and good morning to you. it is tuesday, december 13th. i feel like it's a homecoming. >> a long time since the three of us have been together. >> good to see you. >> as usual a busy, busy news morning. breaking news now. four soldiers are dead after two army choppers went down during a training exercise. it happened a joint base lewis-mcchord in washington state. crash investigators are trying to find out what went wrong right now. pliv on the pholive on the phon crash site. what do we know? >> i'm watching the lights of the recovery teams that have been looking throughout the night to go in the grim task of recovering those bodies of the four aviators that lost their lives. still don't know what went wrong. at about 11:00 p.m. eastern last nim, sometime after 11:00 p.m. two helicopters crashed killing everybody aboard both helicopters. these are small observation helicopters, ali. the eyes and ears of what's on the ground. flying maneuvers over a training area when this crash took place. it will probably be most of the day before they can take advantage of the daylight and recover the bodies and start the, really, arduous task, figure out happened here. this is such a busy base, ali, covering the largest final group of soldiers that is coming back from iraq. at the same time that there's a whole movement at this base to get soldiers to afghanistan on other deployments. this news is going to be affecting this base. >> keep your ears and eyes on what caused this crash. the espionage drone that went down is theirs. a request by president obama to return it. iran's military has been poring over the drone for intelligence data. president ahmadinejad considers it a gift. >> translator: the north americans at best have decided to give us a spy plane. apparently we have control of this plane. those who have been in control of this plane surely will analyze the plane's system. furthermore, the systems of iran are so advanced also, like the systems of this plane, and the unpiloted planes, we have made many advances, much progress, and now we have the spy plane. >> meantime, former vice president dick cheney is weighing in saying the president's response was a mistake. >> the right response to that would have been to go in immediately after it had gone down and destroy it. you could do that from the air, do it with a quick air strike and in effect make it impossible for them to benefit from having captured that drone. >> cheney says if iran sends it back at all it will be in pieces after getting all the intelligence they can out of it. jerry sandusky faces his accusers in court today. they'll describe abuse suffered years ate at the hands of the former penn state coach. the judge will decide whether there's enough evidence to try sandusky on more than 50 charges of molestation of little boys. outside the courthouse in pennsylvania, susan, how many victims do we expect in court today to take the stand? >> reporter: you know, carol, it's impossible to say at this time. we know that there are ten victims referred to in that grand jury report and the prosecutors are aware of at least eight of them. look, counting up the numbers, there could be perhaps three to five victims who are able to take the stand today. alleged victims, to tell their story, and this is going to be fascinating, because for the first time we will hear likely in excruciating detail exactly what they say happened to them, and as you indicated, they'll have to do this facing jerry sandusky for the very first time, but it's not necessary for the prosecutors necessarily to put all of the alleged victims on the stand. instead, they could also introduce their statements to police, for example. it's impossible to say how long this hearing will take. could be just today. could even last until tomorrow. >> so some of these alleged victims will take the stand and testify. will they be cross-examined, so to speak, by znl sandusky's attorneys? >> reporter: oh, absolutely. and also the first time they'll get a preview of what kind of evidence prosecutors say they have against jerry sandusky. so, yes. these alleged victims will face, likely, a tough cross-examination by sandusky's lawyer, but by court rules, they're not -- he is not allowed to try to impeach them at this stage of the proceeding. remember, the prosecutors only have to put on enough evidence to convince a judge that, one, that a crime occurred, and that, two, jerry sandusky may be the person responsible in order for a trial to take place. >> so bellefonte, pennsylvania, it's a tiny town. 6,200 people live in and suddenly it's this huge center of attention. how much reporters are there with you at the courthouse? >> reporter: well, hundreds of them. even at this early hour we're seeing people come in. this has been a huge disruption to this town. you can imagine. they've had to close off streets in order to accommodate all the extra parking that is necessary for all the reporters and journalists that have come to town, but they've done a very good job. everyone has been very welcoming so far, but we are hearing from some residents who are worried about the impression that the world might have about their town, even though it is just the courthouse that is home to this preliminary hearing, and possibly this trial as well. it's a beautiful town. it looks great at this hour, too, with all the twinkling lights out for the holiday. historic courthouse. and it is, as you said, going to be in the spotlight all day today. >> susan candiotti reporting live from pennsylvania this morning. thanks, susan. going to politics, three weeks to go before the iowa caucuses. numbers looking very good for newt gingrich. look at two brand new polls. gingrich opening up a five-point lead over mitt romney and ron paul according to the american research group. you can see ron paul and mitt romney tied there at 17%. gets better for gingrich in the latest university of iowa hawkeye poll. the former house speaker surging to a ten-point lead over romney and a 19-point cushion over ron paul. in this case, bachmann comes in next and the last poll was perry. gingrich is trying to build on his momentum by closing ranks with evangelical christians and has written a letter to a family leader, socially conservative group in iowa promising to defend and strengthen the family and uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity. gingrich has been married three times. gingrich hit the pause button in his rival with with mitt romney and turned on jon hutsman. right from the start, in a debate, things turned downright -- polite. i know. so weird. isn't it? jim acosta, that is kind of strange. they were just two guys chatting? >> reporte >> reporter: that's right. billed as gentleman's conversation. it actually said that on our press passes at the debate yesterday here in manchester, let's not kid ourselves. for newt gingrich these day, the real fight is with mitt romney. >> i agree with newt completely. >> i strongly concur with the governor. >> reporter: billed as a lincoln-douglass-style debate, more a lovefest, gingrich versus huntsman. so mild mannered it got mind numbing for one candidate's own family. >> i can see my daughter nodding off over there. >> she was nodding off. >> reporter: gingrich had time to add to his collection of provocative campaign moments on the subject of iran. >> i believe we cannot allow them to have a nuclear weapon. therefore, i believe we have to be for regime change. we are not going to tolerate an iranian nuclear weapon. >> reporter: huntsman would not go that far. >> i agree all options need to be on the table and they need to know in iran all options are on the table and zero -- >> reporter: gingrich saying the very survival depended on spoping nuclear ambitions. >> am i going to take the risk of presiding over the second se holocaust, which would mean the end of -- >> reporter: and that kind of talk why dick cheney fondly remembered newt gingrich as speaker. >> tenacious, kept it up and kept it up and kept it up. finally by '94, he's the newly elected speaker of the house of representatives with a republican majority. so i wouldn't underestimate him. >> reporter: the one-on-one debate was no match for the fight between gingrich and mitt romney who said the former speaker should give back some of the money he made with housing giant freddie mac. >> do you believe he should give that money back? >> i sure do. >> reporter: gingrich was ready, saying downsize as the head of a private investment firm. >> if governor romney would like to give back all the money he's earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees, then i would be glad to then listen to him. >> reporter: romney says thi battle for the nomination could go on for months and called gingrich the man to beat. >> is newt gingrich the front-runner in this race? >> he is right now. >> reporter: as for huntsman versus gingrich, he repeated this to president obama for their own style of lincoln-douglass debates. a wager that would not happen. >> i'll bet you $10,000 he doesn't show up. >> reporter: now, gingrich and huntsman have a mutual self-interest here in new hampshire. if they could somehow deny romney a victory in this state, they could give a serious blow to his campaign. he may be going negative with advertising against gingrich in the coming days adding, there's no whining in politics. >> will negative ads work in new hampshire? >> reporter: you know, that remains to be seen. i don't know if they will, because you have to go back to 200 and what happened here. you know, everybody talks about how mitt romney is the governor of a neighboring state harks a second home here in new hampshire. keep in mind, john mccain won this race in 2008. mitt romney went heavily negative against john mccain in that election, in that primary, and john mccain came out on top. so there is a risk involved there for mitt romney, negative in a heavy fashion. >> want to place a $10,000 bet with me? >> reporter: i'm not a betting man, carol, but -- how about a cup of coffee? >> you got it. jim acosta, you got. >> reporter: you're just out of touch, carol. >> i know! >> that's what it is. i'll bet him a cup of coffee, too. that's what i can afford. 12 minutes after the hour. also making news this morning, congress is scheduled to wrap up business for the year this morning and still no agreement on extending that pay roll tax cut. house republicans are scheduled to vote on their plan which also includes a provision for the keystone pipeline, something the democrats said it a non-starter. democrats want to pay for it with a millionaire's surtax. and taking the case involving arizona's controversial immigration law. federal court blocked key provisions of this law which allows police officers to check a person's immigration status during traffic stops. the obama administration says it is the federal government's job. the justices will hear on arizona appeal in april way ruling expected next summer. and new jersey governor jon corzine will testify about his bankrupt brokerage firm mf global and more than $1 million in customer money that remains missing. last week corzine denied knowing where the funds were and stopped short of taking responsibility for the firm's failure. >> there are farmers now having to delay their farm decisions because they don't have their money back because of this bankruptcy. >> some kind of big, inside the world of financing, a lot of farmers depend, ranchers, farmers, out real money. small farmers, though. >> and equipment dealers out real money because they're not getting commitments to buy new tractors for the spring. farmers are waiting to see if they'll get their money back. ramifications that go all the way from the top of corporate finance all the way down to the -- >> down the table. >> and are there companies that really do not know where a huge load of money went? >> back in 2001, all the corporate scandals, enron, worldcom and then disclosure a ceo has to sign off. they cannot say they don't know where it went. so we'd like to think that they can't not know. this kind of stuff is -- >> a run on this bank, what it looks like. a run, investors getting concerned how much exposure this company had, but if it was a run, very well could have been -- the investigation is looking into whether someone, someone, inside that company was quickly trying to move money around to stop the bleeding, and that's where it starts from there. >> we'll talk to michigan senator about this later on this morning. they're going to hold this testimony today and we'll see what happens. coming up ahead on "american morning," architects call it the cloud. many 9/11 families say this building design looks too much like the cloud of debris that erupted from the twin towers. we'll tell you the firm's response. iran delivered a defiant response following an appeal by president obama for tehran to return a u.s. spy drone that fell into their hands. >> i want my drone back! he's got billions and avery johnson, and nba owners, plan to take on vladimir putin and his political machine in russia. it's 15 minutes past the hour. 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( announcer ) fly without putting your life on pause. be yourself nonstop. american airlines. welcome back. it was one of the most shocking sights in modern times. 1,300 foot high twin towers coming down in a cloud of smoke and debris, why a group of dutch architects are getting blasted for planning a building that looks like this in south korea. >> whoa. >> the architects visualized puppy clouds in the skies, their words. too many people on the right, left and center in america are saying, this hits too close to home. there they are on the left side of the screen, compared to the scene -- >> why would they put the clouds down? >> i don't inside what that's about. >> the architects insist they didn't see the connection. nobody has ever done this and nobody in the room said, kind of looks like an explosion. the firm is apologizing for hurting anyone's feelings and will not alter the design. >> they're going to build the building or their design proposal? >> i think they're going to go ahead and build it. what a strange architectural building bip put the clouds down in the middle of the building? >> if you hadn't had exposure, a really tall building, up in the clouds. i don't know. >> maybe we're being too sensitive. something you don't hear every day. a story involving russian politics in new jersey. the billionaire owner -- he will run against vladimir putin for president in march. putin is presently the prime minister. tens of thousands protested accusing putin and his party of rigging parliamentary elections. so prokorov is russia's third richest man can afford to run and still have dough left over. >> actually, in his native russian, sounds an awful lot like billionaire, when you say his name. funny, the connection. rob marciano. >> at least he didn't challenge him to a game of basketball. maybe a bit of an advantage height-wise. good morning all three. a triple vision. it's been so long. >> nice to be back. >> good morning, guys. across the southwest, a storm still continues and now some of that moisture is moving to the plains. icy conditions across parts of nebraska and more rain across the midsouth where really they don't need anymore. incredible year for places like lieville, kentucky. spots in arizona seeing a decent amount of snowfall with this system, and it's slowly turning away from the northwest and rain in los angeles system a threat. the east coast, most spots east of the mississippi will be not only dry but more mild. temperatures for the most part will be over 40 degrees in many, many spots. los angeles, san diego, where you're going to see more in the way of showers and low clouds. some delays in. phoenix as well because of that storm and st. louis and miami might see some delays, most of which below an hour. temperatures mild. 4 42 in chicago, and further north, manchester, new hampshire, not weather related, interesting video. a sinkhole developed because of a water main break there, when all of this was breaking out, there was -- there was a woman in that car, and fell into the sinkhole and the sinkhole was filling up with water as this was going on. firefighters had a pretty harrowing time getting her out, but all is well and they even got her bags, she was shopping. >> i think of the road under me. silly to think of that particularly in new york. i think the road under me is solid. they've tarred over what was once a dirt road. nothing but space undernooth new manhattan, but whenever i see pictures like that, sometime'ses you remember, that road is just a little crust of tar. >> but a fair assumption that the road is going to hold. >> that's the assumption i like to make. >> the infrastructure is oh old underneath, and then the pipes go -- >> thank goodness for firefighters. >> good to see you. coming up, the emotional apologies of four cincinnati basketball players involved in this weekend's vicious on-court fight. did you see this? >> oh, yeah. >> weren't of the men breaking down in tears. we'll show it to you when we come back. good morning. welcome back. "minding your business" this morning, u.s. stock futures pointing higher this morning after concerns the euro won't do enough to address europe's financial problems. pushed the dow down yesterday. more than 162 points. the ratings agency moody's announced yesterday it will review ratings of all eu nations. the federal reserve will no doubt weigh the risk when it meets later today. most economists and analysts expect the central bank to hold off when it comes to a strategy to boost the economy. keep interest close to 0% as the fed forecast. and at&t putting its wireless carrier on hold. an antitrust suit it needs to win to keep the merger alive. justice department and zecco pose the deal saying it would leak to higher cell phone bills and less competition for you and me. and restarting production of its chevy cruze plant in ohio. the plant shut down yesterday after because of a supplier issue. the second best selling car in the american market. with unemployment ate 8.6%, american workers will go to great lengths to keep their jobs. according to a new survey by staffing company ranstad u.s. more that a quarter said they would work longer hour, give up their bonus and accept a reduction in benefits just to keep their job, though only 16% would accept a paycut in order to stay employed. speaking of working longer hour, several macy stores pulling all-nighters to finish holiday shopping. the retailer says 14 of its stores will stay open for 83 hours straight leading up to christmas eve. "american morning" will be right back after the break. the accused serial child molester jerry sandusky back in court today. this time sitting across from his accusers and the colleague who told the grand jury he saw what happened in that shower on this "american morning." go