>>warner: good question. >>imus: because this is a serious book about the mormon religion, not nonsense. >>warner: my guess would be no. >>imus: what will you think if she's seen it and liked it? >>connell: he'll go -- >>warner: i think she has a diverse life. >>imus: i can't believe somebody as sophisticated as you are, i just don't get it, warner. it's very troubling. let's do some news. lou rufino is here, by the way, taking it all in, happy to be here. bernard and carley, everybody else. nats is probably around, trevor playing who knows what. let's do this. >>connell: the campaign trail, the i-man talking about how it's too early to worry about polls, president obama with pretty good numbers over the last two days, leading mitt romney by 9 points in the fox new poll, 49-40 #-rbgs 52-45 in the cnn poll. president obama's latest ad questioning whether mitt romney paid taxes in the past, romney saying i don't know what the to hope and change. another person passed out in colorado springs in the middle of pre

my family and villagers fled to the turkish border. >> warner: the u.n.efugee agency estimates about 85,000 syrians are now living in camps inside the turkish border. they're among some 250,000 syrians who've sought refuge in neighboring states. 100,000 arrived in august alone, amid some of the deadliest fighting since the syrian uprising began 18 months ago. on the frontline of the crisis, turkish prime minister recep tayyip erdogan had harsh words this month about the outside world's response. >> ( translated ): syria is going through a huge humanitarian crisis. unfortunately, as usual, the international community is merely watching the slaughter, massacre and the elimination of muslims. >> warner: erdogan also accused syrian president bashar al-assad of leading a regime of state terrorism. for months, leaders of the outgunned rebel force-- the free syrian army-- have sheltered inside turkey, funneling weapons across the border. but last weekend, they said they're moving their headquarters back into syria. for turkey, the syrian conflict also threatens

margaret warner has more. >> warner: chinese police stood three rows deep today keeping crowds of protestors at bay outside the japannese embassy in beijing. the demonstrators brandished posters of the founder of china's communist state. others set japannese flags aflame and lobbed eggs and plastic bottles. officially the protest marked a 1931 incident that triggered japan as' invasion and occupaton of china. but the immediate spark was a land dispute in the here and now. it involved five inhab initted islands and three reeves in the east china sea known as the diaoyu in china and senkaku in japan. the waters are rich in fishing grounds and promising oil and gas deposits and close to important shipping lanes as well. last week japan reignited the long smoldering issue when it bought the islands from private japannese owners. the chinese responded by sending patrol ships into the wters around the islands. drawing objections from tokyo. >> well, there are no doubt that the senkaku islands are an integral part of japannese territorial land and international law so i deeply regret that the chine

and he did. >> warner: so then the question is, of course, should the u.s. do more.g san suu kyi yesterday seemed to be suggesting if not lifting them entirely, suspending them. something fairly dramatic. senator jim webb has been in the forefront of this and has said you have to let people see the economic benefits of a free society. what's your view on that? >> i mean, we're not in agreement in a sense that we feel as if there's disparity between where the reforms are taking place and who's benefiting from them and you're seeing that in urban centers and not in rural areas or colict zones and ethnic minority territory. so our concern is that you need to send a signal that there needs to be reform on a greater front than there has been so far and that should be tied to the lifting of further sanctions. >> warner: do you think that greater u.s. business investment in burma or, in fact, allowing it to flourish is going to be good for that process? >> we feel as if it's going to have both a positive and a negative impact because we advised that there be certain investm

margaret warner begins our coverage. >> warner: u.s. ambassador chris stevens was the first american envoy to die in the line of duty in more than 30 years. he and three other state department officers were killed in the assault tuesday night in benghazi. stevens had been trying to evacuate staffers from the u.s. consulate when gunmen with automatic weapons and rocket- propelled grenades stormed the lightly guarded compound and set it on fire. the identity of the attackers and their motivations remained murky. but in washington, white house officials said militants tied to al qaeda may have used protests against an anti-islam film as a diversion. this morning, president obama, with secretary of state clinton at his side, praised the slain ambassador. >> it's especially tragic that chris stevens died in benghazi because it is a city that he helped to save. at the height of the libyan revolution, chris led our diplomatic post in benghazi. with characteristic skill, courage and resolve, he built partnerships with libyan revolutionaries and

margaret warner has the story. >> warner: on a pre-convention swing through virginia yesterday, presidentma again touted his plans to end the afghan war. >> this november you get to decide the future of the war in afghanistan. by the end of this month i will have brought home 33,000 troops. ( applause ) i've said we will end this war in 2014. >> warner: but a linchpin of that promise-- to train afghan forces to take over the fight-- faces a new challenge. 45 nato troops have been killed this year by afghan troops-- 15 just last month. all this, just two years before a planned hand-over of security to full afghan control. u.s. and afghan officials have vowed to fix the problem. and in kabul today, a defense ministry spokesman said hundreds of afghan forces have been fired or detained for showing links with insurgents. >> all the afghan security forces were ordered to use all their resources in hand to prevent these kinds of incidents. the afghan defense ministry with the help of international community will follow this matter by exchanging intelligence information. >> warner: and last week

. >> warner: and i'm margaret warner. on the "newshour" tonight, we have the latest on today's plosion and the continued heavy fighting between government and rebel forces. >> woodruff: then, we update the race for the white house as both campaigns raise record sums of money. >> warner: ray suarez examines new data showing the arctic ice cap shrinking to record low levels. >> woodruff: special correspondent steve sapienza has the story of the human toll on workers in thailand's shrimp industry. >> hundreds of factories large and small will ship over 200,000 tons of shrimp to the u.s. this year. but there's a darker side to the business here. one that involves human trafficking, corruption, and violence against workers. >> warner: we look at the growing use of potent and sometimes deadly street drugs, known as bath salts, also the subject of our extensive online report today. >> woodruff: plus, jeffrey brown explores an intriguing scrap of paper that just might show jesus was married. >> so jesus id tthem that would be his

the timing it of it is most worrying. >> warner: faisel istrabadi, how do you see it? >> i agree with much of what laith has said. the problem is that as the political leaders in iraq continue to play the sectarian games, you also see that reflected in the broader population. it is very worrying. it seems to me a sign that maliki does not intend to engage in reconciliation and in power-sharing. instead that he intends to assert his continuing dominance over iraq. that too is a worrying sign. >> warner: what about that point, laith kubba, the criticism that maliki really is not sharing power. where does the truth of that lie? >> well, i think maliki... arner: i mean there are some sunnies in the coalition government. are there not? >> right. i think to be like really accurate here, maliki, by his instinct, realizes that a lot of iraqis want a strong state. they want to build state institutions. they want security. this will not come cost free. so i think maybe he took advantage like any other politician of pushing the envelope there. >> warner: meaning that the iraqis w

margaret warner has that. >> warner: we continue our regular look at the campaign as it plays out in social media and on the web. for that, we're joined again by two journalists from daily download, lauren ashe burn and howard kurtz. welcome back to you both. >> thank you. >> warner: let's start with the tragedy yesterday, the attacks on the u.s. embassy and consulate in egypt and libya and we all know mitt romney made a couple comments, one on the web the night before and then one yesterday essentially criticizing the obama administration for having sympathized with the attackers or apologized. what was the reaction in the social media sphere? >> on twitter the event itself with the hashtag "libya" which categorize it is event itself, there were 26,000 tweets within 24 hours. now to mitt romney specifically they had the hashtag "romney fail" "romney shambles" "unfit mitt" and there were negative tweets as well. >> to give you the flavor, margaret, chris rock tweeted "i'll give mitt romney credit for this, he lost the election before he got out of bed this morning." and conservatives