good morning everyone. welcome to early start. nice to have you with us. i'm ashleigh banfield. i'm zoraida sambolin. we're bringing you the news from a to z. it is 5:00 a.m. in the east. let's get started. >> this is cnn breaking news. >> we begin with breaking news this morning. two american tourists kidnapped by gunmen in egypt. it happened in the town of dahab in the region of egypt. the report says that two americans were forced out of a car and taken away. the alleged kidnappers demanding the release of a man who was arrested a day before for drug possession. cnn's ben wedeman is live in cairo. i know these are late-breaking details. what can you tell us? >> reporter: the embassy is in close contact with the egyptian authorities. they say to resolve this situation. now, it's not unusual, the not the first time that tourists, including americans, have been kidnapped here. since the revolution at the beginning of last year, state authority in that part of egypt has really sort of crumbled and there are parts of the sinai that simply are out of government control. that particular area going up the eastern coast of the peninsula in the direction of israel and the direction of jordan has actually been relatively quiet compared to other parts of the sinai. this is another indication that the egyptian state doesn't have a lot of control in this area that was until quite recently quite popular with tourists. >> ben, do we know the condition that they're? >> reporter: the u.s. embassy is not releasing any personal details about these people. we understand there are two americans in their early 30s. interestingly enough, on the website of he will ha ram, the biggest newspaper in egypt, they did publish the passport numbers of these two individuals, which is something that the u.s. embassy is not really happy with. according to the accounts that have been made public here in egypt, they were not harmed. their car was stopped by armed men and they were taken away. now, in november, i believe, or early december, two other american tourists were kidnapped in this area. they were not harmed. they were treated very well. after intervention by the local authorities, they were released unharmed after just a few hours. now, we don't know anything about the particulars of the kidnappers, but this may simply be another case of local grievances being played out through foreign tourists. >> ben, wedeman, live in cairo for us. thank you. it is three minutes now past 5:00. the dragon is coming home to earth. the spacex dragon capsule release from the international space station about 5:35 eastern time this morning. about half an hour from now. from there, it's going to reorbit, deorbit and at 10:15 this morning, expect it to splash down in the pacific ocean sometime before noon. a relative schedule but you know what, this is space. nasa will hold a briefing on the mission and get us up to date on it. so far it's been a success. making history as the first commercial rocket to dock with the international space station. space analyst, miles o'brien joins us live to talk about this. where to begin, miles. you're like a kid in a candy store when it comes to stories like this. very exciting stuff as they decide to come back to earth, they're bringing things back. take me through what's going to happen today. >> that's a key point. that little point that you just mentioned, that they're bringing things back, they're currently without the shuttle flying anymore. there's currently no vehicle in anyone's fleet bringing any appreciable amount of cargo back to earth. they have about a pickup truck's worth of stuff on the dragon that will come back down, some experiments around equipment. they swab the international space station and put the samples inside the capsule to analyze it on the ground to make sure that some bacteria or things aren't growing there. dragon is at the end of the robot armor the international space station as you say. about 35 minutes past the hour, they will release dragon and begin a series of burns, as they call it, rocket firings, which will slow it down, move it away from the space station and a long nine-minute burn before it starts to drop into the atmosphere and becomes sort of a fire breathing dragon as it makes its way to the pacific, 500 miles off the coast of los angeles. this streaking meteor will come down, be recovered by a private ship operated by the space x corporation and the capsule will be brought back to los angeles. it should be interesting to watch. >> i'm fascinated about this. not only by the things that they're bringing back. i did read somewhere that what they're bringing back this time isn't critical. if anything goes wrong, they're not going to lose any critical science experiment. but there is a timeline. when this thing hits the ocean, they got to get moving. they got to get it. they're timing this thing out. eventually, they want people in there and science experiments that are viable, right? >> absolutely. this is a demonstration flight. none of the cargo that went up or is coming down is considered critical or mission critical as it were. they sent up things like underwear. i guess they figured -- to me, that's pretty critical. leave that aside for a moment. the fact is, this has gone well and if none of this cargo had gone up or down, the show would have gone on. the next mission which comes up the latter part of this year, assuming everything goes well today and nasa gets a green light for it, as we expect it will, the next mission will be a for real cargo with mission critical items. as time goes on, there will be more important stuff that will go up and down on dragon. that's the canada arm. i love saying that. the contribution to space. miles, good to see you. stick with us. we want you to do play-by-play for us as this plays out this morning. thanks. >> i'll be here. okay o. >> it is seven minutes past the hour. new this morning, the death toll in a seattle shooting rampage is now at five and police say the suspected gunman took his own life. four people were gunned down at a coffeehouse in the city's university district. another was killed in an alleged carjacking in downtown seattle. after a fire-hour manhunt, police say the suspect shot himself. they still have no motive in this case. this is the latest in a wave of gun violence in the city. seattle's mayor admits people are on edge. >> we've had two tragic shootings thod that have shaken this city and it follows on the heels of multiple tragic episodes of gun violence that have occurred throughout the city. it's their highest priority to identify the strategies that we need to employ to try to bring an end to this wave of gun violence that the city is seeing. >> seattle had 20 homicides all of last year. they've had 19 already this year so far. the former rutgers university student convicted of spying on his gay roommate with a webcam begins serving his 30-day jail sentence this morning. the judge said he didn't see any reason to put 20-year-old dharun raf i in prison with hardened criminals longer than that. tyler clement committed suicide after that spying incident. troops, shelling syrian town of houla this morning. the scene of that massacre that killed more than 100 people, most of them children, and the scene that sparked international outrage as well. now, the free syrian army is setting a friday deadline for the government, for the syrian government and its troops to get those troops out of residential areas and allow humanitarian aid to come in. the rebels are not saying what's going to happen if, as expected, the assad regime does not comply. >> not exactly happy hour at gordy's bar. check out this incredible surveillance video. a few of the regulars were having drinks at the local watering hole in little canada in minnesota yesterday when a 51-year-old woman lost control of her vehicle, took out a utility pole, then crashed -- look at that. right through the wall on to those people, pinning five customers against the bar. the manager got out of the way just in time. >> it happened like that. you didn't have time to react. >> i seen a pole flying through. i thought that's kind of strange. then all of a sudden i heard a boom and a truck came right through the wall. >> six people, including the driver, were hurt and police say the driver may have had a medical condition that caused her to lose control. >> unbelievable. >> unreal. it looked like those folks would have been dead. >> it's lucky that they did survive. everybody did survive that. >> anyway, when we come back, we'll have a lot more on our breaking news story. two american tourists kidnapped in egypt by gunmen. much more on that developing story when we return. good morning! wow. want to start the day with something heart healthy and delicious? 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because for 200 years, we've been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement. and the next great idea could be yours. ♪ this is cnn, breaking news. we have breaking news about two americans who have been kid mapped in the sinai desert, that portion of egypt to the north of the country that's right in between israel and egypt. you can see to the right of egypt, up into the red sea. that spot that's call dahab. that's where these two tourists have been apparently abducted at gunpoint as they were leaving the area of dahab and on their way to a hotel. that's actually not a bad little tourist area. it's somewhat underdeveloped but it's apparently an area where a lot of the bedouins have complained that there aren't a lot of services for them from the egyptian government. back in february, we had a similar breaking news where two americans were abducted and actually were released shortly afterwards. we're not sure who is behind the abduction, but we are being told that the people who did this abduction are demanding the release of a suspect who was arrested in a drug possession case. we'll keep you posted on this one. again, at this point, two americans, both 31 years old, abducted at gunpoint in the sinai desert in the dahab area of egypt. we'll keep you posted. it is 14 minutes past the hour. let get you up to date with christine romans. >> thank you, zoraida sambolin. >> the space capsule will separate from the international space station and begin its journey back to earth. it's been in orbit more than a week now. expected to complete this mission with a splashdown in the pacific just before noon eastern. police have a suspect in the discovery of a man's dismibd torso in montreal, canada. they're looking for luke rocco -- also known as eric clinton newman. he's a 29-year-old montreal resident who appeared in gay porn. they're asking for the public's help in tracking him down. investigators believe the torso may be linked to a human hand and foot that were mailed from montreal to ottawa. still not clear what caused the death of arena football league player johnny curtain. a teammate found the 26-year-old san jose saber cats dead in his hotel room monday night. police don't suspect foul play. the faa investigating a collision on the ground at chicago's o'hare. the rutter of an american eagle commuter plane that had just landed in wednesday got clipped by the right wing of a cargo jet. a boeing 747 that was taxiing for departure. thankfully, no one was hurt. but that must have been quite a bump. >> the people on the big one, do you think they felt it? >> i doubt it actually. >> when you see them next to each other, hmm, i think i spilled my soda. >> thank you, christine. let's get a check now with reynolds wolf in the weather center. i think tomorrow is the start of hurricane season but we have stories of tornado before we get to that tomorrow. >> we do. we've got a little bit of everything. a heat wave developing in parts of the southwest. of course, we've got a chance of severe weather again today. but yesterday, let's go back in time and so you the rough stuff that happened in holly hill, south carolina just yesterday. you see the video there. so typical of what happens when we see the tornadoes pop up. a lot of tree draj and structural damage to a lot of homes. a tremendous mess. we might see that play out again today. as we go back to the weather computer, time is of the essence. we see scattered showers and thunderstorms along parts of 44 on the show me state of missouri. in texas, they're having a rude awakening in dallas. the chance of severe weather today is going to pop up from the ohio valley southward to part of the gulf coast, including houston into waco. even memphis and nashville before all is said and done. perhaps even flash flooding, may be isolated tornadoes mixed in too. rain for parts of the upper midwest. we'll be seeing the hot conditions still persisting for you in the desert southwest. phoenix expected well over 100 degrees. 87 degre the high, 95 in el paso. out west we go. san francisco, 73 the high by pier 39. 67 in seattle, 69 in minneapolis. 79 in new york and 85 in washington, d.c. delays, delays, delays. we've got them. unfortunately in chicago, new york and miami. we expect major delays and st. louis, houston and san francisco, san francisco due to that fog which could be heavy. but the ind too, might cause problems. keep you on the tarmac longer than you want. there you go. >> thank you very much. >> see you guys soon. >> thanks, reynolds. 17 minutes past the hour. time for early reads. we have shocking statistics here. the u.s. now has the second highest rate of child poverty in the entire developed world. a new report from unicef, this is in the international business times, showing 23% of children in the united states are living in poverty. that is second only to romania with a 25.5% rate. iceland has the lowest child rate of poverty at 4.7%. >> second to romania. not a stat you want. science has a confirmation this morning. this is a bit odd. elderly people actually do have a different scent and apparently they smell better than everybody else. so there. philadelphia enquirer has this for you. the researchers apparently sampling body odor from three different age groups. young, middle aged and old. i'm not a describing ages to those classifications. 75 to 95 had apparently the mild he's and most pleasant smell. middle aged men, aged 45 to 55 apparently smelled the worst. so there's that. that's a look at our top stories, go to our blog. cnn.com/early start. >> i'm still pondering that one. as facebook stock plunges, so does mark zuckerberg's status among the wall street elite. we'll explain that coming up. 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[ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ helping you do what you do... even better. homicide of young people in america has an impact on all of us. how can we save these young people's lives? as a police chief, i have an opportunity to affect what happens in a major city. if you want to make a difference, you have to have the right education. university of phoenix opened the door. my name is james craig, i am committed to making a difference, and i am a phoenix. visit phoenix.edu to find the program that's right for you. enroll now. we're minding your business this morning at 5:22 on the east coast. welcome back. another rough day for u.s. stocks. the dow, nasdaq, s&p 500 losing more than 1% again yesterday. >> with so much uncertainty in the markets because of europe's debt crisis, where are people investing their money in christine is here to tell us. >> in treasuries. they're worried about everything happening in the world and it now has never been cheaper for the u.s. government to borrow money. the yield on the benchmark ten-year treasury note is a record low. the ten-year over the last year, borrowing costs are rising around the rest of the world, but not here in the u.s. the concerns about europe's debt crisis are causing it, making more difficult for european governments to borrow money. that means the u.s. can borrow money more cheaply. that's almost free money when you look -- people who cover markets can't believe what they've been seeing in treasuries. at the same time, stocks, commodities, like oil and gold are all down. what do the low interests rates in the u.s. mean. they mean mortgage rates will keep falling. when you borrow money, these rates are very low. it means you're going to borrow money cheapliment but for those who depend on interest on your savings, you're getting virtually nothing there. the good news, if you're borrowing money, it's cheap if you can qualify for it. borrowing money is cheap. if you're depending on holding on to your money in a bank account, you're getting nothing too. that's what the low interest rates mean. >> have we ever relied on interest from our savings accounts? >> a lot of seniors do and a lot of people, pension funds like to put their monday sboi safe parts of their money into higher yielding assets. cd's, there are some seniors whose retirement was built on that. 20, 30 years ago, seniors were retiring with 12% on certificates of deposit. that doesn't happen anymore. people who depend on their savings are getting hurt here. also getting hurt, facebook ceo here. hurt is a relative word. he's no longer the richest man in the world. his stock has been dropping and he's fallen off of bloomberg's top 40 billionaires index. not one of the top in the world. he's still worth $14.7 billion, though. which is still a lot of billions. stock closed at $28.19 yesterday. we've been watching -- i've been watching the options trading. options for on this stock have started. you've got bearish bets on the stock continue to come out there. >> not to exercise that option if you don't want. >> we'll continue to watch that one too. >> christine, thank you very much. i can't believe $14.7 billion do