we begin this hour with tensions ratcheting up between israel and iran. a bomb went off just as israeli tourists boarded a bus in the bulgarian resort city. six people are confirmed dead. some 30 others are wounded. president obama's strongly condemning the attack calling it in his word barbaric. cnn's elise labott is joining us live with the very latest. bulgarians are of course investigating. i'm sure the israelis are as well. first of all, what are the bulgarians saying? >> reporter: well, wolf, forensic investigators on the scene. it's all very preliminary at this point, but they're saying that this was caused by a bus bomb already placed inside the bus. that's really all they know, but they're not ruling anything out. they say it's possibly a terrorist attack. obviously the israelis saying they're sure of it. but bulgarians not ruling anything in, not ruling anything out at this point, wolf. >> didn't take very long for the prime minister of israel, benjamin netanyahu to directly blame iran for this attack. >> reporter: that's right. a short time ago prime minister netanyahu, wolf, put out a statement saying all signs are leading to iran, his defense minister just spoke to reporters a short time ago. let's take a listen to what he said. >> this is clearly a terrorist attack initiated by hezbollah, hamas, jihad or any other group under the terror of iran or other radical muslim groups. we're in a continued fight against them. we're determined to identify who sent them, who executed it and to settle the account. >> reporter: now, wolf, this is part of a pattern that israeli officials say of iran targeting israeli targets. this year they've twharted attempts on israeli targets in georgia, cypress, kenya. and if you remember in february three iranians were arrested in bangkok for setting off explosives. and the bangkok and thai authorities said they were trying to target israeli diplomats. you have this asymmetric war going on between israel and iran, israel saying iran is buildsing a nuclear weapon. and iran saying israel is going after their nuclear scientists. it's really ratcheting up a lot of concern obviously here in israel that there could be future attacks. israeli officials telling me we have been able to twhard a lot but this one unfortunately weren't able to. >> tensions are at a fever pitch. we heard the defense minister saying israel will "settle the account" and the prime minister netanyahu saying israel would respond with force to what he called iranian terror. we'll get details on what the israelis might be up to. elise, thanks very much. in about an hour my live interview with michael orrin. he's here in "the situation room." i' ask him what proof israel has iran may have been involved in this attack in bulgaria. that interview with the ambassador later this hour. now to the mayor repercussions killing the country's defense minister and a deputy who was brother-in-law of the syrian president bashar al assad. after the bombing i had a long exclusive interview with jordan's king abdullah ii. syria is at the point of no return. and a full-scale civil war may be inevitable. >> i'm seeing for the first time and have been watching this for the past two, three weeks where the sectarian violence has begin to appear to a point where different groups of syrian society is having goad each other to a point where we are getting to the level of the potential of full-out civil war. in other words, it's getting very, very messy to a point where i think the worst case scenario for all of us in the region is when you get full-out civil war, there is no coming back. if it breaks down, if civil order breaks down to the point of no return, then it will take years to fix syria. and i have a feeling that we're seeing the signs of that over the past three weeks. the only people that can bring us back from that brink is obviously the president and the regime. and i believe this is the last chance that they have. >> my exclusive interview with king abdullah will air during our next hour during our 5:00 p.m. eastern hour here in "the situation room." you're going to want to hear what he has to say about syria a lot more detail. also, w spoke about mitt romney and barack obama in the interview. he's got some serious thoughts about these two individuals. let's get to the presidential race right now. in today's republican triple play in ohio, not only is mitt romney campaigning there, so are two men getting mentioned, lots of mentions in fact, as possible running mates. the louisiana governor, bobby jindal, and the former florida governor, jeb bush. cnn's national political correspondent, jim acosta, is in bolling green, ohio, where mitt romney just finished a town hall. >> reporter: wolf, mitt romney is announcing an all-out attack. the gop contender's response can be summed ups a, oh, no, you didn't. after days of attacks on his business record, mitt romney hopes he has found a way to change the story. and it has nothing to do with naming a running mate. >> how many people here were people who began a business or leading a business in this room please stand up? what he's saying is if someone has succeeded, if they'd built something, he's saying they didn't really build it. no, it was the government. it was the government that takes responsibilities. >> reporter: that get out of bain free card may have come in remarks made by the president last friday. a comment romney is blasting as anti-business. >> if you've got a business, you didn't build that. somebody else made that happen. >> reporter: romney's campaign manager is now fund raising off of the comment saying they are a slap in the face to the american dream. a top aide to the gop contender says the remarksummaryize the president's worlds review like this comment in 2008 to joe the plumber. the obama campaign says romney is grasping for straws and that the president was making a point about how public spending can help the private sector. >> there was a great teacher somewhere in your life. somebody helped to create this unbelievable american system that we have that allowed you to thrive, somebody invested in roads and bridges. >> reporter: in ohio where the bain attacks may be weighing down romney's poll numbers, his campaign is flooding the zone sending the candidate to the northern end of the state, bobby jindal to columbus and jeb bush to outside cincinnati. >> governor, will you release your income tax records? >> that's been the tradition. i'm not opposed to doing that. >> reporter: but democrats are also hitting hard unleashing this web video showing what looks like the romney family dra saj horse prancing as romney dances around tax return questions. and noting michelle obama once praised a daycare company founded by the investment firm. >> the partnership for a healthier america is working with private providers like horizons. that's the nation's second largest private child care provider. >> reporter: but the personal attacks aren't just coming from the campaigns. consider how one supporter referred to the president at romney's town hall. >> this monster -- >> that's not a term i would use. >> reporter: as for naming a running mate, romney told this town hall he hasn't reached a decision yet, but said his vice presidential pick will be a conservative. wolf. >> jim acosta, thank you. ohio is certainly one of the most crucial states in this year's presidential election. lots of focus on ohio. our chief national correspondent, john king, is at the magic wall to show us precisely why. walk us there ohio, ohio, ohi >> wolf, a simple fact of history. no republican has won the white house without winning ohio in the modern times. so when mitt romney looks at the 2008 calendar and sees ohio blue, he knows he most likely has to change that to get elected. and campaign spending a ton of time and resources in ohio. look at tv ad spending first. this is just since april. the obama campaign by a two-to-one margin outspending the romney campaign. more than $10 million straight from the obama campaign. the president who leads narrowly in ohio right now spending heavily to protect that lead. if you add in the super pacs, it's a bit more even but still a democratic advantage. the president's campaign plus pro-democratic, pro-obama super pacs, three super pacs helping romney a little bit. but the democrats are spending more. number one, here's a big place to keep an eye on. star county just south of akron. look at this from four years ago. 52% for obama. 46% for john mccain. this is a key swing county in the state. go back to '04, john kerry carried it bary when george w. bush was carrying it in 2000. one other key place to watch look at '08, there are many swing counties but look at this blue. cincinnati. president obama carried hamilton county. for republicans to win statewide in a close election, watch that county down there. i'll give you a highlight for it. for republicans to win in a close statewide election, they need cincinnati. that's president bush in '04. that's president bush in 2000. even in '96 bob dole won down there. you're going to see a lot of the romney campaign in the cincinnati area. they know how important it is. >> when you point out in the beginning as you accurately do, no republican has won the white house in modern times without carrying ohio. let me ask you this question, i guess it's three retically possible, but is it likely that romney could win the race for the white house even without ohio? >> that is what i'll call the big yeah, but, question in american politics. can he? yes, can he realistically? most likely no. let me show you why. map as we see it now, 247 solid or leaning obama. 206 electoral votes solid or leaning romney. romney has what carl rove calls the 3-2-1 strategy. when the three most republican states carried by barack obama, they would be indiana, north carolina, which we already lean romney's way and virginia. if you get those three, romney closes the gap. where's the two? that would be win florida and win ohio. if you get to that point, romney is actually in the lead. and then he would only have to win one of the remaining toss ups. would not have to turn any blue states red if they do that. but you asked the question, so let's shade ohio blue. even if you give romney those other states i just gave him, if the president wins ohio, most people believe if he's winning ohio, then he's holding pennsylvania, michigan and probably holding wisconsin. look how close that puts the president, wolf, if he can win ohio, he'd only have to win one out of iowa, colorado and nevada and he gets re-elected. >> good point. thanks very much, john king, at the magic wall. appreciate it. more politics coming up later. also, jordan's king abdullah ii my exclusive interview with him. he says syria's near a full-out civil war right now. he's also warning that any use of syria's chemical weapons, what he calls syria's weapons of mass destruction, he says that could change everything. the full interview exclusive interview coming up in our 5:00 p.m. eastern hour. also, during our brand new third hour of "the situation room," during our 6:00 p.m. eastern hour we'll air part of my colleague, piers morgan's rare interview with the supreme court justice antonin scalia. he's sitting down with him right now. up next, we go live to america's heart land where crops are withering in one of the worst droughts in decades. ♪ ( whirring and crackling sounds ) man: assembly lines that fix themselves. the most innovative companies are doing things they never could before, by building on the cisco intelligent network. energy is being produced to power our lives. while energy development comes with some risk, north america's natural gas producers are committed to safely and responsibly providing generations of cleaner-burning energy for our country, drilling thousands of feet below fresh water sources within 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go to cnn.com slash caffertyfile and post a comment on the blog. or go to our post on the "the situation room" facebook page. wolf. >> jack, thank you. there's no immediate relief in sight for the parched midwest. the department of agriculture designated 39 more counties as disaster areas due to the excessive heat and drought. vital crops are at risk, but the agriculture secretary, tom vilsack, says itill be a while before consumers see a spike in the price. our meteorologist chad myers is over at the cnn weather center. he's got more on the forecast. what is the forecast over there? >> well, you know, wolf, it's not good. even if it rains from here all the way to the end of harvest season, a lot of this corn cannot be saved. didn't set right. the cobs aren't there. the pollen didn't come out at the right time. this is just a flash drought they're calling all the way from ohio all the way back into kentucky, tennessee, into nebraska and kansas as well. it just stopped raining as soon as the crops went in the ground. indiana, you have 71% of your corn crop, that's 12 million acres at poor or worse. that means 30% maybe of what you'd expect for yield. illinois, 56%. the problem here, it's a much larger crop. 23 million acres planted there. and not all corn goes to, you know, cattle right away. cattle have to look at the ground and eat a lot of grass first before you just give them corn. missouri, 92% of your pasture is poor or very poor. there's just no grass out there, wolf. there's no hay. i don't know where these farmers are going to get the hay to feed the cattle because you can't buy it from anyone because nobody has it. and the forecast with this brown map right here, there's no relief in sight. we're just not going to see the amount of rain we need. that's not the case in the northeast right now. we have severe weather all the way from boston to new york city. even you in d.c. are going to see a couple showers and thunderstorms. and here's columbus circle. rain coming down. i just heard from ali velsh says he's looking for an arc it's raining so hard in new york city. >> they could use some of that water in the midwest for sure. hope it starts raining out there. thanks so much, chad, for that report. other news we're watching including a massive drought in the united states, we'll have more on the drought, the growing potential to affect the entire country with crops withering in the heat. and you just saw chad's report. we'll take a closer look in our next hour at the possible impact on nearly everything we get over at the supermarket and the grocery store. next, it's as bad as smoking. what british researchers find as the latest threat to your health. jim twitchel is this true? 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