Page 3 - 401000 News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> reporter: in sierra, nevada, new evacuations are underway now that the tamarack fire has spread. this inferno has spread 20 times from south lake tahoe where it started. largest fire is in oregon. the bootleg fire is expanding every day and already scorched 401,000 acres. in the southwest desert, too much water is the problem. monsoon rains are dumping water so fast in arizona, they're sweeping cars off roads. flood waters are triggering multiple rescues. in maricopa county, first responders pulled two people from a truck trapped in water. and that rain ill continue through the weekend in a...

Reno. you are supposed to see mountains in the distance but smoke and thick fog and haze blanketing the air here. this fire and several others prompted california governor newsom to issue a state of emergency. the bootleg fire is more than 401,000 acres burning and we were with crews on the front lines on that blaze. take a listen to how one described the challenges of fighting this fire. >> the fire itself is faster than the firefighters can get control over it. the winds and the trees and the brush that's so dry burns at a rate faster than we can keep up with it. no matter how many people we...

>> that's unbelievable. let me go back to when your story first broke last march and the obama administration vowed to make changes. they set a goal of no backlogged cases by 2015, no veterans waiting more than four months to have claims processed. today you find 401,000 cases are still back logged in spite of these improvements. so i guess the question is what are the chances the administration meets its goal of 2015? >> we calculate if they continue their current progress they have been on since march they will get there in december of 2014, so that would mean by about, what, two years from ...

Have redefined rape? >> no, not at all. as governor romney and paul ryan have said, they support having an exception on rape and incest and that's been the position of george w. bush and, you know, presidents back. >> that has not always been the position of paul ryan. the position of paul ryan -- and i tried to research this extensively this morning. he very clearly has said in the past that he believed when the mother's life is in danger there should be an exception. i could not find any instance of him saying that in cases of rape there should be an exception. i saw that as a statement now ...

we begin this hour with a very important change in the presidential race. according to our brand new cnn/orc poll, a majority of the nation's voters now say they want to re-elect president obama. take a look at this. the president has 52%. he's seven points ahead of mitt romney who's at 45%. just a month ago the president in our poll was ahead 49% to 46%. significantly the president now according to our latest poll is above 50%. our polls also show what voters think of mitt romney's potential vice presidential picks. let's bring in our national political correspondent jim acosta. he'...