good morning to you. it is tuesday, august 23rd. this is "am: wake up call." i'm carol costello live in new york. let's get started with that big storm crashing through the atlantic ocean right now. irene is getting ever more powerful and may be heading toward the united states. people in south carolina already getting ready for irene. the hurricane is near the dominican republic right now. take a look at the storm from the international space station. irene is now a category 2 hurricane, but jacqui jeras says it could become an enormous category 4 later this week as it gets closer to the southeastern united states. it's already left about half of puerto rico without power. cnn will take a closer look at the storm's path in a few minutes. how is the battle for tripoli going anyway this morning? >> that depends on whom you ask. rebel leaders say they have control over most of the city. there's still some fierce fighting in some neighborhoods. moammar gadhafi's son saif, the one wanted for war crimes, showed up at a hotel in tripoli last night even though rebels said earlier they had arrested him. saif claims loyal troops have broken the back of rebels and told cnn that his father, moammar gadhafi, is safe in tripoli. we've learned that a missile was fired from gadhafi's hometown and it landed in the rebel controlled city of misrata. nato says there's no reports of damage or injuries but worries about gadhafi's weapons. >> based on all the information that i have, he has a lot of weapons and we're very concerned that he does have those weapons and we were surprised he didn't use those weapons throughout this whole exercise. >> a big change is coming at the top of standard & poor's. its president is stepping down. devon sharle will give up his post but will remain with the company until the end of the year. lots of interesting things have been happening at s&p lately. they downgraded the u.s. credit rating this month and "the new york times" reported the justice department was investigating whether s&p gave high ratings to mortgage bonds. doug peterson will take over next month. there's been another protest in san francisco complete with riot gear, chapting and arrests. >> no peace. >> police closed and then reopened b.a.r.t. train stations downtown to keep demonstrations from getting out of hand. at least three protesters were arrested. they're upset with recent shootings that involved b.a.r.t. police officers and they don't like b.a.r.t.'s decision to cut cell phone signals at some stations. the board will revisit that decision tomorrow. the bad news for billionaire mogul richard branson fire from a lightning strike destroyed the big house on his private caribbean island. the good news, the guy has his own island in the caribbean anyw anyway. here's what he had to say about the fire. >> woke up just to see a gigantic 100-foot flames in the sky. it ripped through the house unbelievably quickly. >> branson had several guests staying at the house including actress kate winslet. all of them got out okay, and get this, branson said winslet picked up his 90-year-old mother and carried her outside. way to go, kate. and there's a hearing at 11:30 eastern in the dominique strauss-kahn case. now that prosecutors say that charges against the former imf chief should be dropped. a hotel maid claims strauss-kahn sexually assaulted her, but the d.a.'s office says she has credibility issues and that evidence just does not back up her story. how to see -- now to see how the world's money is doing. let's go to kristie lu stout from hong kong. i'm always afraid to ask you this question. how are the world markets doing today? >> do you know what, carol, good morning, it's looking pretty good. we're seeing optimism out there, optimism that the fed will serve up more stimulus measures, perhaps this week, and that gave a strong start to the european trading day. in fact, all the main indices trading higher are here in asia, signs of improvement in the chinese economy are lifting shares. we're seeing the shanghai composite enjoying a lift, energy related stocks help hong kong and australia higher and japan's nikkei ended up 1.2%. good news so far. lot of lost ground being made up from last week. >> that makes me feel much better about life, at least temporarily. now i want to talk about libya, though. we're starting to get an idea of what this war is actually costing u.s. taxpayers. give us an idea. >> yeah. we have a solid figure for you. the cost to u.s. taxpayers for america's share of the libyan mission is approaching $1 billion. now this is according to a report. it was released monday by the pentagon. the cost comes from the number of u.s. air strikes on gadhafi targets. the average number of u.s. strikes from april 1st to august 10th were about 1.7 a day. since then it's risen to about 3.1 a day. the pentagon has sent about $12.5 million in nonlethal aid, but again, carol, total price tag so far, $1 billion. >> kristie lu stout live in hong kong, many thanks to you. an earthquake shaking things up overnight in colorado. i'll tell you how strong it was. but first, here is the quote of the day. quote, ben bernanke's not the tooth fairy. find out who said that coming up in 90 seconds. stick around. up, smart? 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[ male announcer ] glucerna. delicious shakes and bars. discover customersl are getting five percent cashback bonus at the pump... and at many of the places their summer plans take them. it pays to switch, it pays to discover. moig. nine minutes past the hour. this is your "am: wake up call." good morning to you. our quote of the day, ben bernanke's not the tooth fairy. who said that? why, it was dallas federal reserve president richard fisher, said this about the federal reserve chair on fox business monday. it was in response to a question about what bernanke will say at friday's central bank conference. he went on to say, quote, his job is not to leave presents under the pillow of people who have desires that may not be easily fulfilled. hurricane irene is moving through the atlantic and could reach the united states by the weekend. people in south carolina already stocking up on water, gas, and generators. irene could become a category 3 major hurricane today. so let's head to atlanta and jacqui jeras. really? it could be a category 4 by the time it hits south carolina? >> well, it might weaken a little bit before that. i think the official forecast is for a cat 3 at landfall but the intensity forecast always a little trickier than the actual track. but all signs are pointing to a strengthening hurricane in the next 24 to 48 hours. the main reason for this is that eye has managed to stay off shore. it's to the north of the dominican republic. and haiti. it stays over that warm energy source, that warm water, to help this thing stay on the strong side. right now it's a category 2 hurricane with maximum winds around 100 miles per hour. it's moving west/northwest early and lashing the dominican republic with strong winds and also that heavy rainfall. they could see anywhere between three and six inches of rain and flash flooding and mudslides a big concern. even though we're not looking at the potential for a u.s. landfall until the weekend, carol, something to keep in mind, this is a huge storm. we're talking about those winds exit tending out about 200 miles from the center of the storm. south florida is going to start to feel the impacts of this already by late wednesday into thursday morning, and there you can see that cone of uncertainty. it's looking more and more like it's heading towards the carolinas. back here at home today, though, we're going to be dealing with thunderstorms and expected airport delays in minneapolis, chicago, some of the florida airports, as well as san francisco due to some low clouds and fog. so a busy day and irene, it's going to be getting stronger today. it has to be 111 to be what we call that major hurricane or category 3. >> okay. well at least people are already getting ready in south carolina. that's a good thing. never too early. >> absolutely. >> jacqui jeras, thanks. a late night jolt for parts of colorado and new mexico. a magnitude 5.3 earthquake hit about 190 miles south of denver near the new mexico border. happened just before midnight local time. it is the strongest quake to hit that area in almost 40 years. there are reports of rock slides and some structural damage around the area. there is a new astronaut working at the international space station. actually, it's a robonot. a joint venture between nasa and general motors and in true high tech fashion, it has its own web page and on facebook and it's also tweeting. if video killed the radio star, smartphones may be killing text messaging or some of the billions of dollars cell phone companies make from the expensive text messaging plans. seems many of the smartphones include free texting services leaving the cell phone companies to scream a collective oh, my god, or omg. osama bin laden's capture, now libyan dictator moammar gadhafi's grip loosening, will this translate into a re-election victory. a poll matching the president against top republican candidates. the president doesn't fair so well. it's 13 minutes after the hour. . major medical. ...but it helps pay the doctors. pays the doctors, boyyy! 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[ bleep ]. that's the guy. >> oh, no. >> state department authorities are looking into this. they're looking into it. they're questioning their interrogating, there's an electronic trail. but everybody knows it's leno. >> what better way to cue our political ticker with tim farley, host of "morning briefing" on sirius live from washington. hi, tim. >> good morning. no threats here, by the way. >> where are you? what? >> yeah. no death threats. none of those. none of those for this. so here we sit, carol -- >> before you begin, we want to look at this new gallup poll so we can chat about it. >> please. >> this is a new gallup poll. matches president obama against the four top presidential candidates. mitt romney leads the president by two percentage points while texas governor rick perry and the president are tied by 47%. edges out michele bachmann by four percentage points. tim, i don't know what exactly this poll means because it's so early in the game. does it mean that the president is just weakened by a bad economy or does it mean everything's sort of in flux? i know many republicans aren't satisfied with the republican field. >> you make the point this is so far away from the election, 441 days away in the election next year. key takeaways, number one, that most of the republican candidates are within the margin of error or the top candidates within the margin of error of being ahead of the president. that doesn't strike well for the campaign the president's trying to paint these republican candidates as extreme, maybe not mitt romney, but rick perry, ron paul and michele bachmann. they have a lot of work to do. number one. number two, dig down into the numbers, independent voters, rick perry defeats president obama, ron paul beats president obama, and also mitt romney does. only michele bachmann loses out. independent voters will be the key here. minds can change, but this is certainly not a good sign. it says, by the way, that the republican candidates pretty much neck and neck at this point. no preferred candidate among those who are participating in this poll. >> yeah. people are still clamoring for paul ryan but he said yesterday i'm not running, sorry. i feel good you want me to run but i'm not going to. talk about jon huntsman he was on piers morgan last night and coming out fighting against his republican opponents saying that there's nobody really electable in the field, although he did say that he would consider serving as michele bachmann's running mate. what do you make of that? actually, let's listen to him before you talk about it. >> okay. >> if you love this country you serve her. if you're in a position to better the country, to bring whatever background you have to bear, whatever experiences to use in fine tuning our future, i'll be the first person to sign up, absolutely. >> that's an unusual admission i would say. i think it's to your credit you've done it. it will get headlines and people will pick up and say jon huntsman says yeah, i would happily serve under michele bachmann. >> okay. go, what do you make of that? >> come on. we're worried about vice president. we haven't picked a presidential candidate yet. the question has to be asked, here's the one thing about that i take away, is that jon huntsman trying to present himself as the thinking candidate in the more reasonable and rationale candidate, forgets rule number one, hey, i'm running for president, we'll worry about vice presidency later. i'm running for president. he didn't say that. but i think we can worry about the vice presidential nomination some time down the road here. >> some time way, way, way down the road. >> yeah. >> let's figure out who the nominee is first. >> exactly. tim farley on sirius xm, thanks so much. soon you will be able to hop a southwest flight into and out of atlanta. the airline will start service to hartsfield jackson in february with 15 daily flights from five cities. they would be baltimore, chicago, denver, houston and austin. just some of them. introductory tickets start at $79 one way. atlanta is the biggest city not served by southwest but it has its foot in the door when it bought air tran which has a hub in atlanta. rivals ford and toyota making nice joining forces to develop a hybrid system for pick-up trucks and suvs. they will share development costs to make the technology affordable for you but both companies say their cars will remain unique, fords still fords and toyotas still toyotas. this curvy 1957 ferrari broke the record for the most expensive car ever sold at auction. see, somebody has money somewhere. the winning bid for the first 250, $16.4 million. you could buy more than 1,000 brand new hondasi civics. the buyer is listed as a collector for italian automobile. the worst neighbor ever after he slapped a disabled man with a fish. the latest on a long list of neighborly complaints against this guy. we'll run through them for you after this. if something is simply the color of gold, is it really worth more? 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[ kimberly ] and university of phoenix made it possible. learn more at phoenix.edu. 22 minutes past the hour. rebels in libya trying to consolidate their hold on tripoli but gadhafi forces will not back down without a fight apparently. right now we still don't know where the leader is but one of his sons say gadhafi is safe. let's go around the world with fred pleitgen, live in benghazi. i got to say, fred, that when saif gadhafi turned up riding around tripoli, that's just confusing. >> yeah, carol, it is absolutely confusing. quite shocking, quite frankly, to a lot of people here. this city is the main one within the rebel held territory. there were rumors which were confirmed last night by the transitional national council which is the head of the rebels, saying that saif gadhafi, moammar gadhafi's by far most prominent son, had been captured by them and was in their custody along with two other of moammar gadhafi's sons. so it now turns out late last night that, in fact, saif gadhafi is not and apparently has not ever been in the custody of the rebels and that one of the other sons of moammar gadhafi called mohammed, gadhafi, his eldest son, managed to escape from rebel custody. this is something that somewhat undermines their credibility when they make statements like these. we've not been able to get any reaction from the transitional national council as to why they put out these reports and to what exactly might have happened, whether or not he might have been in custody, but they are saying that this by no means undermines the momentum they have in the town of tripoli, that they're pushing forward. at this point in time, carol, they're even talking about moving the wing of their political movement from here in benghazi to tripoli, quite soon. they say when the situation allows them to do that, when it is safe enough. of course, it's anyone's guess at this point in time when that might be. carol? >> well, you talk about a credibility issue as far as these opposition forces are concerned. saif was essentially running the country in place of his father. so if he's running around town, you know, given the two fingers up signal, what can we really believe about who is in control of tripoli? >> well, certainly seems at this point in time that no one is in control of all of tripoli. sort of gist we're getting and the reports on the ground the rebels seem to be in control of some neighborhoods in tripoli while gadhafi forces still control other parts of tripoli. the area around the rixos hotel where most journalists are staying is in gadhafi control. gadhafi's compound appears to be in gadhafi control. doesn't seem at this point in time the rebels would be in the ones in control of that town. they have plans, they say, on the shelf for when they do have full control to set up protection forces and other things to try to maintain peace in that town when, in fact, that happens to disarm militias and the like. it's anyone's guess whether or not that's going to happen, how much resistance gadhafi forces will put up and how many neighborhoods the gadhafi forces still control. one of the things that we've seen is that in the past, the rebel leadership has made claim it's gained territory which, in fact, then turned out it hadn't. seems as though the situation in tripoli is still very, very fluid and developments are happening quite quickly on the ground there, carol. >> fred pleitgen, live in benghazi, libya, thank you. this is your "am: wake up call." here are three things to put on your radar today. hurricane irene gaining strength, expected to become a category 3 storm by later today. several computer models have it on a path moving towards the east coast of the united states this weekend. 10:00 a.m. eastern today investors checking out the new home sales report. economists predict sales will be down. 4:30 eastern this afternoon, lawyers for match.com are expected in court. a judge has asked the internet dating site to put in a screening system. a woman filed a lawsuit claiming someone she met on match.com sexually assaulted her. a chainsaw toting, beer guzzling, fish kissing florida man, dubbed the worst neighbor ever by people in his neighborhood. they say he chased down a man in a wheelchair, and slapped him with a fish. meet dale mcdaniel. >> i drink from the time i get done drinking my last cup of coffee, i drink until i go to sleep. get up in the morning if i want another drink i turn around and drink another beer. >> he's such a charmer. mcdaniel admits he's been arrested more than 30 times in the county and not worried about complaints from the neighbors but some of them are working to get a restraining order against mcdaniel saying he has, get this, a serious drinking problem. keep hurricane irene on your radar, now packing 100-mile-per-hour winds heading toward the east coast. our meteorologist, jacqui jeras, tracking the storm. she'll tell you when south carolina residents should be on alert. we'll be back. good morning to you. it is tuesday, august 23rd. this is "am: wake up call." i'm carol costello. live from new york this morning. it's 30 minutes past the hour. keep an eye on hurricane irene. it's getting stronger as it roars toward the east coast. the storm now packs 100-mile-per-hour winds. it's a category 2 hurricane. it's churning past the dominican republic after pummeling puerto rico prompting president obama to sign an emergency declaration. neck up, the turks and caicos. after that, predicted tracks take it anywhere from florida to virginia to south carolina. people are getting ready in those states and that's a good thing. jacqui jeras is watching irene hp how soon might it hit the east coast of the united states. >> probably not going to see landfall until maybe into the weekend but we need to be prepared for this well in advance. you should be ready today. florida, takes any kind of a westerly turn, florida could get it as early as thursday. the latest on irene, a strong hurricane, expected to intensify even more. maximum winds at 100 miles per hour. look at the structure on the satellite picture. it's not looking quite as tight or symmetrical. a lot has to do with the interaction with land on the south side of that storm. the good news for haiti and the dominican republic, is that this is staying north of them and so the rainfall amounts will be a little lesser and they get what they call that good side so to speak of the storm. the bad news for the rest of us for the turks and caicos and the bahamas and the u.s., is it's saying over water which is that heat source. that's the energy that it needs to get stronger. so it will likely become a major hurricane later today, maybe tomorrow, and then intensify even further than that and there you can see that cone of uncertainty and take a look at how wide that thing is. this is a very big storm, carol, so we don't want to just focus on south carolina. we still want to talk about florida, georgia, even into north carolina, some of the better models are bringing it there. >> thank you, jacqui. talking about cones of uncertainty, talk about libya now. gadhafi loyalists are striking back against rebel forces in tripoli signaling the fight for libya is not over yet. here's where things stand. as gun battles still persist we do not know where fugitive leader moammar gadhafi is. but we know two of his sons, who were reportedly captured over the weekend, are free today. one of the sons, saif gadhafi, says his dad and several of his siblings are safe. in the meantime a rebel fighter tells cnn that opposition set up sleeper cells before fighters arrived in tripoli and he says rebels are waiting for the green light from nato to storm a nearby gadhafi compound. >> that compound won't be moved in until nato gives the go ahead. there's -- there should be some air strikes as far as we know, should be coming up we're hoping that there will be a big bombardment in that area before and then they can give hopefully the go ahead for us to -- to move in. >> in the meantime president obama says the situation in libya is, quote, still very fluid. a baby is in critical condition after falling from a parking garage at a children's hospital in california. and now police are trying to figure out if the 3-month-old child was thrown from the parking deck. an orange county officer points out that a baby can't climb over the railing so something out of the ordinary had to happen. a seventh person has died in that brutal -- because of that brutal stage collapse in indiana. 24-year-old meagan toothman had been on life support since the august 13th accident but she died yesterday and her family says her organs will be donating. the scaffolding collapsed at the indiana state fair and three families say they're going to sue the state among several defendants. antoine odom ois okay after being shot in the thigh. his childhood friend is the one who pulled the trigger. the suspect allegedly came in through an unlocked door at odom's alabama home and fired a few shots before the ex-cincinnati ben gal wrestled the gun away. joe biden visits japan's disaster zone today five months after the earthquake and tsunami that wiped out towns and killed more than 20,000 people and sparked the ongoing fukushima nuclear emergency. biden is expected to speak to survivors later today after meeting with japan's prime minister. japan is the third and final stop at biden's eight-day asian tour. developing this morning, another major bank ready to cut thousands of jobs. how it compares to other banks doing the same. christine romans is here to help us break this down. first here's today's businessman's special. how do you think your city ranks against others in the country? well, scientific american is out with their top ten list based on overall performance in the areas of green living, health, air quality and technology. here are slots six through ten. minneapolis, denver, portland, oregon, los angeles, and chicago. we'll have the top five coming up in 60 seconds. stick around. [ male announcer ] it's a fact: your nutritional needs can go up when you're on the road to recovery. proper nutrition can help you get back on your feet. three out of four doctors recommend the ensure brand for extra nutrition. ensure clinical strength has revigor and thirteen grams of protein to protect, preserve, and promote muscle health. and immune balance to help support your immune system. ensure clinical strength... helping you to bounce back. ensure! nutrition in charge! 37 minutes past hours. this is your "am: wake up call." now back to the businessman special and scientific american's top ten list of cities based on overall performance in the areas of green living, health, air quality and technology. here are your top five. san francisco, washington, seattle, boston, and new york city. for more money news let's head to -- i guess you're next door somewhere. christine romans is here with me in new york. we should talk first about goldman sachs the chief guy hired a personal attorney and everybody is wondering why. >> that's right. you know goldman sachs has been first it was goldman sachs and then government sacks, remember after the bailout. paid the bailout back. some people called it goldman sucks when frankly it was at the center of an investigation, senate investigation, about making money when the housing market was going up, making money when the housing market was going down. what kind of loans was it packaging and selling to investors at the same time that it may have been betting against them internally in another part of the company. goldman sachs has been at the center of the smartest guys in the room because they made money no matter what happened during the crisis or, you know, they're being investigated for how they made money no matter what happened during the financial crisis. lloyd blankfein, ceo of that company, contentious, you might recall, set of hearings, senator carl levin, they sparred for nine hours or so, but now he is hiring an attorney, reid wine gartner, the famous attorney who has defended people like bernie ebbers who is in jail by the way and many others, a personal attorney, to help him nav da date -- navigate multiple investigations into goldman sachs. that hit the company hard and brings all the goldman drama back to the floor again. >> talk about ubs, planning to cut 3500 jobs by the end of 2013. why? >> that's right. ubs, another big bank. the banking sector has been shrinking over the past year, we've seen by our accounts some 33,000 job cuts overall. ubs, bank of new york melon, goldman sachs, credit suisse, bank of america cutting as well. as the economy slows, the banking and financial sector that feels it first. a lot of people watching the big bank cuts again, and watching what's happening to the stocks of some of these companies as they are ailing again, just for evidence of the slow down in the global economy. more job cuts there. a lot of people say big bank job cuts who cares. these are secretaries, wealth managers, people in the corporate offices, these are around the world, different job cuts of all different kinds of jobs. there you go. >> christine romans, see you in a bit, thanks so much. check out today's get smart question, which website has the most visitors in july. was it facebook, google, or yahoo!. the answer coming up in two minutes. it's 40 minutes past the hour. a. fiber one. uh, forgot jack's cereal. 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[ male announcer ] find your program at phoenix.edu. 42 minutes past the hour. this is your "am: wake up call." back to our get smart question. which website has the most visitors in july. was it facebook, google, or yahoo!? the answer is -- b, google. facebook came in fourth behind google, yahoo! and microsoft. facebook and twitter both had record months according to c-net.com. time now to look at some of the political stories we're following this morning. a gallup poll puts president obama in a close race against the four top gop presidential candidates. mitt romney leads the president by 2 percentage points while president obama and texas governor rick perry are tied at 47%. but the president edges out ron paul by 2 percentage points and michele bachmann by 4 percentage points. it is possible the president could see his numbers go up after his major jobs speech next month. he's reached out it to billionaire investor warren buffett and ford's ceo mullally for advice in hopes of finding ways to boost the economy. mitt romney hopes to steal some of the spotlight from president obama. he's also unveiling a jobs plan next month that will coincide with the president's announcement. it's the latest effort by the gop frontrunner to run against the president instead of his republican be rivals. americans are not too happy with the tea party. a new pew research poll shows nearly 30% of americans consider the impact of the tea party supporters in congress, to be negative. that's a big jump from january when only 18% felt that way. one of the big reasons for the change, the debt ceiling negotiations. all right. let's take a quick look at sports now. check out this play from the little league world series. it might be a little league game but a major league wild pitch. you can see it there, was so wild it destroyed the lens of a camera behind home plate. and check out this patriotic tennis fan. this is the mardy fish/rafael nadal match. the crowd got behind fish. this woman was working her american flag and it worked. fish beat nadal for the first time in seven matches. and check out this day in history, on august 23rd, 1966, the first picture of the earth was taken from the vicinity of the moon. lunar orbiter 1 snapped this photo when the spacecraft was passing behind the moon. >> 44 minutes past the hour. 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[ male announcer ] to get the flights you want, sign up for a venture card at capitalone.com. what's in your wallet? uh, it's okay. i've played a pilot before. tuesday, august 23rd. this is your "am: wake up call." i'm carol costello. live from new york. 47 minutes past the hour. developing right now out of tripoli, al arabiya reports there are explosions near gadhafi's compound. rebel leaders say they have control of most of that city. and there's still some fierce fighting in other neighborhoods around tripoli. moammar gadhafi's son saif, the one wanted for war crimes, actually showed up at a hotel in tripoli last night even though rebels said earlier they had arrested him. saif claims his father is safe and that loyal troops have broken the back of the rebels. our matthew chance tracked down saif in tripoli. >> taken to tripoli and we broke the back bone of the rebels and so we are ready. and now let's go. let's go together to the hottest places in tripoli, okay. it's very hot. you want to go? >> let's go. >> okay. go. >> i have to -- >> we have to -- i have to move. >> okay. >> get a picture, sir? >> yeah. >> victory. >> saif gadhafi wanted to show matthew chance around tripoli but he ran out of time and he took off in that vehicle. we don't know where he is right now but we know he is free. we've learned that a missile was fired from gadhafi's hometown and landed in the rebel controlled city of misrata. nato says there are no reports of damage or injuries, so things are very influx still in libya. there are worries about gadhafi's weapons. let's go to pentagon correspondent barbara starr on the phone from alexandria, virginia, who's looking for these weapons, barbara? >> well, good morning, carol. you know, this is really the question right now. where are some of the weapons of most concern that the gadhafi regime had. top u.s. analysts, of course, the mustard gas, that had been a concern since the fighting broke out, but now that regime appears it to have fallen, who has control of all of that? now that mustard gas is a weapon of mass destruction. experts say it's not in a form right now that can be put on to a warhead essentially put into an attack mode, but still, very concerning, where is it, who really has control of it? there's also stockpiles, we are told, of plastic explosives, of surface-to-air missiles, all kinds of things that the coalition, especially the united states, would like to see under much firmer control than it might be right now. they have actually asked the tnt, the transitional council, if you will, to make sure all this material is under control. but right now, hard to see who really has it. it's a question of growing concern, carol. >> barbara starr, live from alexandria, virginia, this morning, thank you. a big change is coming at the top of standard & poor's. its president is stepping down. deven sharma will give up his post next month and leave the company at the end of the year. of course, lots of interesting things have been happening at s&p lately. the agency downgraded the u.s. credit rating this month and last week a "new york times" reported the justice department was investigating whether s&p improperly gave high ratings to bad mortgage bonds. douglas peterson will take over sharma's job next month. he's now an executive with citibank. there's been another protest in san francisco. complete with riot gear, chanting, and arrests. police closed and then reopened b.a.r.t. train stations downtown to keep demonstrations from getting out of hand. at least three protesters were arrested. they're upset with recent shootings that involve b.a.r.t. police officers and don't like b.a.r.t.'s decision to cut cell phone signals at some of the stations. the board will revisit that decision tomorrow. a late night jolt for parts of colorado and new mexico. a magnitude 5.3 earthquake hit 190 miles south of denver near the new mexico border, happened just before midnight local time. it's the strongest quake to hit the area in almost 40 years. there are reports of rock slides and structural damage around the area. hurricane irene moving through the atlantic and could reach the united states by the weekend. people in south carolina are already stocking up on water, gas, and generators. irene could become a category 3 major hurricane today. let's head to atlanta and check in with jacqui jeras. where is irene now? >> just north of the dominican republic, carol. take a look at the satellite picture and you can see that circulation is just offshore and that's good news for haiti and the dominican republic. but not great news for the turks and caicos, bahamas and u.s. because the less it interacts with land, the stronger this thing is going to get. it will be slow to strengthen today and it is because of some of that interaction, it's that heat source, that warm water that really provides that fuel for the thing to intensify. winds 100 miles per hour, you got to get to 111 to make it what we call a major hurricane. you can see the official forecast does it as it moves through the bahamas and that will happen through the day tomorrow and closest approach to the u.s. is that florida needs to be worried about this too. you're still in the cone of uncertainty and going to get tropical storm force winds at least because this is a large storm. those winds extend across about 200 miles from the center of the storm. do the math. that's 400 miles wide. that's a huge hurricane. u.s. landfall will be most likely as we approach the weekend, the carolinas in particular, certainly need to be prepared for this powerful storm. >> jacqui, thank you. gold prices hit a new record, but experts are sounding the alarm saying things are looking a bit bubbly. live to the nasdaq marketsite for details. first let's take a look at the word of the day. it's sortie. find out what it means and why you need to know what it means after the break. it's 54 minutes past the hour. if something is simply the color of gold, is it really worth more? 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[ major nutrition ] new ensure high protein. ensure! nutrition in charge! 57 minutes after the hour. this is your "am: wake up call." now back to the word of the day. it would be sortie. here's what it means. it's a sudden issuing of troops from a defensive position against the enemy. you'll see this word in relation to libya today. we've seen an uptick in the number of air attacks or sorties or missions against libya in the past several days. now you know. here are three things to put on your radar today. hurricane irene is gaining strength. it's expected to become a category 3 storm later today. several computer models have it on a path moving towards the east coast this weekend. 10:00 a.m., investors checking out the new home sales report. economists predict that sales will be down. and at 4:30 eastern this afternoon, lawyers for match.com are expected in court. a judge has asked the internet dating site to put in a screening system. a woman filed a lawsuit claiming someone she met on match sexually assaulted her. let's go to carter evans for a look at your money this morning, joins us live from the nasdaq marketsite in new york. how are the markets shaping up, carter? >> carol, look behind me. i can't tell you when it's been a couple of weeks now, since i've seen all green here on the wall here at the nasdaq. our markets yesterday, european markets today, asian markets, all closing higher. europe higher right now. our futures are looking better as well. we have the report on new home sales coming up today, but expectations are pretty low. the dow up 138 points and the futures, nasdaq up 27.5%, s&p up about 18 points on the cnnmoney.com market page. >> i love to talk about gold. did it hit a new record? >> yes. $1900 an ounce in afterhours trading. let me show you where gold is right now, slipping back a little bit. at 1887.50 an ounce. a lot of analysts are beginning to ask this question,