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all right. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world, i m christine romans. this is early start. we begin with ukrainian forces struggling to hold on in the eastern city of bakhmut, as russian troops close in from three sides. ukrainian officials say the situation in bakhmut has grown much tougher. they say their forces may need to retreat to avoid being trapped by encircling russians. cnn s scott mclean is tracking this story for us from london. and, scott, what are the chances the ukrainians will be able to turn this around? and if they can t, does that mean russia is back on the offensive. so, christine, good morning. it really depends on who you ask. because last week there were plenty of indications that the ukrainians may in fact be forced to withdraw from that area. a drone reconnaissance university has been ordered to retreat from the area. you also had a key bridge by the russians kiting off the ukrainians final supply routes in and ....
house have gotten ahead and put this offer on the table. i think that s something that the white house should continue to do, not just for paul and brittney, but for, you know, all americans who are wrongfully detained. so there is over 65 americans at least who are wrongfully detained, and i hope the administration continues to do that. in the case of your release, trevor, i mean, we didn t know that you were coming home until you were well out of russian air space. it went from you were detained and there were efforts to get you out, but all of a sudden it was happening. why do you think that this is being done differently? i think maybe that could signal a change in policy in the administration, maybe they re going to be, you know, more open to doing exchanges, it could be the fact that they re trying to show, you know, how important it is to this administration to get this done. it could be aye lot of things, m not an expert at that, but i think it is a good sig ....
summer olympics. that s not what you want to see just before the games start. a bizarre one i never heard about either. the name. plus, a day of reckonning for facebook. we look ahead to the first earnings report as a public company later today with our christine romans. interesting. up first, the latest on the aftermath and investigation in aurora, colorado. law enforcement sources say the shooting suspect james holmes mailed a package to the university of colorado campus in aurora which was received on monday and forced the evacuation of a building. it was holmes himself who told police where to find it. cbs news says the package was addressed to a psychologist and contained a letter talking about shooting people along with scribbling showing the gunman shooting victims. we re going to have a full report from aurora in a few minutes. six days after the mssacre in aurora, colorado, gun control is a very hot topic on the campaign trail. he waited five days to ente ....
it is scary in the end. stay tuned. we ll tell you exactly what s going op. good morning. welcome to early start. i m john berman. i m zoraida sambolin. 5:00 a.m. in the east. coming one a man who says he has been cured of hiv. dr. sanjay gupta talked to him. you ll hear about that later this hour. really remarkable. plus, brett favre couldn t stay retired after all. he s back in football taking a job you might not expect. we ll tell you all about it. stay tuned. you need to watch before he retires again. i think it s kind of exciting, actually. i wanted to ask you about that. we ll chat about it. first the latest presidential poll numbers are out this morning. they reveal president obama s ahead of mitt romney by six points. the brand-new nbc news/ wall street journal poll shows obama at 49% to romney s 43%. that s a three percentage point increase from just last month. cnn s political director mark preston joins us now from washington, d.c. nice to have you ....