worshippers clinging to their faith as we learn more about a gunman and what may have motivated him. i'm brianna keilar in for zoraida sambolin. >> i'm john berman. new details about the deadly shooting spree. seven people dead including the gunman. this morning we may have a motive for this massacre. the temple leader who was shot when he tried to tackle the gunman and save others. law enforcement officials spent the night examining the suspected gunman's home. we don't have his identity yet. a source tells cnn the suspect was an army veteran who may have been a white supremacist. police say the shooter walked into the temple parking lot yesterday morning and began firing. the first officer responded to the scene was ambushed. here is what it sounded like on the police dispatch. >> subject down! >> we have one officer shot. >> david mattingly with live in oak creek. we've heard the gunman described as a 40ish old white male and we keep hearing about this tattoo commemorating september 11th. >> reporter: that's right, but nothing specific regarding a possible motive. we had a law enforcement source telling cnn early this morning that the suspect was indeed an army veteran and may have been a white supremacist. we have people from the temple who were yesterday telling us that this man wearing a t-shirt and dark pants just showed up in the parking lot shooting, killing someone outside before going inside the temple and killing others in there. but at this point and including what we're hearing yesterday from investigators here at the scene, that there was no actual motivation that they've been able to determine specifically in this case so far. witnesses at the scene through an interpreter who talked to cnn were saying that the gunman did not appear to say anything as he was in there, and police arriving at the scene exchanging fire with him, killing him. also one officer at the time being wounded as well. at this point the answers about why this kind of violence, why here and why now have yet to be answered. >> david, there was a huge amount of police activity overnight that a residence that was allegedly this suspect's home. any sense that they've uncovered anything there? >> reporter: not at this point. i was out at that neighborhood yesterday. they were very careful as they approached one particular house in the neighborhood about five miles away from the temple itself. what we were seeing was neighbors were evacuated from their homes that were nearby that particular house. residents in streets adjoining that area were told to stay in their homes. we saw a tremendous law enforcement presence there, federal, state and local authorities there. they were approaching that house very cautiously, some with weapons drawn pointed at that house, suggesting that at the time they didn't know if there might be other people in that residence as well. we're hoping to find out more later this morning about what they may have found adds they got closer to that house, john. >> david mattingly in oak creek, thanks very much. john, for how horrific this was, witnesses say the tragedy could have been a lot worse if the shooter had shown up 30 minutes later. gunshots rang out 10:30 a.m. yesterday morning. temple members say half an hour later very large crowds would have started showing up for services and meals. still lives have been shattered and for some innocence has forever been lost. >> at a place that you go to find peace and to find god, of all places. >> i just thought it was the safest place maybe on earth or in oak creek. apparently not. i just want people to know that they shouldn't be mistaken by us because we have turbines and long beards too. in the next hour of "early start," we'll be join by the niece and nephew of the temple president. at pocono raceway, the 160-lap event had to be called on lap 98 when a storm moved in. a race track spokesperson says 12 minutes after jeff gordon was declared the winning, a lightning bolt struck and killed a 41-year-old man and injuring nine others. public address announcements were made at the race for fans to take shelter and evacuate the grandstands. >> we're tracking those storms that cause sod much heart aek. plus ernesto. karen maginnis, you have a busy day here. >> certainly is. yesterday 85,000 people packing the raceway. they were alerted that there were storms in the area. lightning was the thing that this particular cell points out. lots of lightning associated with this. as we heard, about ten people were struck by lightning, one fatality. so far this year this is the 19th death reported from lightning so far this year. now, that frontal system tracking off towards the eastern seaboard. employeer, drier, calmer weather conditions. however, we looked down towards the caribbean. our tropical storm, ernesto not looking all that impressive on the satellite imagery. as it treks its way towards the west, it will pick up strength. right now 50-mile-per-hour winds associated with it. the national hurricane center says we could see it approach hurricane intensity right before making landfall perhaps in the next couple of days. it is expected to move across the yucatan peninsula and lie low across the gulf of mexico and perhaps weaken once again to tropical storm intensity. we'll continue to monitor that. we'll monitor florence as well as the heat expected to engulf a good portion of the central u.s. i've been a nascar fan for a long time, karen -- races are called all the time for weather, but i don't remember there ever being a tragedy like we saw at pocono. >> these were very fierce storms as this system roared through. we watched these storms make their way across the northeast and new england. we had reports of people saying it seemed as if the lightning was right where they were standing. with 85,000 people there, it could have been much, much worse. >> karen, thank you so much. and this just in. gas prices are now up a little bit, up to $3.62 for unloaded. prices have increased eight days in a row. >> that is a bummer. aiming for gold this morning, jamaica's usain bolt is back. the fastest group of the 100 meter sprinters ever hitting the olympic blocks. bolt held off the field with a new lick pick record, 9.63 seconds. three others finished under 9.8 seconds. hometown tennis star andy murray does good. this sort of warmed my heart. he won the gold at wimbledon and did it very convince inningly, a drubbing of roger federer in straight sets. he avenged his loss last month. >> i don't think anybody has treated roger federer like that, especially on grass. it wasn't even close. >> he made him look like a beginner. >> good for andy murray, good for great britain. the medal count has become a dogfight, china back on top with 60 medals overall. the u.s. right behind with 60 medals, 28 golds. great britain third overall with 37 medals. women's gymnastics, the uneven bars final. you have all-around champ gabby douglas going for more gold that earned her that flying squirrel nickname. in men's basketball, team usa verses argentina. like an olympic gymnast, they stuck the landing, galactic style. we're talking about nasa and the touchdown of its mars rover overnight. we have more on this dramatic mission coming up. in here, every powerful collaboration is backed by an equally powerful and secure cloud. that cloud is in the network, so it can deliver all the power of the network itself. bringing people together to develop the best ideas -- and providing the apps and computing power to make new ideas real. it's the cloud from at&t. with new ways to work together, business works better. ♪ is this a bad time? no, i can talk. great -- it's the 9th inning and your hair still looks amazing. well, it starts with a healthy scalp. that's why i use head and shoulders for men. they're four shampoos for game-winning scalp protection and great looking hair... go on, please. with seven benefits in every bottle, head and 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[ male announcer ] fiber one. i'm in deep, babe. you certainly are. you see us, at the start of the day. on the company phone list that's a few names longer. you see us bank on busier highways. on once empty fields. everyday you see all the ways all of us at us bank are helping grow our economy. lending more so companies and communities can expand, grow stronger and get back to work. everyday you see all of us serving you, around the country, around the corner. us bank. 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. >> this the most important space mission is over a decade. man, did they stick the landing, as we say. >> i love watching them totally geek out over this. >> we can all geek out. welcome back to "early start." it's 13 minutes after the hour. i'm john berman. i'm brianna keilar in for zoraida sambolin. you're looking here at the very first images from curiosity of the red planet. the mission here to hopefully find out once and for all if life was possible on mars. we've got cnn's john zarrella in pasadena at the jet propulsion lab. to land curiosity, nasa used a parachute method that they weren't even able to test. i find this funny because they call this the seven minutes of terror, quote. is this the hardest part of the mission or are we expecting other potential pitfalls here? >> reporter: always potential pitfalls, brianna. the bottom line is, without question, that seven minutes of terror. they never attempted this kind of landing before. the vehicle, you can see a model behind me here is so big at 2,000 pounds, the size of a small car, they couldn't use the other methods they had done in the past, the tried and true methods, air bags opening, bouncing on the planet and deflating and these rovers coming out. this was just too big to do that. they had to go to this method where they would fly through the atmosphere, a parachute would deploy. en they would fire rockets, stabilize the vehicle, then a sky crane literally with tethers lowering the vehicle to the ground, everything had to work perfectly if any one thing went wrong, the mission would be lost. you heard that sound. they were all cheering and celebrating. it went just fabulously. shortly after the entire edl team, entry, descent and landing team, they left mission control, they marched across this campus here and from here they made their way over to where nasa was holding the news briefing, and at that point they kind of interrupted it all. john hole dren who is president obama's science adviser said that this was a great day for america. >> and now they're breathing this sigh of relief -- >> if anybody has been harboring doubts about the status of u.s. leadership in space, well, there's a one-ton automobile-sized piece of american ingenuity that is -- [ applause ] and it's sitting on the surface of mars right now and should certainly put any such doubts to rest. >> reporter: i was talking with rob manning, a chief engineer here a little while ago. rob said finally, we do not have to worry about whether it's going to work anymore because it did, brianna. >> breathing a sigh of relief. now there's a lot of work to be done. john zarrella, we'll be looking for the awesome photos as they come back. thank you so much. >> so nice to see john smiling. all the reporters at that time news conference had big smiles. something we can all rejoice in. it's 17 minutes after the hour. we have new developments in the sikh temple massacre. right now investigators are searching the milwaukee home of the man who opened fire on members of the temple yesterday. seven people are now dead including the gunman. a law enforcement tells cnn the shooter may have been an army veteran and white supremacist. witnesses describe him as a white male in his 40s. he may have had a 9/11 tattoo. heavy shelling reported in a fierce battle for syria's largest city this morning. syrian rebels claim 124 people were killed just yesterday as government forces launched heavy shelling attacks in aleppo. state tv also reported an explosion at a tv building in damascus. no word word on the cause of death for the son of philadelphia eagles coach andy reid. police say 29-year-old garrett reid was found dead in his room yesterday morning at lehigh university. they don't suspect foul play. this young man battled drug abuse for many years. he went to prison in 2007 after a high-speed crash when cops found heroin and more than 200 pills in his car. less than four hours to the kickoff of the bullying prevention summit in washington, d.c. this is a big priority for the department of education. they're hosting this. corporations, researchers, parents, students are focusing on coordinating anti-bullying efforts with school set to resume in just a few weeks. keynote speakers will include lady gaga's mother. it is just about 19 minutes after the hour. we're getting an early read on local news making national headlines. our first headline from the "atlanta journal constitution" about chicken. why should you care about this? because americans eat about 80 pounds of chicken each a year, that's each of us. in a new government proposal, it's going to change the way inspections are done at these plants. among other things, they are proposing reducing the number of federal inspectors, replacing them with people who actually work at the chicken factories. in some cases it can reduce the number of inspectors from four to one. the federal inspectors. this could save about $90 million over three years for the federal government. it could save over $276 million for the chicken producers. these proposals are floated to see how the public will react. i'm not sure the public will react all that way to this. the early read we have of "the new york times" has to do with schools across the u.s. they're cutting summer vacation short, some of them, because as you know a lot of schools have taken away days during budget cuts. this is focusing on schools adding days. normally what you have is a 180-day school year. i know your kids are getting ready to go to school. >> they sure are. >> kids already heading back to school, some with 200-day school years. this is really important experts say for low income kids. they need to catch up. so much emphasis on standardized testing. i've done stories on reading, low income kids go in with 25 hours of book reading and middle income kids have like a thousand. >> may be good for kids. but i'm sure it's not the kids making this decision. >> they don't mind. head to our blog cnn.com/earlystart. you noticed the trend at the gas pumps. gas prices keep creeping up. coming up, we'll look at why and how it could have a factor in the race for the white house. do i look like i'm stalking plants? 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[ charlie ] try zinc free super poligrip. is my dentures. fore! no matter what small business you are in, managing expenses seems to... get in the way. not anymore. ink, the small business card from chase introduces jot an on-the-go expense app made exclusively for ink customers. custom categorize your expenses anywhere. save time and get back to what you love. the latest innovation. only for ink customers. learn more at chase.com/ink it's something you're born with. and inspires the things you choose to do. you do what you do... because it matters. at hp we don't just believe in the power of technology. we believe in the power of people when technology works for you. to dream. to create. to work. if you're going to do something. make it matter. we're "minding your business" this morning. let's check in on the markets. u.s. stock futures for the dow, nasdaq and s&p 500 are trading higher ahead of the opening bell. alison kosik is in for christine romans. what i've been hearing this week, choppy. >> choppy meaning you'll see markets bouncing around. there aren't a lot of traders out there. it's summertime. people actually take vacation. the wildcard is going to be europe. any headline coming out of europe, that can be a market mover. the s&p 500 is up 9% this year. that's things to track because that's what your 401(k)s tip quli track. the dow sit sitting over the 13,000 mark. you have to ask what is moving these markets higher it's speculation the fed will take some sort of action to stimulate the economy, to give the economy a boost. that would help give markets a boost as well. it's not fundamentals even though we got a good jobs report on friday. it shod 160,000 jobs were added to the economy in july. that's a good start. the reality is we need to see 300,000 to 400,000 jobs added month after month after month. the momentum dropped off during the months of april through june. you have to see the job additions gain momentum to make an impact on the unemployment rate. >> if you go to the gas station, you're seeing gas prices tick up. that's tough on a ton of americans. >> it's bad timing. this is kind of a punch to the gut, especially after three months of seeing these gas prices fall. july had seen some of the highest average pricesver recorded. the latest reading for the national average is at $3.62 for unlead unleaded. prices have increased eight days in a row. that's because oil prices are higher. also there's a fear premium on oil, tensions with iran that are on going, new sanctions on iran. we're seeing this impact the price of oil. oil on friday jumped 4% to over $91 a barrel. what's the track that oil is going to take? this month it's expected you'll see gas prices stay mainly flat to slightly higher. in september you should see prices fall off after labor day because the summer driving season winds down, demand drops and refineries switch to cheaper blends. thi