brian mooar, nbc news, washington. >>> do you know what's in the food you eat? supporters of proposition 37 say it will help m form people and today they held a rally at a farmer's market in san francisco. >> this is a critical time for transparency in our food system. you may have seen advertisements about prop 37, saying that it will hurt farmers and today we have some farmers here gathered to tell you this claim is not true. >> a new group calling itself farmers for truth in labeling gathered at the ferry plaza saying farmers want clear labels. that's where prop 37 come in. it's the genetically engineered labeling. food made with again nettically modified ingredients be identified as such. prop 37 would be bad for california some say. >> it exposes people to litigation, unnecessarily without any gain on any scientific basis. >> according to the no on 37 organization the proposition would raise food prices by about $400 a year for the average family and poorly written and confusing. >>> california democratic party volunteers hit the food bank today in oakland

nbc bay area brian mooar has the latest on how both campaigns are spending the final days before the final debate. >> with 17 dayses remaining before election day, republican vp candidate paul ryan was trying to turn the tide in the must win battleground state of ohio. >> she had such a huge say so in all of this. ohio is the battleground of battleground states. >> vice president biden was fight for another key elect role prize, florida. >> we need you. we need you. we knew we could take florida and we take florida. this election is over. >> florida is the final presidential debate. both as the presidential candidates spent their saturday hunkering down and studying up for their last big showdown. before stepping off the campaign stage, obama and governor mitt romney traded a few final jabs. >> i think -- i think it's called romnesia. >> they have -- they've been reduced to petty attacks and silly word games. >> governor romney's wife ann spent her morning in orlando joining thousands taking a stand against breast cancer. a walk at a time when the run for the white house is picking u

nbc's brian mooar was in the courtroom when the convicted coach and some of those he hurt spoke out. >> reporter: jerry sandusky left the courthouse to begin what amounts to a life sentence behind bars. the former penn state football coach, one hailed as a hero on the gridiron, now officially laked a violent sex predator under pennsylvania law. before sentencing, sandusky delivered a rambling 15-minute statement. he choked with emotion as he talked about smiling through his pain. and he declared himself a victim, repeating claims of innocence he made in a radio statement on the eve of sentencing. >> they can treat me as a monster, but they can't take away my heart. in my heart i know i did not do these alleged disgusting acts. >> reporter: the prosecutor called sandusky's statements ridiculous. >> his statement today was a masterpiece of denial, self-delusion. completely untethered from reality and without any acceptance of responsibility. >> reporter: sandusky's defense team says it's going to appeal the conviction. >> we believe had we had the time, we would have had an opportunity

brian mooar, nbc news, washington. >>> speaking of crunching, halfway there. the giants have a 2-0 lead going into game three of the world series tonight against the tigers. nba bay area is in detroit with more for us. >> reporter: greetings from detroit and game three of the world series where the giants are looking to take a commanding 3-0 lead in this world series but it won't be easy. detroit back on their home field here. the jints sending out the man who just keeps impressing every single time he goes out on the mound, ryan vogelsong, every game he pitches and the biggest game of his career, now certainly the very bingest. the giants getting amically mated last night and getting ready to colder weather here in detroit than they usually face in san francisco. i'll tell you this. a little run through last night, a chance to warm up, let's put it that way, as they bundled up and setting the scene for what we will see here tonight. we will keep you posted throughout the night. check out our reports at 11:00. i'll send it back to you in the studio. >> you got

brian mooar, nbc news, washington. >>> 4:52. an emotional reunion caught on tape. a young girl reunited with her stolen puppy. >>> and a live look outside. you know what, you're reunited with all your colleagues on the morning commute. we'll show you where you'll see some slowing or at least that's what i see on my sensors coming up. >>> 4:55 right now. oh, do we love happy endings. a 10-year-old san jose girl reunited with her little puppy that was stolen from her house. >> i want to say thank you to everybody who made this happen. >> what a little sweetheart. the tears of joy from marissa. she hugged that little dog like there was no tomorrow. now, the story made national headlines yesterday. well, the yorkie shih tzu was discovered in a parking lot, the target over there. after this reunion marissa embraced the woman who actually discovered the dog. remember she had been offering her piggy bank. police say they still don't know who rocked the family and the search does continue for the suspect. >> what a nice happy ending there. >>> we've got puppies and childre

nbc's brian mooar has the latest from washington for us. brian, good morning to you. >> reporter: hi, lynn. it probably won't be great news for either of the political candidates, but it could be worse. today's jobs report is the second to the last before election day. it is a critical snapshot of an economy that's been stuck in low gear. >> whatever the numbers are, the romney campaign is going to cite them as evidence that president obama's policies are failing. >> the president is trying to convince people he's doing real well. he is not. >> reporter: building on a momentum of wednesday night's debate, romney's trying to reverse his fortunes in battlegrounds like ohio where he's fallen behind. >> under president obama we've lost half a million manufacturing jobs and china has passed us in manufacturing. >> reporter: the president argues the republicans are offering nothing new. >> it's not a plan for our economy, it's not a plan to strengthen the middle class, it is not change, it is a relapse and we're not going to do it. >> reporter: th

nbc's brian mooar joins us from washington with more on all this. brian, good morning. >> reporter: for both campaigns this first debate is filled can challenge and opportunity. as denver gets ready for tomorrow night's first presidential debate, so are the candidates. >> it'll be a conversation with the american people that will span almost an entire month. we'll get to describe our respective views. >> reporter: romney is hoping to pick up a few votes with an endorsement from football great john elway. president obama is taking the personal approach to nail down support. >> this is barack obama. >> reporter: and like romney, the president sees this debate as a chance to talk to america. >> it's a choice between two different paths for this country. it's a choice between two fundamentally different visions for our nation. >> reporter: the president has a lead in all nine of the key battleground states, including ohio, which begins early balloting today. >> romney's task is difficult because he has to redefine himself as well as redefining the electi

brian mooar live on capitol hill for us. brian, thank you. >>> if mitt romney did gain an advantage from his debate performance wednesday, he had the biggest tv audience in more than two decades watching at that point. the nielsen ratings company says an estimated 67.2 million people tuned in for the debate. that's the largest audience for a tv debate since bill clinton, george bush, and ross perot faced off in 1992. the largest performance from four years ago was between joe biden and sarah palin. that attracted nearly 70 million viewers. >>> democrat tim kaine has more campaign money than his republican challenger. the former governor raised $4.5 million between july and september. that's compared to $3.5 million for george allen whorb, who is former virginia governor. allen has about $11 million on hand. >>> this morning a prince william county woman is accused of operating an illegal daycare. she ran the daycare out of her home unlicensed on summerworth drive in manassas. police say she left six children all under 2 year

nbc's brian mooar joins us from washington with all the details. brian, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, lynn. for both campaigns, this first debate brings both challenge and opportunity. as denver gets ready for tomorrow night's first presidential debate, so are the candidates. >> it will be a conversation with the american people that will span almost an entire month. we'll get to describe our respective views. >> reporter: romney is hoping to pick up a few votes with an endorsement from football great john elway. president obama is taking the personal approach to nail down support. >> this is barack obama. >> reporter: and like romney, the president sees this debate as a chance to talk to america. >> it's a choice between two different paths for this country. it's a choice between two fundamentally different visions for our nation. >> reporter: the president has a lead in all nine of the key battleground states including ohio, which begins early balloting today. >> romney's task is difficult because he has to redefine himself as well as r

. >> brian mooar joins us live from washington with more on the story. morning, brian. >> reporter: it is crunch time now. voters are actually starting to go to the polls in some of these key states. early balloting starts today in the all-important swing state of ohio and really the candidates are hoping to do two things. they're hoping to score some points on the other guy but also avoid those gotcha moments, those just subtle phrases or a sigh or weird body english that could just decide which way one voter or another is going to fall in one of those key states. well, the candidates have been preparing, preparing, preparing, getting their messages honed down to a fine edge. here is how they want tomorrow night to go. >> it will be a conversation with the american people that will span almost an entire month. we'll get to describe our respective views. >> it's a choice between two different paths for this country. it's a choice between two fundamentally different visions for our nation. >> reporter: again, it may look like they're talking at each other

brian mooar is live on capitol hill right now with what needs to be done to save your money. >> reporter: perhaps a little bit more than that. we're going to wake up january 1st with more than a hangover from all the celebrations. a big bill that uncle sam is going to stick us all with if the folks here on the hill and the president can't agree on some kind of compromise. we're talking about a huge across-the-board tax increase. every tax cut enacted since 2001 is going to just go snapping right back on january 1st. it's called the fiscal cliff. lawmakers sort of decided to push a bunch of decision-making down the road and that road ends right about then and there if lawmakers can't do something about it. the problem right now is lawmakers are in full campaign mode. nothing getting done until after the election. the big question mark is whether lawmakers who have lost their job will be willing to come back here and wheel and deal, compromise or a short-term basis, kick that can down the road a little more, whether they will do a long-term big fix deal for everyone or whether

brian mooar has the latest. he's in washington. good morning. >> reporter: hi, lynn. even if it's not great news today, it probably could be worse. today's jobs report is the second to the last before election day. it is a critical snapshot of an economy that's been stuck in low gear. >> whatever the numbers are, the romney campaign is going to cite them as evidence that president obama's policies are failing. >> the president is trying to convince people he's doing real well. he is not. >> reporter: building on a momentum of wednesday night's debate, romney's trying to reverse his stance in battlegrounds like ohio where he's fallen behind. >> china has passed us in manufacturing. >> reporter: the president argues republicans are offering nothing new. >> it's not plan for our economy. it's not a plan to strengthen the middle class. it is not change. it is a relapse. we're not going to do it. >> reporter: the latest jobs report, cold, hard facts, certain to be the subject of heated debate. economists expected the economy added a less than stellar 115,000 jobs last mont

brian mooar is live in washington, d.c. n, is the report expected to give president obama a boost after this week's debate? i'm sure he's going to turn it that way. >> reporter: you know what, laura, looking at these numbers, i think you can call these an october surprise. this is what politicians hope and dream will happen. this is certainly an interesting turn of events here. we got the numbers we expected. let's look at them. expected 115,000, we got 114,000. that's not a barn burner. but the 7.8%, that is a drop from 8.1 to 7.8% unemployment. that is the lowest since the day president obama took office. that gives the president a chance to argue today that he has been slowly but steadily rebuilding on the economy. mitt romney, meanwhile, will have the opportunity to say the president hasn't been doing it enough, hasn't been doing it well enough and he could do it better. but this is a surprising number. the reason we have the sudden drop, we expected it to particular up a point. the reason it went down is because the jul

brian mooar joins us live from washington, d.c. this morning.ll with the latest. this certainly is going to be a topic for today. good morning. >> reporter: well, laura, a lot of hurt eyebrows from all the eyebrow raising this morning. work with me on that one. unexpected. here's the reason. we got a thousand jobs less than expected last month. that's right on target, essentially, but we expected the unkploiemployment rate to go up. instead it went down. down pretty heftily. and a reason is a revision in the august job numbers. we added 142,000, that pushes the unemployment rate down to 7.8%, the lowest since january, 2009. below 8% is a really important sort of psychological threshold. no american president has been elected -- re-elected, that is, with an unemployment rate above 7.3 so that certainly gets us down to that level. president obama probably not popping champagne corks at this point. he will be able to make the argue credibly today that this is a slow but steady recovery. mitt romney will be able to argue that this is sort of a flat