elaine quijano and david bernard do the numbers. a surprising take on campaign 2012, from house speaker john boehner who says people probably aren't going to fall in love with mitt romney. with -- california dreaming, is a high speed rail project the wave of the future or a train to nowhere? john blackstone is tracking the debate. and sword play in japan. lucy craft shows us the modern day women who would make the samurai of old en days proud. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news." good evening, i'm anthony mason. millions of americans endured yet another day of blistering heat, temperatures in the 90s and even the 100s covered much of the country today. at least 30 people have died from the heat, which the c.d.c. says routinely kills more people than all other weather events combined. elaine quijano is braving the heat for us here in new york. >> reporter: good evening, anthony. one doctor told us today normally in heat waves it's the elderly and the very young who are especially vulnerable. but she said a comb

meteorologist david bernard for wfor in miami is our cbs news severe weather consultant. david, we just heard anna talk about these back-to-back la ninas. when duds that end? >> the good news, scott, is that the la nina is slowly weakening. in fact, we're transitioning, at least potentially, to a weak el nino as we go into the autumn and winter. now, if that does occur, that does have the potential to at least bring some drought relief to parts of the country. >> pelley: remind us what el nino is. >> when we talk about el nino-- and for that matter la nina-- we're talking about the pacific waters in the equatorial areas. generally all those areas along and just north of the equator in the central and eastern pacific and when we go from louisiana to el nino, that means we're heading from cooler water to warmer waters and those warper waters from el nino can produce a more active storm trek across the country and that's why at times, if it's strong enough, we can get beneficial rain. >> pelley: and when we might see that change occur? >> already, we've seen the decline very

david bernard is the chief meteorologist at our miami station, cbs 4. david, hello to you. two questions. how bad will it get, and when will it end? >> it's hard to believe it will get much worse than it's been for most of the summer. let's start by looking at where the hottest temperatures are going to be today. and again, it's across the midwest. dallas, 106. we're going for 109 in oklahoma city. look at little rock. 108. now the heat at this time is not reaching chicago for now. only 86 there. st. louis, boy, has it been a rough summer. temperatures around 103. now a real key component of this drought is soil moisture. how dry is it out there? and when we take a look at this map, that's going to indicate that the same areas where we're seeing the most intense heat right now, where this heat wave is really going to be centered, that's where the soil is the driest. where you see the colors in orange and red. and that's important for a couple of reasons because when you get that low soil moisture, it promotes too things. high temperatures and low rainfall. and it just creat