people can feel like they can have control over now, if you can get through to the bankers. >> we're trying and it's not cheap to refinance. >> that's right. >> you have to think about whether you want to do that. >> if rates go low enough, it's good to check it out. >> it's friday. >> yes. >> yeah. although the week started off well, the realization that a second recession may be drawing closer is hammering stocks this morning. actually futures. here in the united states, the dow dropped 420 points or nearly 4% yesterday, stripping away this week's gains and then some. adding to the uncertainty, bad news on manufacturing, inflation and jobs. >> jobs, which we know are scarce, this video says it all. thousands of americans waiting for hours in sweltering heat just hoping to land an interview at a job fair in atlanta and because the economy is truly global, the anxiety here is spreading. nina dos santos is live in london. nina, how are the markets overseas so far? >> i'm afraid to say it's not looking good on the final trading day of the week. it's turned into another volatile session for stock markets around the world. the stock markets in asia ended the day lower and what we're seeing in europe is the markets down to the tune of 1.5% to 2%. earlier they were falling in excess of 3%. that adds to declines of more than 5% yesterday. now, if you take a look at what's happening in the markets, investors are telling us they're becoming increasingly concerned about a slow down of global growth that could, indeed, indicate we could be heading towards another recession. so there's fears of a dreaded double dip playing on investors' minds at the moment. if you take a look at the year-to-date for some of the markets it seems as though europe has fared considerably worse in the markets than where you to are at the dow jones industrial average. markets here in europe down in excess of 20%. >> nina dos santos, we'll see if it spreads here again today. meanwhile, developing news out of afghanistan this morning. the taliban claiming responsibility for two explosions that rocked the british council in downtown kabul. at least eight people were killed in the attack. apparently began with a car bomb outside the main security gates. heavy gunfire, even more explosions were heard hours after the attack. a u.n. humanitarian mission is on its way to syria to see how far the regime of president bashar al assad has gone to snuff out anti-government protests. a scathing new u.n. report claims syria is torturing and murdering its own people. u.s. and european leaders continue to call on assad to step down. it has happened again. another stage collapse at a concert. this time in belgium. a fierce storm ripped through an annual open air music festival in the city of pasal. heavy winds collapsing the stage, leaving its roof off, equipment dangling in the air and concertgoers running for their lives. five people killed here, more than 50 others hurt. sugarland performing for the first time since a deadly stage collapse in the united states at the indiana state fair. five people died in last weekend's tragedy. the country duo paid tribute when they took to the stage last night in albuquerque. >> in honor of those people who were wounded and those beautiful lives that were lost, we ask you to stand and join us now in a moment of silence. >> sugarland plans to return to indiana for a memorial service later this year. following developments this year in the case of the west memphis three. a source close to the case telling cnn's david mattingly, convicted child killers could go free after a court hearing today. damien echols, jesse misskelley and jason baldwin have spent the past 18 years behind bars for the murders of three arkansas cub scouts. the case has drawn national attention with supporters including numerous celebrities claiming the men were wrongly convicted. the men have always maintained their innocence. a father and son from pennsylvania behind bars this morning accused of conducting a month-long campaign to threaten sarah palin and her family. craig and shawn christy have been indicted by an alaska grand jury. they allegedly ignored a restraining order and called palin's number 400 times leaving threats about deadly and sexual attacks on the former governor and her children. if you're the president, there's probably never a good time to get away, just as president obama arrived on martha's vineyard for a ten-day family vacation the stock market took a dive. it's giving republicans a new opening to blast the president's handling of the economy and the timing of his r and r. deputy political director paul steinhauser live in washington. i can remember a lot of grubling about the crawford ranch and now we've just changed crawford ranch to grumbling about the president in martha's vineyard. i will say the economy pretty much stinks, everyone does want to know what he's going to do about jobs. >> absolutely. when president bush was in office, be he was spending too much time at crawford when the wars in afghanistan were raging, same thing with bill clinton in the white house in the 1990s. presidents get blamed. it's an election year almost. the campaign under way. presidential candidates that's part of their job to criticize the president, why they're out there, one of the reasons. they didn't wait for the president to head yesterday to martha's vin-yard. mitt romney this week twice criticized the president for the vacation. take a listen. >> the president this week is in three states on a bus tour campaigning and then he's going to be going on a vacation to martha's vineyard for ten days. a lot of democrats in martha's vineyard, i don't know why. i wish the president were in washington, calling back congress, and dealing with the challenges we have. >> reporter: a couple things there. martha's vineyard in massachusetts, mitt romney's home state. talking about bill clinton, bill clinton another democratic president used to vacation there in the summers in the 90s and guess where mitt romney will be a week it now, most likely in martha's vineyard to raise campaign cash. one other thing, the president's approval rating pretty low right now, but what's lower congress and there's a lot of criticism as well that congress is on vacation right now, why are they not back in washington as well working to create jobs. >> paul, on that note then, you know, the rnc releasing some postcards that mock the president's vacation. i guess hoping that people are going to, you know, download them and virally e-mail them all over the place. tell me about that. >> yeah. check this out from the republican national committee, this is a party committee, one of their jobs to attack the president of the other party. look right here, go to their website, download these postcards send them to friends and pretty humorous, i guess, and also you can donate to the rnc. the dnc, democratic national committee doing the same thing. going after mitt romney. remember his comments about a week ago, corporations are people too. you can buy one of those t-shirts and donate $30 to the democratic national committee. that's politics, what i cover, keeps me i guess employed. >> that's one job you personally do care about. >> yeah, i guess so. >> paul steinhauser, thanks. coming up at 8:10 eastern we'll talk with rnc chairman reence fee bus about their line of attack on the president. >> maybe he can share with you the republican's jobs sfloon i know it's postcards. now is your chance to talk back within one of the big stories of the day. the question this morning, is president obama neglecting the black community. congresswoman maxine waters says yes. >> he went with a plan and that plan was to invest money in those rural communities in order to develop jobs. we like that. we want the rural poor to be attended to. but we also want the urban poor to be attended to. >> it is true, president obama did not visit majority black communities on his three-day bus tour. in the meantime the congressional black caucus is organizing job fairs for african-americans across the country. but just because president obama isn't present at those job fares, doesn't mean he doesn't care. it's just that well, he's got the black vote and while he doesn't need a majority of white votes to win re-election, he does need some. according to exit polls, president obama won 43% of the white vote in 2008. which is pretty good for a democrat. still, there are ominous signs for the president. according to the latest cnn/orc poll, 34% of whites approve of how the president is doing his job. some african-american leaders say so what. democrats haven't won a majority of white votes since 1964. mr. obama should at least show some love to his most loyal constituency. 95% of african-american voters cast ballots for the president in 2008. although that was only 13% of the entire vote. and since then, the unemployment rate for black america has risen to 15.9%. where, they ask, is their obama bus tour? the talk back question this morning, is president obama neglecting the black community? facebook.com/americanmorning. facebook.com/americanmorning. i'll read your responses later this hour. coming up on "american morning," the government spending billions to build stealth fighter jets, but now some people are calling for the fleet to be grounded for good. a goodwill game goes bad between georgetown university in china. this happened in china. chairs were tossed, punches thrown, we've got the pictures and the state department's reaction. and baseball-sized hail, 100-mile-an-hour winds inflicting a lot of hurt on one midwestern town. can you imagine walking out and seeing that on your car? you're watching "american morning." 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[♪...] >> male announcer: now, for a limited time, your companion flies free, plus save up to 65%. call 1-800-sandals. conditions apply.. the pentagon calls its most expensive weapons program ever pouring billions of dollars into the construction of stealth fighter jets, but the fleet's been plagued by mechanical problems, never gone to war. so the big question now is, is it time to cut our losses? barbara starr joins us live from the pentagon. good morning, barbara. >> good morning, christine. you know, defense secretary leon panetta has got to cut defense spending. there's just no way around it. so could these expensive aircraft programs that already have problems, be the place that he starts doing that? >> reporter: it's the most expensive weapons program ever, says the pentagon. $384 billion earmarked for some 3,000 f-35 stealth fighter jets. testing is roesuming after a two-week halt when electrical problems emerged. then there's the f 22 air force stealth fighter at more than $140 million per plane. the nearly 200 plane fleet has been grounded since may after oxygen to the pilots kept cutting off. one pilot died. with a half trillion dollar price tag for both aircraft. >> the question is, are you really getting the combat capability that justify that cost? >> we cannot afford aircraft that double and triple the original estimated cost. >> i think we have to watch it very carefully. >> reporter: the f-22 has never been in combat, the f-35 may go the same way. both planes have serious limitations. >> these aircraft are relatively short range, which means they have to be based fairly close to the area of conflict. what we've seen in recent years are countries like china, countries like iran building ballistic missile forces that can easily target the forward air bases. >> reporter: a pentagon spending critics say the planes are too expensive and not stealthy enough. >> against some radars, it's detectable as soon as it comes over the radar horizon and some of the radars that are best at doing that are quite antiquated technology from the soviets. >> so, half a trillion dollars in aircraft that are, to say the least, problematic. this fall, you know, look for all the major defense contractors, the lockheed martins, the northrops to line up in washington and try to preserve their programs. this is just one example of some of the very expensive programs that could be on the chopping block when congress really sits down and tries to address defense spending cuts. >> barbara, what's so frustrating about it, where is the accountability with the defense contractors who have, obviously, made millions and maybe billions of dollars on the programs if you're talking about the numbers that have already been spent, why don't these things work? >> well, you know, these two aircraft in particular, let's take the f-35, the one that isn't even built yet and is running up quite a chunk of change, these are incredibly complex systems that the military has ordered up. think of it as a flying computer, really, a flying super computer, up in the sky in a combat zone dropping weapons, trying to evade other aircraft, evade missiles. there is probably nothing more complex than this. a lot of people say, hey, just go use the standard planes that the military's been using for years. the f-18s, the f-16s, less complex, they work well. but the military will tell you they need the new planes for future threats. it's a huge debate which way to go. you know, i think this fall is really going to be decision time about whether to move ahead. >> all right. barbara starr, thank you so much. there is no [ inaudible ] in sports. in china what started as a goodwill game between that country and georgetown university deteriorated into a wild brawl. this game took place in china, the fight broke out with about nine minutes left in the game. punches were thrown and chairs were tossed. spectators hurled bottles at the hoya players as they left for their locker room. both the state department and the chinese embassy called the fight unfortunate. >> i would call it unfortunate. joe biden is in china talking ability the mutual understanding of the two countries, et cetera. metaphor for something there, i don't know. they're reeling in omaha after back-to-back hail storms shut down the airport and injured a pilot. forget about the golf ball-sized hail, looks like someone took a 9 iron to these windshields. the cars couldn't stand up to the 3 inch hail and winds near 100 miles per hour. hundreds of air travelers were stranded by the storm. can you imagine coming back with your family after being away, getting off your plane, and then voila. >> i'd be so angry. >> rob, that's call the insurance man right away. >> you have to replace the glass. they come out to the parking lot and they'll take care of you. they're the ones happy about it. thunderstorm complex still holding together, passed through kansas city late last night and moving southeast across missouri towards the boot hills south of st. louis and heading towards cape girardeau. this has some gusty winds, hail. it has a history of doing serious damage. we've got several areas of unsettled weather to the northeast being one of them and also yesterday, we had some stormy weather across parts of arizona. video for you, and ali one of his favorite storms, a haboob. a dust storm. phoenix yesterday, after setting a record high of 112 degrees, had a thunderstorm pass through to cool things off rapidly. that record broken back in 2007. wichita falls seeing a record fort polk and laugh fayette and houston seeing a record as well. tropical storm heading off towards the west, skim the honduras coastline and get into belize tomorrow. might become a tropical storm. it will have heavy rains and will stay south of drought stricken texas. next item up for tropical consideration is this thing and this thing has more promise, will likely become a tropical storm in the next two or three days and heading towards the caribbean, potentially towards the u.s. by the end of next week. we'll be watching that one. and that hailstorm hopefully the hail is getting a little smaller this morning, but a potent storm moving across southeast missouri. >> watch out. coming up next on "american morning," hewlett-packard pulling the plug on pcs and its brand new tablet. what's next for the computer maker? we're minding your business. a michigan man doing his best fred anyonestone imitation to stop a pick-up truck with no brakes. are you kidding me? yeah. the dash cam video of that coming up right after this. 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"american morning" will be back after this quick break. [ oswald ] there's a lot of discussion going on about the development of natural gas, whether it can be done safely and responsibly. at exxonmobil we know the answer is yes. when we design any well, the groundwater's protected by multip