[ male announcer ] count the number of buttons in your car. now count the number of buttons on your tablet. isn t it time the automobile advanced? introducing cue in the all-new cadillac xts. the simplicity of a tablet has come to your car. the all-new cadillac xts has arrived. and it s bringing the future forward. here s what s happening right now. contradicting his own senior advisor, mitt romney said the penalty for not purchasing health insurance is a tax. a hostage crisis in germany
good morning and welcome to early start. i m ali velshi. zoraida is off today. i like these hours. i m eating a hot dog this morning. i love that about you, ali velshi. i m ashleigh banfield. it is 5:01. it s the holiday but this fourth of july is less about celebration and more about patience for many americans. and in some cases, even survival. because for six days now there have been many of your fellow countrymen with no power in this extraordinary heat wave. at least 20 people have now died since thursday when deadly storms slammed the east, slammed the midwest. and about 1.2 million people are still waiting to get their power back, to get a fan on, to get the ac back. this is right across the country. here are the states without power today. power companies are repairing damaged transmitters as fast as they can, but customers still could be waiting until the weekend. still until the weekend until they can get that electricity back. and all of this, while those u
first to our brand new cnn orc polls. this is issue number one, the economy. and a surprising jump in the number of americans who believe the economy will eventually get better. take a look at this. when asked about what economic conditions will be like next year, 60% now say they believe they will be good compared to only 39% who say conditions will be poorer. last fall when we asked the same question, those numbers were very different indeed. only 39% saying things would get better in the year to come. we sent our own joe johns to the key battleground state of ohio for a closer look at these new numbers. joe is joining us now from his old hometown of columbus, ohio. what s going on there, joe? reporter: that s right, wolf. well, things are starting to look better here in the buckeye state, but i have to tell you that cnn orc poll indicates that nationwide one thing is clear, the number one issue on voters minds happens to be jobs and the economy. the november election ma
violently mauled by two chimps in south africa. ahead, the horrifying details of the attack. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. these numbers just coming in. let s go to the battle for the white house. a brand new cnn o.r.c. poll is just being released right now. take a look at just how tight the race is. among registered voters nationally, nationally. 49% say they are for president obama versus 46% for mitt romney. that s with a 2.5% samplining err error. despite the landmark ruling, there s been no change in the number for either candidate since the last poll that came out in may. look at this, when it comes to voters in the so-called battleground states, about 15 of them, the numbers aren t so close. let s go straight to cnn s joe johns. he s breaking the numbers for us. he s in des moines, iowa, right now. tell our viewers what we re seeing, joe. reporter: wolf, there s certainly a lot more to this than meets the eye. the main takeaway is mitt romney is r
the story? why did they rush to judgment? and what about the pundits who have been saying for months that the health care mandate was toast? it was an extraordinary, an extraordinarily uncomfortable television moment. ann curry bidding farewell to the today show couch. i love all of our brilliant, brilliant producers. and for all of you who saw me as a groundbreaker, i m sorry i couldn t carry the ball over the finish line. but man, i did try. was the veteran correspondent humiliated by nbc? plus, a magazine article by a woman who quit the obama administration because she couldn t juggle the demands of motherhood strikes a very deep chord. no one says any more this is no job for a woman because, a, that s discrimination. but plenty of people say this is no job for a mother. but have women in the media trumpeted this because they re all part of a privileged elite? i m howard kurtz, and this is reliable sources. let me say at the outset, it is not easy to grab