year's mad science mecca, two japanese researchers received the 2012 ignoble prize for their speech jamming device which echos your voice back to you with a slight delay. only slightly annoying. well, coming up, the giants crush the panthers, tigers tied for the lead and two major league teams clinch playoff

spots. plus, a grand slam blasts the yankees into a one game first place lead. your early morning sports headlines are straight ahead. and we're going to see more showers across the great lakes region. sunshine everywhere else. your forecast is coming up. you're watching "early today." [ female announcer ] with swiffer wet

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good morning. if you're just waking up, this is "early today." and in sports, last night the new york giants didn't let a few injuries keep them down grabbing the carolina panthers. here's an early look at your sports headlines. hi there, good morning. some great baseball games to show you. we begin with the nfl where the giants hit the field and they didn't miss a beat. check out eli manning, very first drive of the game takes the giants 80 yards down the field and then hooks up with martellis bennett with the 14-yard touchdown. manning 288 yards and a touchdown on the night. rookie running back andre brown rushing for 113 yards and two touchdowns. giants roll 36-7 over the panthers. now to baseball, the yankees had a chance to take a one game lead in the a.l. east over the orioles who had the day off. the broncos.

yanks hosting the and ichiro stays hot. he rips a solo shot off of aaron laffit. then in the fourth, nick swiver puts this game out of reach blasting a grand slam off of brad lincoln. his 21st homer of the season. yankees score 7 in the inning and win it 10-7. they now lead baltimore by a full game in the east. in chicago the reds became the first team in baseball to clinch a playoff spot. rookie henry rodriguez breaks the game open in the seven inning. reds beat the cubs, 5-3. in washington, the amazing turn around story for the nationals continues. they also clinched a playoff spot beating the dodgers 4-1. for the first time since fdr was president, there will be postseason baseball in our nation's capitol. in golf, everyone trying to beat rory mcilroy, and tiger woods is in a good position to do that shooting a 4 under par 66 to tie for the lead on thursday.

he'll start today's second round three shots ahead of mcilroy. that's an early look at sports on "early today." i'm mario solis. which singer was busted at the border with drugs? and which new film will finish at the top at the box office this weekend? your early morning entertainment headlines are straight ahead. plus, another big day for the couple all of america roots for. you're watching "early today."

we've got some cooler air trying to work into the northern tier of the country. right now still in the 50s. 51 in man kninneapolis. off and on showers. heavier rain and thunderstorms though likely down through florida. temperatures as we head into the weekend in minneapolis, only 55 degrees. elsewhere, especially the east coast, we should be in the 60s and 70s. if you're watching us on news 8 in lancaster, pennsylvania, in nearby get yisburg, at visualizing war at the schmucker art gallery and that is your earl will he today event of the day. now here's an early look at today's headlines in entertainment. there is at least one texas border crossing that musicians might want to avoid. singer phi own in a apple spent wednesday night in jail in the same border that busted people on charge. small amounts of had a shish and

marijuana were found on her. paris hilton is in damage control after radar online released a 50 second clip of a recording reportedly made by a new york cab driver in which hilton calls gay men, quote, disgusting and further says, again quoting, most of them probably have aids. well, at the box office this weekend the horror film "house at the end of the street" should top a crowded but who hum field with roughly $18 million. trouble at the curve with clint eastwood and amy adams should have 13 million. dread should have the same amount and should debut with around 12 million. and finally "end of watch" with jam gil lynn hall as an l.a. cop should open with also about 12 million. not as many good pics as normal. >> i do want to see "trouble at

the curb". >> horror films we've said many times are out of the question for this one. >> i can't handle them. >> yeah. this comes to us from kvoa news 4 in tucson, arizona, where nasa altered a flight plan to honor the last commander of the space shuttle "endeavour." with the spacecraft being flown to its final home at a los angeles museum, nasa made a detour over mark kelley's home city to honor a request the former astronaut made for his wife, gabby giffords. he wanted her to see the shuttle one last time. what a great reaction there. officials approved the last-minute request as a way of saying thanks for the couple's commitment to the space agency. i'm lynn berry and this is "early today," just your first stop of the day today on your nbc station.

>> live, loca, late breaking, this is 11 news at 5:00. [captioning made possible by constellation energy group] >> a few clouds hanging around. not quite as cool as the last couple of days. 52 in park and. it will be another nice day. a little bit warmer with temperatures between 75 and 80. we have a little bit of rain to talk about for the forecast this weekend. >> the time is 4:57.

>> another case of west via -- west nile virus in the area. >> a change and methods and a ton for the presidential campaign. that story is coming up. >> we are taking a look at the >> we are taking a look at the excuse us, while we change into something more comfortable. cool. introducing, the square sunnyd bottle.

[ telephone rings ] how's the camping trip? well, the kids had fun, but i think i slept on a rock. ♪ the best part of wakin' up what are you doing? having coffee. ohh. ♪ is folgers in your cup >> live, local, late breaking, this is 11 news at 5:00. >> thank you for joining us. >> far more important than the weather is i think for the first time ever he is wearing a raven's tie. >> i could not be more proud of you. you.