the doctors who wrote the prescriptions for those pills could be subpoenaed. in syria, artillery and machine gun fire echo aross crosse the city of homs while a thick smoke from a pipeline explosion hangs overhead e opposition activists say government forces are set on planting every neighborhood that might hold disdent. our arwa damon is in the besieged city. reporter: around 7:30 in the morning began the sustained bombardment, various sounds of artillery being fired, impacting here as well as sporadic, heavy automatic machine gun fire has been heard and this has been the status quo in homs for over a week now. just hours ago, iran began loading what it calls its first home-built nuclear fuel rods. president mahmoud ahmadinejad helped insert the rods into a reactor at a research center in tehran. it is broadcast live. his government insists the technology is needed for medical purposes. western nations believe the iranians are focused on building a bomb. today s move i
he has the potential of doing that, romney probably wins new hampshire, south carolina and florida. by the end of january we ll know who the frontrunner is, the chaser is. martha: who wins iowa? i think iowa is wide open. i think gingrich could easily win iowa or ron paul. he has a good organization there. martha: very interesting. thank you very much for coming in today. hopefully we ll talk to this in the future as all this rolls along, right? take care. bill: in the meantime, a fox news alert out of glauster, ohio north of athens, ohio, home of iowa university, you re looking at a pipeline explosion, the explosion occurred at 8:45 so, this thing has been going for about 90 minutes now. witnesses saying the flames shot hundreds of feet up into the air, and based on what we re watching, that s probably at least hundreds of feet up into the air. it s burning at the moment, no evacuations ordered yet, no injuries immediately reported but we re watching this now out of south central
another fire there burning 5800 acres. it too caused by lightning. all of these dry conditions out here. then you have electrical storms, not a good combination when you are talking about these raging wildfires. shepard: casey, thank you. in texas, officials say that wildfire, a big one is 60% contained. so much damage already done. this is bastrop, texas, 25 miles south and east of austin. monster fire has destroyed more than 1500 hopes. imagine! they say that number will likely go up as crews continue to assess the damage. two people, still unaccounted for. officials say they may be out of town. that s what they are hoping. they say drought and high winds triggered more than 190 wildfires across the state of texas. red cross reports pipeline explosion in kenya s capital has killed at least 75 people.
situation room starts right now. thanks, very much happening right now. the gop battle for the white house. eating up here in tampa, florida. just three hours away from hearing eight presidential candidates go ahead it head. they will join me on cnn s first ever tea party republican presidential debate. can the texas governor rick perry maintain his growing lead in the polls despite a highly controversial stance on social security? or will mitt romney come from behind and once again, seize the top spot? is it too late for michele bachmann? standing by with complete coverage and analysis. meanwhile, in washington, president obama scrambling to defeat them all and save the ailing economy before time runs out. but there are new signs in congress his blueprint for recovery could be dead on arrival. i m wolf blitzer in tampa, here in the situation room. we re just three hours away from what s going to be a critical potentially make or break moment for some of the republic
blamed on hurricane/tropical storm irene. more than three million homes and businesses still don t have power. flood warnings still are in effect in five states from vermont to new jersey. all this brings me to my colleague, mary snow, in patterson, new jersey. mary, what is going on there around you right now? reporter: well, evacuations have been going on for the past 48 hours and they are only intensifying because you just mentioned, there are some rivers that have yet to crest. here in patterson, new jersey, which is about three blocks away from the passaic river, that has not yet crested. we are told it s about seven feet higher than it normally is, and there have been boats going out that were with the state office of emergency management, their search and rescue teams have been going out all morning. we are joined by the mayor of patterson, jeff jones. mr. mayor, thanks for joining us. what is your biggest concern right now? well, the biggest concern right now is t