this is your a.m. wake-up call. i'm carol costello. let's get started with the specific, credible, but unconfirmed terrorist threat against the united states involving three people, vehicle and bombs and possible targets in new york new york and washington. new york city mayor michael bloomberg says there there will be additional police officers throughout the city, but no one should change their daily routines. leaders in the nation's cappal the telling people to remain calm and vigilant. >> there are people together scrubbing through mounds of data looking for potential leads of individuals where suspicion may arise around them. let's talk with cnn national security contributor fran townsend who joins me live from washington. tell me what you know of these three people. is it car bombs? what are we talking about exactly? >> carol, we've gotten the information in bits and pieces as we often do in the early stages. the threat information they got only in the last 24 to 36 hours have been going through it. they notified congress. the president had been informed early yesterday and kept informed settling. up until now they had gone through their normal routine a large big event like the 9/11 anniversa anniversary. the president had met with his cabinet. they talked about the various national security measures they would take before a big event. there hadn't been up to that time this intelligence. we understand the intelligence comes from overseas. it may, in fact, we're talking to sources -- remember peck stan took into custody atani, a senior al queda leader. it may be the information is related to his capture. >> we've been hearing con fwlikting reports from different networks. first we heard there were three people including one american, some people from pakistan already in this country. we've since determined that's not quite true. you probably don't have the answer to this because they're keeping things under their hats. do investigators know who these people are? >> as you point out, carol, the initial reporting was that there was three people, one being an american citizen and then as the story seemed to develop, we then understood they may have names but they very very common names. our susan candiotti got that report from their sources. not clear. the key here is we also understand these are individuals who entered the united states as recently as last month. and this is an enormous task to try and figure out, even if you had names, to try and identify when and where they exactly came in and even once you do that, carol, then you've got to figure out where they are now. none of this is easy. that's the first priority of investigators at the moment. >> they have plenty of people out there trying to keep us safe. and i guess the old adage works this time, too. if you see anything suspicious, report it. don't hang on to that information. fran town shend, we appreciate -- >> we heard that from commissioner kelly last night. new york has been at the forefront of the "if you see it say it" campaign. that's how they identified the times square attempted bombing. that was his message last night. don't change your rhee tune but law enforcement needs your help. to our viewers, wherever you are, especially in those two cities, call 911 if you see something suspicious. >> fran town shend, thanks so much. president obama put his jobs plan out there asking the congress to pass it asap. the cost? $447 billion paid for with an expanded deficit reduction deal. >> pass this jobs bill and starting tomorrow small businesses will get a tax cut if they hire new workers or if they raise workers wages. pass this jobs bill and all small business owners will also see their payroll taxes cut in half next year. if you have 50 employees making an average salary, that's an $80,000 tax cut. and all businesses will be able to continue writing off the investments they make in 2012. >> the plan includes a payroll tax cut for 98% of businesses, a tax credit for companies that hire unemployed veterans, improvements for about 35,000 public schools, buildings i'm talking about, a tax credit for firms that hire the long-term unemployed. let's get more. americans can refinance their mortgages at the 4% enter et rates now available. republican reaction ran the gamut from we're interested to "no way." we'll talk more about that with tim farley in your political ticker in a few minutes. hundreds of thousands of people in arizona, and mex went to bed without electricity. utility crews have begun restoring power after last night's massive blackout left about 3.5 million people in the dark. take a look at the graphic. each dot represents households without power just in san diego alone. officials aren't sure when everyone will be back on the grid. so you're asking what happened. arizona power says a an employee tripped up a high voltage line near the border and that's what killed off the lights all the way to san diego. >> the initial instance of this looks like an operator error that happened in arizona. that started the series of events. what we'll have to find out through the investigation as we review this is to find out was there any other complicating factors along the way, any other equipment that failed that contributed to the outage as well. >> the number of homes destroyed in that's nor mouse wildfire outside of austin, texas, keep rising. it's wiped out nearly 14 0 homes now and isn't letting um. fire crewing are pouring almost everything they have into protecting the structures that are still standing. president obama signed emergency declarations for new york and pennsylvania after another round of punishing rains. leftovers from tropical storm lee have flooded the susquehanna river, began to crest last night. several communities under water. thousands have had to leave their homes. at least three people have died. >> i stayed up most the night just keeping an eye on things. you think it will be all right. then you start getting butterflies and start wondering. >> it's on the market for sale. we're supposed to have an open house sunday and now this has happened. >> i don't think she'll be having that open house, reynolds. >> looks like it's going to be rough, no question about it. one thing about this morning is most of the rain all fae mains offshore. you'll see the heaviest precipitation forming in the atlantic. the bad news is you have many of the rivers, creeks and lakes swollen. if you look at how much has fallen already, last 48 hours, some places up to six to ten inches. even south into washington, d.c. and into virginia. we have the flood threat that remains in effect for a good part of the northeast. that's one part of the story with the area of low pressure over the great lakes and into the northeast. the rain and clouds will stick around for quite some time. we're keeping a sharp eye on hurricane katia, thankfully not expected to have any direct theft on the united states. meanwhile tropical storm maria looks like it may strengthen. right now winds at 45 mipsz. as we fast forward we see winds going to 65 miles per hour, 75. a category one hurricane forecasted by wednesday. still too early to say if it will have direct affect with united states. tropical storm nate looks like it's pys lgs out. not so fast. the latest computer models say it's going to strengthen to category 2, again making landfall into parts of mexico right along the coast. that's the latest. more weather coming up through out the morning. back to you, carol. >> thank you, reynolds. inventors all over the world are working on ways to prevent another 9/11. a remote controlled airliner is one of those tech advances in the works. more amazing inventions on the other side of the break. first, check out our quote of the day. mr. president, we cannot spend our way to prosperity find out who said this anti the president's jobs plan. that's coming up in 90 seconds. it's nine minutes after the hour. have i got a surprise for you! 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[ crunching, sipping ] be happy. be healthy. can i try yours? it's ten minutes past the hour. this is your a.m. wake-up call. the quote of the day, mr. president, we cannot spend our way to prosperity that was republican presidential candidate rick perry about the jobs plan presented last night by president barack obama. this sunday's anniversary of the 9/11 attacks will lead to our high tech headlines. let's head to hong kong and kristie lu stout. we're always trying to find new ways to protect ourselves after 9/11. the inventors came through. tell us about some of those. >> national geographic recently published a list of six tech advances to defend against terrorism in the skies. the first is remote controlled airlines. boeing has already developed the technology to fly an airliner by remote. boeing says it has no plans to produce the device just yet. another technology is bio monitors, surveillance systems that can analyze facial systems for signs of lying or irregular heartbeats. number three, remote video monitoring. european researchers are developing on board systems to scan facial expressions and look out for suspicious behavior. we have a visual of the next counterterror tool. these are light guns. officials are looking the possibly equip air marshals to dazzle attackers and temporarily blind them. also on the lits, assumer thin flexible body armor, a uniform for marshals and flight crews. lastly, missile disrupters. already available. these devices use infrared radiation to disrupt systems. carol, the fear is out there that airplanes will continue to be targeted. and for that reason, we're seeing this array of technology all developed to defend the skies. back to you. >> i'm dazzled by this light gun. when might that hit the market? >> i don't know quite yet. of course, they also have to look its its viability. being able to bring that on board if it's in use to make sure it won't hurt passengers as well. a number of many different technology involving as terror strategies evolve as well. >> kristie lu stout, thanks so much. reporting from hong kong. president obama is about to hit the road to promote his $447 billion jobs package. a big plan with a big question. can he get anything passed? we'll talk about that in 90 seconds. it's 13 minutes past the hour. e, so me and the boys earned a trip to dc twice as fast! oh hi! we get double miles every time we use our card. and since double miles add up fast... one more chariot please. ...we can bring the whole gang! i cannot tell a lie. he did it. right... it's hard to beat double miles! read my lips -- no new axes! [ male announcer ] get the venture card from capital one, and earn double miles on every purchase, every day. go to capitalone.com. what's in your wallet? so, you're a democrat right? while i took refuge from the pollen that made me sneeze. but with 24-hour zyrtec®, i get prescription strength relief from my worst allergy symptoms. so lily and i are back on the road again. with zyrtec® i can love the air®. it is 15 minutes past the hour. good morning. this is your a.m. wake-up call. now time for your political ticker with tim farley host of "morning briefing" from sirius potus live. >> good morning. >> president obama hits the road to propose his new jobs proposal. his first stop is in virginia. let's go back to the speech last night. we'll play a bit for our audience and then talk about it. let's listen. >> the purpose of the american jobs act is simple, to put more people back to work and more money in the pockets of those who are working. it will create more jobs for construction workers, teachers, veterans and long-term unemployed. it will provide is tax break for companies who hire new workers, and it will cut payroll taxes in half for every working american and every small business. >> so supposedly this plan has job creation in it. it also has tax cuts in it which should please everybody you would think. but the big challenge for the president is, if congress will act on it quickly and if he can get any part of this plan passed. >> yeah. i think you've hit the challenge right there. in the parlance of the sales world the president asked for the order last night, repeatedly saying pass this jobs bill now, pass it now, act now. republicans may be a little bit, shall we say, delaying in this. there's a sense, i do believe, that there has to be some kind of action. it may not be that everything goes fluid. i don't think the president expects that. but i do believe, and given what we heard from the speaker of the house john boehner, what we laerd from eric cantor, the house majority leader yesterday, there is some room for maneuvering. it merits consideration. that was the line from the speaker of the house. when you look at the reaction from a lot of republicans, there was a lot of criticism and even some people said somewhat a total rejection of what the president said. there's a lot of room there. there's breathing room, if you will. i think that speaks to the fact that members of the house and senate have just come back from their districts and finding that people are looking for something to happen. an out right rejection is not something that will play well with the average voter. >> you mentioned some republicans are at least receptive to parts of the president's plan. john boehner said, quote, it's my hope we can work together to end the uncertainty facing families and small businesses and create a better environment for long-term economic growth and private sector job creation. i was reading from an analyst who said written statements are great. but unless politicians are saying it with their mougs, don't believe it. >> there's a certain amount of truth to that. i also do believe that when you read through the statements and the reactions, as i said, you don't hear out right rejection in a lot of cases. one fascinating one, carol, was the quote from scott brown. republican senator from massachusetts up for re-election. he's saying, hey, who doesn't want good roads and bridges. he's looking forward to working with the president. and another said, if spending were the key, we would be out of this economic issue. these problems would be gone. we have a democrat that is more critical and a republican who is more receptive. notice what's missing from a lot of these statements. you'll see there's a possibility of moving forward. maybe that's the optimist in me. i see more here than the typical intransigence than what's been going on in washington. >> it's good you're a glass half full. >> the weekend coming up. why not. >> tim farley, host of "morning briefing" on sirius potus radio. it's been ten years for instance the 9/11 attacks, four months since osama bin laden was killed. we're taking a look at where the terror network stands now as analysts look into a credible unconfirmed threat against the united states. it's 19 past the hour. 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[ male announcer ] half a day's worth of fiber. fiber one. it is 22 minutes past the hour. this is your a.m. wake-up call. here are three things to put on your radar. fresh off his jobs speech, president obama takes his message to university of richmond. virginia is a key battleground state that obama actually won in 2008. we're down to the quarterfinals in the u.s. opens. john eisner takes on andy murray. after that, andy rad dick versus after fell nad nadal. conrad murray trial resumes today. potential jurors will fill out question flairs to determine if they're qualified to serve. u.s. officials say they have a specific credible but unconfirmed threat involving an al qaeda plot against new york city or washington, d.c. it's reportedly aimed to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary. senior international correspondent nic robertson is tracking the story from kabul, afghanistan. nic, you've been making calls from that side of the borld. what are you hearing this morning? >> reporter: we laerd the initial reports came from the pakistan-afghan tribal border region where there was al qaeda camps inside pakistan. we talked to a very senior ministerial government official today to find out what he knew. he has responsibility for those border areas. he said, look, we don't have anything here at the moment. indeed he said we don't really have good information about what's about to happen in kabul. he said really for us at the moment to know what's going on do know about the threats in washington and new york is a stretch. he is the man in the government here responsible for the border area where these threats are -- certainly the initial intelligence we understand came from, carol. >> i want to ask you so many more questions, but since they really don't know anything, we have heard, there's supposedly an american person involved along with two pakistani people involved. any information you've been able to gather on that snt it would certainly be very typical of the potential tear rof threat coming from this area. the border area in pakistan has al qaeda camps and people have been coming from the united states and from europe as well to train in those camps. they come do fight here in afghanistan, and then you have people like this top al qaeda official who was picked up in pakistan within the past couple of weeks. atani, who has been in charge of al qaeda, of recruiting the foreigners coming in from united states and europe and telling them don't fight in afghanistan, go back to the united states, go back to europe and perpetrate your attacks there. there have been several very documented classes where atani has been directly involved in these sorts of incidents. so far from what we understand from pakistani officials, they cannot link him to this later terror threat warning. however, what has been involved in the past fwits the modus operandi of exactly what we're hearing here, carol. >> nic robertson live from afghanistan this morning. extra security on the streets in new york city and washington, d.c. if you see anything suspicious, authorities say, please tell someone. you'll see plenty of people with guns on the streets of new york and washington, d.c. if you fly a lot, you know the drill, shoes off, liquids out, i.d. and boarding pass in hand. the string of security changes that started in the aftermath of 9/11. a look at how much as changed at the airport. after that horrible day much of the world waited, waited for some reason to smile. >> the