good morning. i'm ali velshi joining us live from new york. let's start with the fast and furious wildfires wrecking land and property in texas. they've killed four people and destroyed more than 700 homes in the past few days. the biggest fire is just outside austin. firefighters have been struggling to contain it. let's go right to cnn's chris welch. what's the latest? >> reporter: well, you just mentioned four death so is far at this point associated with these fires. two of those came from here in bass rtrop county. we assume they occurred yesterday. we don't know for sure because officials aren't providing more details. what we do know is this morning search crews will finally be going in for the first time over the past three days, look for anymore fatalities, look for any bodies. they hope obviously that they don't find anymore, but these fires have been very massive. we're talking these fires are 30% contained. that honestly is a big step from what we've seen in the last few days because over the last two or three day, each day it's been sooe 0% contained. so 30% is a big step. an i think officials attribute that to the weather. the wind yesterday was a lot less fierce than it was two days ago and officials are hoping that holds out today so they can make more progress on the fire. >> give me some sense of where it starts to threaten urban areas. obviously this is something that they've had fires in texas for several months now. they've had this drought. but at this point, they're getting very close to urban areas. >> they basically surround austin. they're not getting close to city center, but here in bastrop county which is several miles east of austin, the city of bastrop itself has several subdivisions where homes are clustered together. this is not just a rural area where you have one home say every few acres, every mile or so. there are areas where there are lots of homes. as it spreads, it's going further south getting in to areas that are less populated. officials i guess that's one thing they're thankful for, but still these are very serious fires that aren't letting up anytime soon. >> we'll stay on top of the story. thanks for joining us. those fires are so big you can see them from space. the winds calmed down a little bit on tuesday and was a big help. let's go over to rob marciano. what's going on, do we have weather conditions that are help these firefighters? >> we won't get any rain, so that's one thing. winds today, maybe a little bit stronger than yesterday, but humidity levels will be about the same. and it will remain relatively cool. want to show you this picture. this is where austin sky lean there in the foreground looking into the south and east towards that fire, about 20, 30 miles away and it just gives you an idea the scope of this thing. wind blowing away from austin it, that's the good news. so air quality, although it's bad east of the fire, austin should be okay. 95 in austin, 89 in dallas. this is believe it or not much cooler than it has been the past couple of weeks. so they will take it. east coast going to see some storms today. speaking of storm, here is katia. category 1 strength right now. and the forecast is for to turn off towards the north and east. big time waves and rip currents still an issue across the east coast. so if you're tempted to go out there, the weather is kind of nasty. don't tip the toes in the water unless you know what you're doing. tropical depression number 14 continues to look promising and taking a track similar to katia. but lower. and that's not good. that means it may have a better chance next week sometime to make it closer to the u.s. and this thing right here, 40% chance of seeing it develop, it's in the southern gulf of mexico, probably going to fly a hurricane hunter aircraft later on today tomodels bring it to t. this weekend or beginning of next week. could turn out to be another lee which sprung up real quick and then made a quick attack on the gulf coast and we're still feeling the effects right now. >> all right, rob. good to see you, my friend. let me give you a quick round up of other news starting with the mass shooting at an ihop in carson city, nevada. a fourth person has how died. three of the dead were members of the nevada national guard, another a female civilian. several other people were rounded. police say the gunman was 32-year-old eduardo sension eflt. he was deliberately targeting guards men. >> i just started hearing it sounded like machine guns or firecrackers or something. >> we seen people running out of the building. i asked the people running out what happened, what happened. there was people hiding under cars. >> authorities have not said anything about about a motive, but the fbi says it doesn't appear to be connected to terrorism. beg news happening right now in india. bomb blast outside the deli oig high court. the bomb exploded during a busy day. it's not clear yet who is responsible, but there was a blast outside the same court complex in may. no one was hurt in that one. and we're hearing more about the future of u.s. troops in iraq. a senior pent gone official says one option is to keep just 3,000 forces there starting next year. the official stresses that no final decisions have been made. defense secretary leon panetta says the number depends on the iraqis. right now more than 40,000 u.s. troops are in iraq. and they're all supposed to be out by the end of the year. and speaking of the iraq invasion back in 2003, does dick cheney have any regrets about about it? >> i think bashir a a schs sad g is on his way out. he's one of the least popular leaders. it's the the middle east. stuff happens in the middle east. i don't think you can make the case that the world would be better off today in saddam hussein were still in power. >> so no regret ps iraq? >> i think we made the right decision. >> john edwards' lawyers are trying to get the charges expense him tossed out. they filed the motions to that end. the former senator and democratic presidential canned cat is accused of breaking campaign contribution law. the attorneys say the charges are vague. and politically moelt straighted. they also say edwards should not have been indicted. as we get closer to election year, debate, speeches and attempts get more fired up and comedians are taking the opportunity to bash those who are making particularly fiery claims. >> james hoffa jr., sure, no relation, took the stage to warm up the crowd. >> everybody here if we keep the eye on the prize, let's take these so that of a bitches out and give america back to america where we belong. >> and don't touch my microphone plp b [ bleep ] that's a union job. if hoff's goal was to get theme hollering, he succeeded. >> it is call to go take us out. what exactly does he mean by take us out? >> the president should repudiate it. >> it's odd that the tea party and the right have suddenly developed an allergic reaction to violent rhetoric since they've specht the past cup he of years talking like this 37. >> get your musket to and charge to the right. >> to be farks he was key noting the broken bayonet association of america. >> a british company may have come up with a way to beat the infrared technology and it actually reminds me of a creep from a harry potter movie. but first, check out the quote of the day. f all the army troops. find out who said it and what's being done about it now. boy, i'm glad we got aflac huh. aflac! oh, i've just got major medical... major medical. ...but it helps pay the doctors. pays the doctors, boyyy! 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[ woman announcing ] new beneful healthy fiesta. another healthful, flavorful beneful. this is your a.m. wake-up call. back to the quote of the day. quote, f all the army troops. there's a swear word in there. lyrics from a song that rapper soulja boy called let's be real. according to tmz, a spokesman says the album would not be sold in their stores. the 21-year-old rapper has apologized. he when i expressed my frustration, not only did my words come out wrong, i was wrong to even speak them. now for an update on what's makes headlines in the high tech world, live in hong kong, christy, good morning to you. that iphone 5 left somewhere makes me think apple needs to be rethinking how it controls its unreleased products. >> yeah, that's right. and it has an hr strategy. apple is now hiring a new project security manager or someone who can stop iphones getting lost in bars. it's a full-time job. the candidate will oversee, quote, the protection of and managing risks to apple's unreleased products and related intellectual property. the notice was posted on apple's website. and this comes after a second prototype went missing last month. last year an apple exec left an iphone 4 prototype in a bar. so here is hoping the new hire will end the trend. >> i guess i would have assumed they had somebody given that they have such secrecy over their products. but fair enough. if anybody is qualified, apply for it. let's talk with the british company. they're set to unveil an invisibility cloak. >> that's right, this is really neat. and this cloak, by the british defense company bae, it can hide an entire tank by tricking infrared technology. it uses a matrix of pixels that can change temperature very qui quickly and displays the frap read pattern on the vehicles. in doing so, a tank can be invisible in the infrom a read sp infrom a read spectrum. so it's not quite the invisibility cloak of harry potter fame, but a big step forward. >> so in theory, if i was sitting in front of this tank are i'd still see the tank. but if you're looking for it using infrared, you wouldn't. >> that's right. only in the infrared spectrum you would be invisible. >> well, a good start. i have a lot of people look nothing me in inta from a read. the army's net warrior program has been work to go develop its own technology for year, but now wired news says the military's tapped an skrodro power these wearable computers. and could electric helicopters be in our future? we're a small step closer to first untethered fully electric manned helicopter has taken flight. a twist engineer designed and built this prototype. the history making flight was brief, it lasted over two meant and reached a maximum height of three feet. hey, look the invisible cloaking device, it's a start. >> the butter sculpture is a highlight of the new york state fair. this year it's becoming fuel. local students are taking it apart and melting it down at a lab on campus. students from the state university's college of virp al science and forestry will turn the 900 pounds of butter in to about 100 gallons of biodiesel which will be used to fuel vehicles on campus. i thought they were going to butt area lot of bagels with it. a controversial online game targets tea party favorites. critics are saying it goes way too far. we'll talk about it in 90 seconds. 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>> huge. the public conundrum wouldn't have ended there. they still have the option of missing both political events and watching ghosts caught on tape on the biography channel. >> i wonder if we'll do that. time for your political ticker. tim far sli hofarley, host of m briefing. what is going on there, do you have a black shirt and white tie with dots on it on? >> i've got my whole outfit all picked out just for you, ali. i heard you were coming back this morning. >> good to see you. that's my welcome back outfit. tim, president obama is going to unveil his big jobs plan tomorrow. mitt romney laid out his yesterday. let's listen. >> president obama's strategy is a pay phone strategy and we're in a smart phone world. and so we're going to have to change. what he's doing is taking quarters and stuffing them in to the pay phone and thinking can't figure out why it's not working. it's not connected anymore, mr. president. >> i have to tell you, the president does it, too. i hate these oversimplified analyses with jobs, although i have to give to mitt romney, he put out a very long jobs plan, 59 points. and i'm hoping the president -- the business guy in me hopes that the president has some good meat and detail in his plan, as well. >> 161 pages, it's all available on kindle. so he's getting a little high tech with this, too. i think what we're talking about is when the president -- there is no way he can live up to any expectations. we're already seeing $300 billion worth of things that he's really already been talking about including payroll tax extensions and maybe some investment in infrastructure. here's where the battle is shaping up. it's still in the middle on those independent voters. and increasingly democrats will start painting more republican candidates as extreme, rick perry for example, sarah palin. mitt romney trying to come across as the reasonable one and laying this out, he'll have something to refer to whenever he gets out on the campaign trail. look at my jobs plan. if the economy is still in the tank a year from how, the president will have a difficult time beating almost anyone, but certainly he'll have a tougher time against a so-called reasonable candidate. >> we journalists enjoy plans, something to sink our teeth into. and at least point in some direction. so it's a long and detailed one. this is troubling. there is a video game out that targets tea party favorites like sarah palin, michele bachmann in a video game where you can simulate killing them. >> yeah, tea party zombies must die, this is done by a group called -- well, a company called starving eyes.com. it shouldn't come as a big surprise. they did something called kung fu election in 2008. what's interesting to me about this is that the tea party has become a sim billion for something and you can just slap that label i guess on whichever politician you want to. but that aside from the fact that this is very graphic, the owner of the company is quoted as saying that this is a personal project, i'm not worried about it affecting business because they do have mainstream clients like hotels.com, for example, but it's in the sage of viral video and it's getting noticed on shows like this this morning. >> yeah, i suspect this will come back and bite them a little bit. it goes a little far, the idea that it's more than just candidates as understand. they have journalists on there, all sorts of people who are -- >> and there's uzis and swords. it's graphic. >> tim, good to see you, as always. keep well. >> thanks. >> tim farley host of the morning briefing on sirius xm. before with we go, today is national day of neither rain nor snow. really doesn't have anything to do with the weather. it actually celebrates the opening of the new york "post" office building back in 1914. the inscription on the side of the building reads net snow nor rain nor heat more gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. mail is still processed in that building. the jacob farley building. to this day. r my very first year as a teacher, setting that goal to become a principal. but, i have to support my family, so how do i go back to school? 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[ female announcer ] only from aveeno. this is your a.m. wake-up call. let's go away the world with zain verjee live from london. good morning. so good to see you after so long. >> yeah, i missed you. you loved me and left me. >> but i'm back. and tell me about this convoy, this military convoy that passed through southern libya into ni gch ger. there are rumors that gadhafi is in this. >> nobody knows for sure. there have been so many confl t conflicts reports. the state department view it is as convoy, and they say that they do not believe that moammar gadhafi is in that convoy. they believe his head of security is in it. they spoke to officials saying if there's anyone that needs to be detained in there, arrested, who is expected to be prosecuted, that they have to do it. niger has signed the treaty of rome, the rome statute which means they're obliged to arrest anyone and hand them over to the international krim court if they demand it. but where is moammar gadhafi some if i had that answer, that w