kristen dahlgren, nbc news, washington. >>> well, elsewhere moammar gadhafi's fate appears to be all but sealed after rebels stormed and looted his tripoli compound yesterday. just hours ago with the elusive leader's whereabouts unknown, gadhafi released an audio address rallying loyal residents against rebel forces. brian mooar has the latest. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, lynn. gadhafi may have lost his seat of pow every, but he certainly hasn't lost his fight. in this audio message released in the last couple of hours, he sounds subdued but clearly defiant as he calls on libyans to pour into the capital and eliminate what he calls the traitors and the rats. gadhafi said he made an undercover foray into the capital and downplayed the chaos. libyans have overrun his compound literally striking at the heart of the regime. they've killed loyalist troops, looted the armorers, even beheaded a statue of gadhafi, but they walked away without the ultimate prize, the man himself. >> brian mooar for us in washington. thank you. >>> here's a look at other stories making news early

nbc's kristen dahlgren reports. >> reporter: the celebration short-lived on wall street. >> just another blood bathbath day. that's the only way to put it. >> reporter: the dow erasing tuesday's gains but finishing down 520, another huge point drop. >> this isn't about what the fed did. this is about europe again. this is where the concern is. >> reporter: investors once again worried that italy and spain may be unable to repay their debt and that france could be the next country stripped of its triple-a credit rating. back in washington more calls for congress to return to deal with the deficit. four house democrats sent this letter to speaker boehner urging them to end their summer recess. the white house says the president has no plans to order lawmakers back or cancel his own upcoming family vacation. >> i don't think it's what the american people are looking for. they're looking for leadership. i think they're looking for focus on economic growth and job creation. >> reporter: after lunch with volunteers, the president met with fed chairman ben bernanke and treasury secretary tim ge

nbc's kristen dahlgren reports. >> reporter: the celebration short-lived on wall street. >> just another bloodbath on wall street today. >> reporter: the dow not only erasing tuesday's gains, but finishing down another 520. another huge point-drop. >> this is about europe, and this is where the concern is. >> investors worried that italy and spain may be unable to repay their debts and that france could be the next country stripped of its aaa credit rating. in washington, more calls for congress to return to deal with the deficit. four house democrats sent this letter to speaker boehner, urging them to end their summer recess. the white house said the president has no plans to order lawmakers back or cancel his own upcoming family vacation. >> i don't think stunned is what the american people are looking for, they're looking for focus on economic growth and job creation. >> after lunch with volunteers, the president met with fed chairman, ben bernanke and treasury secretary, timothy geithner. while congressers have now released nine out of 12 picks for the so-called supercommittee. charg

kristen dahlgren, nbc news, washington. >>> well, elsewhere muammar qadhafi's fate appears to be all but sealed after rebels stormed and looted his tripoli compound wednesday. just hours ago with the elusive leader's whereabouts unknown, qadhafi released an audio address rallying loyal residents against rebel forces. brian mooar has the latest. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. gath has lost his seat of power, but clearly not his fight. this audio message said to be subdued, but nevertheless, defiant. he called on all libyans to converge on the capitol and eliminate what he called the traitors and the rats. qadhafi said he had made an undercover foray into the capitol, and he was downplaying the chaos, but it is clear that his compound has been overrun by libyan rebels. hundreds of them. they really struck at the heart of the qadhafi regime. they looted the armories. they knocked the head off a statue of qadhafi, but they walked away without the ultimate prize, the man himself. lynn. >> brian, thanks. and last might on the rachel maddow show, she asked p.j. crowley how signifi

kristen dahlgren has more from the outer banks in north carolina. good morning. >> reporter: hey, good morning, lynn. people here are being reminded today not to be fooled by the fact that it's weakened into a cat 2, maximum sustained winds at 110. cat 3 is 111. so 1-mile-per-hour difference. there are now states of emergency in seven states between here and connecticut. we're beginning to feel the first effects. take a look there and you can see waves just beginning to pick up. but to our south and the outer banks we're told they're running between six and nine feet. the first water really being pushed ashore ahead of irene. things expected to get worse here as we go through the day. into this evening, we could see the tropical storm force winds. both rbts and tourists being told to leave. they're told if they stay behind, they're doing so at their own risk. there won't be any emergency personnel to save them if something were to happen. >> important to heed those warnings. >>> far north of kristin, irene is causing a major change of plans in the c

nbc's kristen dahlgren has more from the outer banks of north carolina. >> reporter: good morning. this is likely to be one of the first areas on the u.s. mainland to feel the effects and the national weather service is already -- some of those increased waves from hurricane irene are hitting the north carolina coastline. they say six to nine-foot swells coming in now, that suspected to get much worse tlhrough today. we could feel tropical storm-force winds later tonight and conditions continuing to deteriorate as the storm moves closer and getting worse going into saturday. there have already been mandatory evacuations for tourists. that's been expanded for residents here. that begins later on today. residents being encouraged to get out. as we go up the coast, we expect more evacuation orders, even in new jersey. >>> meanwhile, far north irene is causing a major change of plans in the nation's capital. earlier this week, it was the rare earthquake effecting things. brian mooar has the latest on that from washington. >> reporter: good morning, lynn. here in the nation's capital, w

. >> kristen dahlgren is in kel devil hills, north carolina.d morning. >> hey, good morning, alex. yeah, the wind and the rain continuing to pick up here just a pelting rain right now like what mark is seeing. really coming down parallel. so that's an issue here, but where we are i'm not really seeing a lot of damage yet. that's good news. none of them have come out as far as we can see. that's one of the first things that starts to go. we're not seeing a whole lot of damage there. your power is still on where we are, but we do have reports of over 100,000 customers through the carolinas, through virginia that have already lost power. that number expected to grow as this moves up through north carolina and then up the east coast, so a lot of people bracing where we are. a lot of evacuations. there's been a mantdtory evacuation in please along the outer banks for the past two days for tourists and for residents, and so a lot of people did choose to pack up and leave the beach here because you have to remember even though this is now a category o

kristen dahlgren with the effects of hurricane irene. let's go right right now to mayor mike blrlg of morning city. he is prepping us on what's happening. the latest preparations. >> oh, that's down from 115. the great danger to us here is from the storm surge, and there's no evidence that that is -- that the forecast for that is changing. it is going to be a very serious thing as far as we can tell now. if the storm were to head directly east and get away from us, nothing could make us happy dwrer, but you can't prepare for the best case. you have to prepare for the worst case. that's why yesterday we issued a mandatory evacuation order for the more than 370,000 new yorkers residing in the low lying areas called zone a areas, and in the rest of the rockaways, which is classified as zone b. the difference with zone b and zone a, zone b is higher, but the rockaways are a special case because if the bridges get closed, there's no ways off the island, and it would be very difficult for us to provide emergency services. the stay stream of ne

kristen dahlgren, nbc news, washington. >> thank you very much. >>> tonight there are questions about the potential for a catastrophic earthquake along the eastern seaboard. how are faultlines different in that part of the country? nbc ba yy area has more from meo park. george, what are experts saying there tonight? >> reporter: the interesting thing is quakes do happen on the east coast, but they're rare. the last time it happened near the epicenter of virginia, you have to go to 2003. they had a 4.5. let's go to 1897, there was a 5.6 back then. the usgs says the fault is one of several small faults that were created when the appalachian mountains were formed. seismologists say this of a shallow earthquake at a depth of four miles. that's why people felt it at the surface and in a large area. this fault can pack a powerful punch and even songer earthquake, but seismologist wall streeter it mooney says it -- walter mooney says it won't happen often. >> a magnitude 7 is 30 to 40 times stronger. it doesn't have a high probability, but it occurs every 500 years, every 1,000 years. just h

let's bring in nbc bay area's kristen dahlgren from washington. when we break for the weekend, too we know what to expect on monday? >> reporter: i don't think anybody knows. i bet people feel like the markets really put them through the ringer this week. five straight days of triple digit gains or losses. in the end, the dow only off 175 points. so things could have been much worse, especially on some of those days. today, there was mixed economic news. but investors really seemed to cling to what you mentioned, what looked like a pretty good report from the retail sector. after a week of wild swings on wall street -- >> market academies here down 512 points on the dow industrial average, financials getting creamed -- >> the markets soaring on wall street today. >> another bloodbath. >> reporter: the dow climbed again. headed toward its first two-day winning streak in more than a month. bolstered by a retail report that showed consumers spending more on autos, furniture, gasoline, and back-to-school supplies. >> when you see the numbers we saw in

kristen dahlgren has more from kill devil hills in north carolina. good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning, lynn. obviously still a lot of uncertainties with this storm, but it could be the first major hurricane to hit the east coast in seven years. it's being called possibly the most significant hurricane threat to the northeast in a much longer time than that. so people getting ready, as you said. some evacuation orders already in effect here in the outer banks along the southern part of the outer banks. there are mandatory evacuations going into effect for everybody this morning, both residents and tourists here we we are in the northern part of the outer banks right now. it will just be for tourists this morning, but they could issue mandatory evacuation orders for residents later on today. officials watching very closely, people here getting ready, boarding up, stocking up as well. now, irene has already raked through the bahamas, the turks and caicos. we're told there are reports of widespread damage in some of the southern islands there

>> thank you very much, kristen dahlgren live in atlanta with us for the very latest. >>> we want to bring in tampa, florida, police chief who joins me on the phone. you're leading this investigation now. chief, could you tell us how did you discover this plot? >> as kristen indicated we received a phone call yesterday that the individual provided information that jared cano hinn tended to carry out these threats on the first day of school, so obviously we got right on that information and investigated it through. >> any idea in terms of why, who he was after and what he was angry about? >> yes. he specifically indicated that he was after two of the administrators at freedom high school and then his intention, he didn't name any students specifically, just stating that he wanted to take the lives of more students than had died at columbine. >> do you know if the administrators were involved in his -- when he was expelled from that school? were they involved in that process? >> well, he felt that they had -- that they basically had played a part in, you know, the undoing of his life,

. >> thank you, kristen dahlgren, and great details on the traffic there.n that. >>> and something that nobody wants to happen, you are on vacation and a hurricane heads directly to where you and your family are housed. we will have a live report from one of our colleagues who rode out the storm in the bahamas, and a live report coming up. >>> before we wrap up this hour, the latest on hurricane irene is now a category 3 storm packing 115-mile-an-hour winds and it is now pounding the bahamas. irene is expected to head straight up the east coast and almost parallel to the i-95 corridor. it is expected to lose some steam as it moves north in colder waters dropping to a cat 1. the colleagues at the weather channel predict that irene will hit north carolina's outer banks late friday night, and philadelphia late saturday evening and new york city sunday morning and boston sunday afternoon and portland, maine, sunday evening. we are going to join our colleague who is there at the bahamas at a shelter while she was there on vacation ride ought the storm, essa. wha

nbc's kristen dahlgren is following this breaking story for us live from atlanta. the latest? >> reporter: hey, richard. well, can you imagine the shock in this community of north tampa. police calling it a potentially catastrophic event, the likes of which tampa has not seen before. they arrested 17-year-old jared cano last night. police say they