we'll share that with you. in the meantime, good morning, welcome to early start. >> happy friday. we had some crazy weather here in new york overnight. maybe some tornadoes upstate. we'll have the latest in just a few minutes. plus dr. conrad murray is reaching out to the late king of pop's mother now. you'll find out why coming up. but first, we'll talk about politics and mitt romney's rocky start in london. this was a trip intended to charm the brits, to show off romney's statesmanship and raise some cash along the way. plus he's facing some tough headlines across the pond. one in the sun this morning said mitt the twit. romney's been forced to explain a rogue comment by someone claiming to be an adviser, that he questioned security and british enthusiasm for the 2012 summer games which officially begin in a few hours. romney and also first lady michelle obama will both be on hand when the olympic torch is lit tonight. the first lady is leading the presidential delegation to the games. jim acosta is live in london. you got through the traffic. great to see you. >> i did, yes. s traffic is brutal here. london has done something interesting to move the traffic along. traffic is brutal here. london has done something interesting to move the traffic along.traffic is brutal here. london has done something interesting to move the traffic along. the basically shut down the lanes for everybody else. so if you're in a taxi, you're with everybody else so not easy to make the live shot. but, yes, mitt romney is waking up to pretty brew hutal headlin. i know you're a big beatles fan. or at least i think you are. nowhere man romney loses his way with gaffe about the games. that's one of the headlines here in the "times." this other one, i hope we can say this it on american television, who invited party pooper romney. that is the headline in the "daily mail." so it just goes on and on like that. so a tough 24 hours for the gop contender. all of will started when he gave the interview when he said we don't know how the games will it turn out, some of the problems have been disconcerting. david cameron took issue, said some brutal things of his own and then romney came out of his meeting with cameron praising the preparations for the olympic games. so whatever the british word is for wood shed is, that might have been where romney was taken yesterday during his meeting with david cameron. but an interview with pierce who are begapiers morgan, he also td about how he thinks the games will be awho are piers morgan, he also talked about how he thinks the games will be a success. >> you've been criticized on the enthusiasm. are you feeling it? >> i'm delighted to see the kind of support that has been around the torch, for instance. i watched last night on bbc an entire program about the torch being run across great britain and the kind of crowds i guess millions of people that turned out to seat torch. that's what you hope to see. >> and the word on the street here in london was not pretty. boris johnson, who is the mayor of london, was appearing at a rally yesterday of 60,000 londoners here to celebrate the opening of the owe him tick g o. and here's what he had to say about what romney said. >> i here there's a guy called mitt romney who wants to know whether we're ready. he wants to know whether we're ready. are we ready? are we ready? yes, we are. >> oh, no. >> yeah. so needless to say, they're dubbing this romney shambles here in london. he'll have a chance to repair some of the damage tonight. he'll be at the opening share monies and then heads off to israel tomorrow. >> the brits can't vote in our election. so it's not like he's losing votes in london. but i do not think that these were the headlines he was hoping for. this was supposed to be a lay up for mitt romney and when he's waking up to headlines like this, it must not make them too happy. jim, great to see you live in person. we'll talk to you again in a little bit. >> you bet. 5 past the hour. security obviously top priority in london right now with thousands of world class athletes and 100 heads of states on hand for the games. prime minister david cameron saying he is confident that the games will be successful and that they will be safe. there are 18,200 troops participating in the security. that's double the british presence in combat in afghanistan and fighter jets are on standby. the torch is making its final approach toward the olympic stadium right now under heavy guard before the huge opening ceremonies scheduled tonight. amanda davies is live in london. i was listening to an interview where they said there is a no-fly zone over london and if you violate it, they will take you down. >> reporter: yes, welcome to the olympic park. this is what we've been waiting for for seven years and there' been seven years of an awful lot of planning for this. p but it has to be said we are day 70 of 70 of the torch relay, the final countdown. and the mood here really is one of excitement and pride and anticipation. but after the ringing of bells at 8 minutes past 12, big ben was striking and they were encouraging people to ring any bell they could. bicycle bells, door bells. we had a bell here on our balcony. just getting involved. getting excited about what's to come here in london over the next couple of weeks. the torch relay set off from hampton court palace, fantastic setting with the olympic champion, olympic rower carrying the flame. and then went on to the royal barge that was used during the jubilee celebration, 16 rowers rowing the flame on a caldron down the thames for its final journey. it will then disappear into city hall in london the around lunchtime here and then well not see it again untilthe big party scheduled here tonight behind me at the olympic stadium. and as you would imagine, the papers are getting very excited. is this the front page of the guardian. time to find out who we are. this is the front page of the daily mirror, ring iton, for get the 9.2 billion, talking about the negative things, but now the time to enjoy it, and then the sun, bond, beatles, the baked bean, brilliant. the big question everybody is asking is who is going to light t flame here in the stadium. and we know so little about the ceremony despite so many people being involved. >> we were hoping that you could shed some light on that little secret, so we'll continue checking in with you. thank you so much. amanda davies live for us. >> i can't wait to find out. we'll seet here on tape delay hours after it happens. it was a tuf night, people from connecticut to ohio cleaning up after strong storms knocked out power to hundreds of customers. a team will try to determine in f. a tornado struck in elmira. this thing was pretty rough last night. >> reporter: it was. boy, the line of storms, guys, at one point around 6:00, 7:00 eastern time stretched all the way from hartford, connecticut back through dallas. so 1700, 1800 miles of almost destructive weather. elmira got hit the hardest. that's the only report of a tornado that we had. most were of damaging winds. but certainly a fair amount of lightning. across new york city, gotham got ugly clouds roll in just around sunset and all broke loose right over central park and the hudson. so everybody getting a piece of it in the tri-state area. thousands of lightning strikes to put a scare into you, as well. here's a look at the storm reports across the country yesterday. over 300 wind reports anywhere from 50 to over 70-mile-an-hour wind reports yesterday. let's look at what we can expect as far as current radar. we will see storms refire today. here's where we expect to see the strongest storms. actually new york and boston, you may see some storms today, but the bulk of the heaviest action will likely be across the carolinas and the mid-atlantic, including the del mar have a. d.c. also will be in the line of fire.have a. d.c. also will be in the line of fire. this pretty strong storm system, guys, for late july comes through and at least breaks some of the heat that the eastern third of the country has been enduring. p so i suppose that's some of the good news, but some fireworks in the making, as well. we'll talk more about olympic park. olympics were here in atlanta back in 1996, so why not broadcast live outside the cnn studios today. >> it is fitting. thank you very much, rob. the tough storms last night, you slept right through them. >> i didn't hear a they think and i only knew they were coming because you warned me. thank you very much, rob. it's ten past the hour. attorneys for one of jerry sandusky's victims have released two voice mail recordings they say the convicted predator left on their client's answering machine. cnn cannot endly verify the authenticity of the recordings. however, the attorneys for victim number two claim the calls were made less than two months before the former penn state assistant coach was arrested in 2011 on child sex abuse charges. listen. >> just calling to see, i don't know whether you had any interest in going to the penn state game this saturday. uh, if you could get back to me and let me know, i would appreciate it and when you get this message, uh, give me a call and i hope to talk to you later. thanks. i love you. >> attorneys for victim number two say they intend to file a civil suit against penn state. a spokesman for the university wouldn't comment on those voice mails, but did say the school is taking the case very seriously. the federal government is cracking down on the synthetic drug industry. 90 suspects in 30 states arrested yesterday as part of an effort dubbed operation logjam. almost 5 million pacts of fake pot and nearly 167,000 packages of bath salts were seized along with $36 million in cash. dea, fbi, i.c.e., and irs agents all took part in the raids. ford is recalling 421,000 escape crossover suvs in the united states. this is part of a worldwide recall totaling 485,000 vehicles. that recall affects 2001 through 2004 model escapes with a v 6 begin and cruise control. ford says it needs to fix a problem with the cruise control cable. the cable can get stuck when the gas pedal is pressed almost all the way down causing unintended acceleration. and it could even happen when the vehicle's cruise control feature is not engaged. the dr. convicted in michael jackson's death has offered an invitation to the singer's mother, katherine jackson. through his lawyers, murray has invited mrs. jackson to visit him in jail to answer any questions she might have. in a statement he said he would be happy to meet with the mother of a man he calls a very dear departed friend. a representative for katherine jackson says he doubts she will take murray up on his offer. she's got a lot going on right now. >> yes, she does. a driver with a hair trigger. police in ft. lauderdale releasing will video that shows a driver, gets out of his bmw and starts shooting at the man who was driving the ford truck behind him. >> yeah, he got out and starts shooting at a guy tailgating. >> this was in broad daylight in a residential neighborhood. he gets back in his car, takes off. one bullet did pierce the truck. luckily no one was shot. police are now looking for that shooter. >> scary. you always worry about when you upset someone on the road what could happen. they said she would never walk again, but they were wrong. check this out. coming up, a real life bionic woman who is giving hope to those with paralyzing injuries. ♪ why not try someplace different every morning? get two times the points on dining in restaurants with chase sapphire preferred. the wife. hey, babe. got the jetta. i wiped the floor with the guy! not really. i would've been fine with 0% for 36 months, but i demanded 60. no...i didn't do that. it was like taking candy from a baby. you're a grown man. alright, see you at home. 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(push button tone) this is stacy from springfield. oh woah. hello? yes. i didn't realize i'd be talking to an actual person. you don't need to press "0," i'm here. reach a person, not a prompt whenever you call chase sapphire. welcome back to early start. 17 past the hour. >> we're taking a look at what's going on in the papers around the country this morning. an early read on your local new as. we'll start in new jersey where one of two new jersey state troopers facing disciplinary action for escorting exotic cars on a high speed caravan has resigned. what happened here is the cops were escorting these classic cars almost speed racers, classic ferraris and other nice car, they were going 100 miles an hour down the garden state parkway, and it was filmed by a couple guys on youtube. probably not a good idea to lead these joy riders down the highway at 100 miles an hour. one of the people was brandon jacobs. football player for the giants. one of the cops resigned. it is a big scandal in jersey. let's move on. another chick-fil-a story. the mayor of san francisco has a message for chick-fil-a, he says keep out. he's joining boston and chicago. this comes to us via the "los angeles times." chick-fil-a's president started all this by saying his atlanta-based chicken chain operates on biblical values and opposes same-sex marriage. he's taking a lot of heat and he's having a lot of problems. san francisco's mayor tweeting very disappointed which i can pi lay doesn't share san francisco's lues and strong commitment to equality for everyone. so the closest chick-fil-a for san francisco is 40 miles away and i strongly recommend they not try to come any closer. >> i have a really nice story to tell you about from oklahoma city. you have to check out this woman in a bionic suit. this is 31-year-old sarah anderson, she was paralyzed from the waist down when she was in an accident with a drunk driver. but this bionic suit is helping her walk. one of 14 facilities in the country there where this this works and you can see her walking with the help of this suit. >> can you you imagine that? that is incredible. for somebody who thinks they'll never walk again to be able to do that, that's just amazing. >> really terrific and we're very happy for her. 20 past the hour. for an expanded look at our top stories, head to cnn.com/early start. >> we want to get you up-to-date on the news all around the country and the world this morning. the opening ceremonies just hours away from london. 100 heads of state and 18,000 troops on hand for the start of the summer olympics. the queen is expected to kick things off and sir paul mccartney lined up to perform tonight. >> and rebel forces in syria's largest city taking heavy fire from government helicopter, gun ships overnight. fighting reportedly intense in damascus, as well. opposition observers say more than 200 people were killed yesterday. more than 40,000 syrians have fled to turkey where they're living living in refugee camps. and nfl is launching a health program called nfl total wellness. it includes confidential mental health telephone hotline and a website will be available to players 24 hours a day. they're retired 300 plus pound, they need to stay healthy. facebook did better than expected in its first earnings report. doesn't necessarily mean good news about if you own some of it stock. we'll explain coming up. the capital one cash rewards card gives you a 50% annual bonus. and everyone likes 50% more cash. 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