in america for barack obama? the u.s. added 200,000 jobs last month. that absolutely trounce expectations and it brought the unemployment rate down to 8.5%. now, that is the fourth month in a row that we have seen a drop in the unemployment rate. we are now at the lowest level in almost three years. prior to the crisis. but where did we see the growth? health care and manufacturing are the two areas that stand out. manufacturing in fact may surprise you, but really been the area bouncing back all year. i want to put all this in perspective because it's really important for the election. i'm going to call this a pie. it represents the 8.7 million jobs lost since the recession began in 2008. that is a whole lot of jobs. all right. since then, though, 2.5 million jobs have been added. now, that's about 30% of the pie. so you can see it as positive because it's improvement and it is, but you could also say more than two-thirds of that pie is still red and that's a problem. there is one thing that's good news for the president. the bottom line. the unemployment rate may be high, but the absolute number is not what matters when it comes to getting re-elected. that's about the trend. every president running for re-election since world war ii has won when the unemployment rate was falling and lost when it was going up. best example, get ready -- >> it's morning again in america. today, more men and women will go to work than ever before in our country's history. with interest rates at about half the record highs of 1980. >> hmm, pretty good sell. that was ronald reagan's iconic re-election ad. now, this is pretty amazing. the unemployment rate when ronald reagan was getting ready to get re-elected, 8.5%. sound familiar? it is absolutely identical to the number you heard this morning, 8.5% right now for barack obama. but what made it morning in america for ronald reagan? in the year prior to his election, this is the magic number. the jobless rate dropped to 7.2%. the president needs the jobless rate to drop like it did for ronald reagan if he wants to be re-elected. that's really the bottom line. what the unemployment number is next year is crucially important. so is it morning in america? john avalon joins us, jamal simmons and david fromme, cnn contributor. all right, john, i've got to say i was pretty amazed at the coincidence that 8.5% was unemployment a year out from reagan's re-election. by the way, that number for barack obama is down a full percent from a year ago, but it's the next six months that matter. >> that's exactly right. the symmetry is amazing and the trend is obama's friend. this is great news for the country and good news for obama's re-election campaign. but the real issue is the dynamic. what was behind the drop in unemployment when ronald reagan was in office was also massive greet in gdp, 8% in the third quarter of 1983. so president obama will have to hope for a lot more of this. but the momentum, he's got it on his side, that's good news for the country and good news for his re-election bid. >> what do you say, david? >> i like good news. i was there in the '80s. the economy took off like a rocket. this economy is taking off like a big, heavy blimp. in 1983 unemployment dropped by two points and then dropped by another 1.3, 1.5 in 1984. last year, 2011, we saw nothing like the kind of growth americans saw as john says in 1983 and we hope for more growth in 1984. it does not feel like morning in america. it may feel like morning after in america. we're clearing the cotton out. >> the pool is smelling up the room like an old frat house. >> it's pretty bad. >> jamal, the president obviously can't come out and celebrate this because of that pie, the fact that there were 8 million jobs lost, but is that how they're feeling? >> yeah, i think they're feeling upbeat. you can't help but wake up and feel things are better today than they were yesterday and certainly are better than zigs months ago. i don't think anybody is uncorking champagne bottles to get ready for a party or the morning after that david seems to be so familiar with. but instead, i could think -- i do think that people are looking at this as a trend line. i would like to temper expectations. i don't think 7.2% is what we're hearing from any of the economists by the timing we get to november. instead i think we'll be somewhere around 8%, but the trend line is what the president will have to sell and he's also going to have to do a pretty good job on whoever the republican nominee is. >> i want to get to the republican response, but one thing just to add a little fervor to your point, as ronald reagan mentioned in that ad, you had interest rates 18% and they were going down. right now there is nowhere for interest rates to go but up and that's very significant for regular people's lives. >> and you had personal incomes going up. the people who are in work who have not lost their jobs do not necessarily feel better or secure. the typical american income after taxes -- sorry, after inflation before taxes is lower than it was in 1997. so you may not have lost your job and you're grateful for that, but you don't feel didn't. >> that's something the republicans have to capitalize on if they're going to be successful. here's how they responded on the campaign trail to the good number today. >> well, i think it's good. it's going in the right direction. but if you measure unemployment by the method that we used to measure it by, it would be twice that. >> i think there might just be some optimism that maybe republicans are going to take the white house and maybe that's spurring people to start taking some risks. >> this president doesn't understand how this economy works. it's time to get a president who does. >> what do you think? >> i think it's beating a dead horse because they know the dance beat. they want to run on bad economic news, so they're not going to adjust their rhetoric if they can avoid it. the reality is, is if america is enjoying a great stability, some modest growth, as ron pollack -- ron paul acknowledged, it should be acknowledged. >> but david, you're saying interest rates are bad but your incomes aren't up, that's nuance. nuance doesn't play in the ridiculous campaign ads that we tend to see. >> no, but every american is the greatest living expert on how that individual american is doing economically. they do not need an ad to tell them they feel better, they feel worse. no one will persuade them that they feel better if they feel worse. one of the things that is a really dangerous sign, we saw it in the rick santorum message, when rick santorum is branding himself the high-risk choice. yeah, if you want to win the election go ahead with mitt romney. but if you want to have fun, choose me. i think republican primary voters are saying i'm going with the low-risk choice. >> jamal, do you think -- go ahead. >> i think the one thing the republicans have to be careful of is not sounding like negative nellies. i don't think the american public want to hear politicians bring them down. they want to hear them talk about what they can do better and how to make it go faster. not necessarily it's not as good as it may look. i think people will end up getting punished for rooting against america rather than being supportive. >> there's something to that. you've got to give him credit. that's political very difficult. >> the thing that romney says in every speech is the president was dealt a hard hand. it's both true but also shows a sense of fairness. >> it helps with independents because you're not saying, look, i'm sticking to my talking points, i'm acknowledging a problem and said dealt a bad hand, could have played it better. if you look at the job decline and that economic freefall that america was in in the final quarter of 2008 and it hits in january of 2009 and then starts to get better, there's a good story to be told. it's tough to tell people it could have been worse, but the reality is it could have been and we are recovering and that's a good sign for all americans, not just democrats. >> it is, jamal, one of those things that has struck me as sort of ridiculous about politics is you could be great or you could be terrible, but you are at the mercy of the economy. >> you are. and the president actually has very few things he can do in terms of short-term things to make it better. i think the president will probably argue that he did a bunch of things in the beginning, people didn't like them, didn't agree with them but we've turned the corner and let's not change course as we dpo into the election. >> thanks to all three of you. if i hear mitt romney talk about 787 billion one more time. thanks to everyone. we'll be following this because it is so crucial and we'll look at the next six months. what's the trend going to be for barack obama? well, we asked our strike team. we've been telling you the 25 top business leaders, investors, entrepreneurs in america and i asked them just the other day if they're going to net higher in 2012. eight of them at a normal rate, two above and four below. interesting. a normal rate, union pacific railroad came in there. the ceo was telling me 1,000 to 1500 jobs. but we're going to put all of this on our strike team website. please take a look at it because those are the people that will do the hiring and firing that drive this election. well, there is many, as 12 million up documented immigrants in this country. does the president's new plan today anount amnesty? and the latest developments of iu.k. murder mystery. a dead woman found at the queen's estate. and the u.s. navy rescues a group of iranian sailors that were attacked by pirates. would mahmoud do that for us? all this "outfront." what makes the sleep number store different? you walk into a conventional mattress store, it's really not about you. they say, "well, if you want a firm bed you can lie on one of those, if you want a soft bed you can lie on one of those." we provide the exact individualization that your body needs. welcome to the sleep number year-end closeout event. not just ordinary beds on sale, but the bed that can change your life on sale. the sleep number bed. it calibrates precisely to your body and your comfort zone. now you can feel what happens as we raise your sleep number setting and allow the bed to contour to your individual shape. oh yeah. it's really shaping to my body. it's the final days to save up to $800 on selected 2011 bed sets. plus, free standard shipping on all beds. you can adjust it however you want so you don't have to worry about buying the wrong mattress. once they get our bed, they're like, "why didn't i do this sooner?" hurry in to the final days of the year-end closeout event and save on the bed that can change your life. the sleep number bed. only at the sleep number store, where queen bed sets now start at just $899. ♪ sing polly wolly doodle all the day ♪ ♪ hah "outfront" tonight, the battle over illegal immigration and the president's polarizing new policy that some say amounts to amnesty. so you've probably heard the number that there could be up to 12 million undocumented people in america right now. but for those who are married to or have kids that are u.s. citizens, the white house now has an offer. come out of the shadows and identify yourself and ask for a green card. to get it, you'll have to leave the country, but now instead of waiting years, maybe even a decade to find out if you can come back, you'll get an answer more quickly and chances of getting a yes to return permanently with a green card, greater. that's the plan. some people are furious about it. is it amnesty? let's bring in chris kobach who helped write arizona's strict new immigration law. on the other side is david leopold from the american immigration lawyers association. good to have you both with us. chris, is this amnesty? >> it's part of an amnesty. it's part two of an administrative amnesty. as we know, the administration a few months ago announced that it was going to drop about 300,000 cases that were in the deportation pipeline. that's one part of the action. this one allows thousands of people who otherwise would have to go out of the country and wait while they see if they can overcome this three-year bar or ten-year bar that congress put into place in 1996, now they can just do it here in the united states. so really if the administration is going to do a backdoor amnesty, they need to take several steps and this is the second of the steps they need to take. so yes, it's part of an amnesty. >> david, why isn't it? >> it's not amnesty. what this is is a minor processing change. what we're doing here, what the administration is doing is keeping u.s. citizens together with their foreign spouses. what we have to remember is that in order to get this waiver, which is done in the united states, they still have to show that the u.s. citizen would suffer a hardship. so nobody is getting anything, erin. this is a process change. this is going to allow people to stay together. this is going to promote family unity. it's going to keep america safer and it's going to be wise use of our tax dollars. what chris is talking about when he uses that word "amnesty," remember, amnesty is a word that people who hate immigration like to throw around instead of solutions. and what this is, this is a solution. this is a solution that allows people to wait in the united states with their family rather than have to go sit in a city like ciudad juarez where people get killed, it's one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and this allows families to stay together. what's wrong with an american husband being with his wife? what's wrong with an american wife being with her husband? nothing. i can't imagine any american would oppose family unity. so i'm very surprised that there's even any opposition to this. >> i thought, david, that once -- if you were married to someone and you could prove that it was legitimate and you hadn't done so in order to get access to the united states, that you could get the card anyway? >> i wish that were the case, erin, but the law is so broken that even if you were married to a united states citizen, you still have to go through various different hoops to stay here. what happens is folks that are in the country who are undocumented and they're married to united states citizens, they can't simply go and apply for a green card. and what happens is the way the law is set up, and the reason we call it a broken law is because the way this law is set up is they have to leave the united states. once they step outside the united states, now they're barred from coming back. >> and there's a reason for that. >> kris, let me ask you that. hold on, david, i want to get kris in here. kris, does that deter people who shouldn't be coming in from coming in? >> yes. >> the fact or not? yes? >> there's a reason congress set this up. congress in 1996 wanted to impose a penalty on illegal aliens, whether they decide to mary a u.s. citizen or not. and that was if you stay in the united states for six months, then if you are caught or if you acknowledge that, you have got to wait three years before you can even get in line in your home country to apply for a lawful visa. if you stay here a year illegally, you are barred for ten years. congress wanted to put people who have broken our laws in a worse position procedurally than those who are in mexico doing it the right way and haven't broken our laws. that's exactly what congress did in 1996. congress did that in 1996. >> that's not a correct statement of the law. >> that's exactly what the law says. >> i'm happy to show you the statute. >> actually i just looked at it -- i'm quite familiar with it. >> what the congress said, kris, and i think you know this, is that if you marry an american citizen, generally speaking, you're forgiven. >> you're talking marriage. we're talking about the ten-year bar. >> if you enter the country without an inspection originally, even if you're a child, you can't get that green card even if you have a large family, even if you're married to a u.s. citizen. you have to get a waiver. >> final word to kris. >> i think the bottom line is i think we probably both agree that what the administration is doing is trying to get around the fact that congress has not passed an amnesty and this administration wants one. i think there's a larger issue here that people on the left and the right can agree on. if we're going to have amnesty, let congress do it. let the people's representatives debate it. let's not have the administration do it in a backdoor way that isn't putting it on the table in front of the people. >> this is common sense enforcement. >> gentlemen, thanks to both of you. please let us know on our facebook page what you think about this and whether there's political motivations as well coming into an election with the hispanic vote. tonight, we have new clues on a murder mystery. investigators say they're very close to identifying the body of a young woman whose age is 15 to 24. the victim, whose body gave no visible clues about how she died, was found a couple of miles outside the queen of england's sandringham estate. the discovery came just two days after the family was vacationing there. the queen is still there. authorities believe the victim could have been dead up to four months but have no idea whether she was murdered on the grounds or her body was dumped there. some of the victim's personal belongings have been found on the premises. that has not helped police solve the mystery. >> when the body was discovered, it was in more of a decomposed state than we initially believed, so that's making identifying it very difficult. for example, police don't believe she was stabbed but there's not enough flesh left on the body to establish whether or not she was stabbed. >> victoria said the teeth and bones have been tested and police will have results in the next three days. with just four days to go until new hampshire, mitt romney has what everybody will acknowledge is a comfortable lead, but another candidate could be surging. who? and farmville, mafia wars, just how much would you pay for those online games? we give you one heck of a number next. [ding] announcer: clean kitchen surfaces, utensils, and hands with soapy water. one in 6 americans will get sick from food poisoning this year. keep your family safer. check your steps at foodsafety.gov. so video game players can be a pretty passionate bunch. they'll spend thousands on games, gear and memberships, but the fan of one game went above and beyond. i mean stratospherically. a chinese man spent $16,000 on a virtual sword. $16,000 on a virtual sword. i'm sorry, i just must live in another century. for the game of wulin. it is not even being released in china until the spring. now, of course, not every gamer is that crazy. sorry if i'm offending some of you who are that rich. but some of the thriftier gamers purchased things for $2500 and the hook of departure sheath for a paltry $1600. well, even if you aren't that into gaming, you'd be surprised just how much people spend on casual games, which brings us to tonight's number. 680,000. that's how many people are estimated to pay more than $1,100 a year to play virtual games on zynga like farmville and mafia wars. they found that the average paying user spends about $280 on zynga's games. still "outfront," the "outfront" five. a parent's plea. >> i miss her so much and i want her home. >> santorum strikes back. >> oh, i'll take on mitt romney, rest assured. i'll take him in on the issues. >> all this "outfront" in our second half. welcome. i understand you need a little help with your mortgage, want to avoid foreclosure. smart move. candy? um-- well, you know, you're in luck. we're experts in this sort of thing, mortgage rigamarole, whatnot. r-really? absolutely, and we guarantee results, you know, for a small fee, of course. such are the benefits of having a professional on your side. [whistles, chuckles] why don't we get a contract? who wants a contract? [honks horn] [circus music plays] here you go, pete. thanks, betty. we're out of toner. [circus music plays] sign it. come on. sign it. [honks horn] ...homes around the country. every single day, saving homes. we will talk it over... announcer: if you're facing foreclosure, make sure you're talking to the right people. speak with hud-approved housing counselors free of charge at... we start the second half of our show with stories we care about where we focus on our own reporting, do the work and find the "outfront" five. first tonight that better than expected unemployment report in the u.s. 200,000 jobs added. unemployment rate down to 8.5% in december. we went through the data and the job growth for men and women in the fourth quarter, equal. but the unemployment rate for blacks, exactly where it was in december, 2010. 15.8%. number two, omar farouk abdulmutallab was in court. he explained that his standby lawyer ignored him and failed to share legal documents with him. in court documents obtained by "outfront," his standby attorney wrote that he supplied all documents that were legally relevant to the case. he added that the documents recently requested will not serve the purpose of advancing the case. the court papers do not mention the documents that abdulmutallab requested. he faces life in prison when sentenced next month for trying to blow up a plane on christmas day in 2009. it was a northwest plane headed to detroit. number three, an army green beret charged with trying to bring explosives on a commercial plane has been released from jail. we've learned trey atwater was let out on bond and released into the custody of his supervisor at ft. bragg. he's being escorted back to the north carolina base. atwater said he didn't know c-4 was in his carry-on. prosecutors found no evidence he intended to use the explosives. strange story. don't yet know the bottom line. number four, congresswoman gabrielle giffords will attend a vigil marking the one-year anniversary of the shooting that almost cost her her life. on january 8th, arizona congresswoman, husband mark kelly, and her staff will join to honor the 13 people killed and injured. daniel hernandez, the intern that helped her after the shooting, will be at the vigil. i recently spoke with daniel and asked him about his day, january 8, 2011. >> the last time i saw her she was being carted in. for about eight hours, i was under the impression that she had passed away because i was being sequestered to wait for questioning by the authorities. and the last thing i heard was a nurse come out after gaby had gone in and say she's dead and then they took me away to a separate area, because they didn't want me hearing something from one of the nurses or someone passing by and that changing the quality of the testimony that i was going to give to the authorities. well, there's been 154 days since america lost its top credit rating. what are we doing to get it back? the stock market could help if it keeps going up. three major indices starting 2012 with gains, all up more than 1% for the week. looking at last year, our market really looked great compared to the rest of the world, which was terrible. all right, who can stop mitt romney? with just four days until the new hampshire primary, he has an even greater lead than two weeks ago. a poll out tonight shows him winning the granite state with 44% of the vote compared to 20% for ron paul and 8% for both rick santorum and newt gingrich. as a frontrunner, romney will be target number one in this weekend's high-stakes debates. but interestingly, rick santorum refused to attack romney. here he is with gloria borger. >> your not taking on mitt romney? >> oh, i'll take him on, on the issues. i'm not going to make judgments about his character or make judgments about whether he's going to be weak or strong. >> well, it's interesting, because new hampshire may be a lock for mitt romney, but the focus is shifting to south carolina, where a cnn poll today shows romney with a comfortable lead, even among born-again christians, a group that has not been quick to back him in the past. in stark contrast as we indicated last night, the last polls we had in south carolina had newt gingrich far, far, far away in the lead. it had been a while since a poll was taken. gloria borger is in new hampshire tonight. kevin madden is former romney adviser and penny is the ceo of concerned women of america. you spent some time with rick santorum where he chose not to attack mitt romney. why? is he thinking about a future ticket? >> well, he might be, erin. i mean he might be thinking somewhere down the future that maybe he'd be that values conservative who could help mitt romney out, but i think, look, what i was asking him about was, you know, newt gingrich has said publicly that mitt romney could very well be the weakest front runner in the history of the republican party. and santorum wasn't willing to characterize it that way. he does disagree with him on a bunch of issues and i guarantee you in the debates here over the weekend, you're going to see mitt romney have a big red target on his back because, as you were just saying, the polls in new hampshire show mitt romney way ahead. that puts him in a formidable position going into south carolina and giving him the potential to really lock this race up pretty early. so they have really got to go at him. >> kevin, the polls in south carolina do now show governor romney leading in born agains and tea party voters. my question is can he sustain this? it was pretty clear the other late night in iowa that born agains and evangelicals were going for santorum, at least in iowa. >> well, look, polls are just a snapshot in time of the and if there's one thing that defines this electorate right now, it's its volatility. just look at rick santorum. three, four weeks ago, he was in single digits in iowa. he vaulted to 22, 24% in iowa. i think that we've seen these polls just like you indicated before, gingrich was -- two weeks ago was leading in south carolina and now he's down in south carolina. so i don't -- i'm not -- having worked on two presidential campaigns before, i'm not looking at any polls in south carolina until we're finished with the contest in new hampshire. the voters have a very funny way of figuring these things out for themselves, but i will say that governor romney, his focus and his message -- his message very focused on the economy and that's what voters are looking at right now. so i think that's why you're seeing this high level of support across these states, but i can assure you that boston and the romney campaign is taking nothing for granted. >> they made it clear last night. they said we're trying to play it like we're three points behind. they were saying strategically that was the right way rhetorically to handle it. you focus on women and women matter. i say that with no personal bias. >> they have decided every presidential election since 1964. how are they going to do in south carolina? >> i dozed off a bit when you were talking about mitt romney. let's admit it, he's a very boring candidate and is barely holding his own in the polls. i think we're going to see a very interesting race coming on and, yes -- >> kevin, do you want to bet $10,000? do a virtual handshake? >> i'll bet you mitt's $10,000. >> i think i have about $2 in my pocket. >> there are plenty of blue collar voters in iowa. as you know, mitt romney did very well with women voters. the chance to do better with women and he does very well with older voters. >> in fact, santorum carried women in iowa and we have noticed that -- >> it was very close, though. gloria and i were looking at the numbers. it was very close. >> indeed, we noticed that there tends to be a trend with conservative women. they tend to go more towards santorum more than anybody else in the race. there's an authenticity there. there's a whole family there. they like his message. they like what he stands for. and i think you're going to see that happen again in south carolina. we do door-to-door work, we do the phone calls, we do the leaflets underneath the windshield wipers and every candidate needs women and they need to be able to inspire their base and that's going to be the key problem for romney, not just in the primary but in a general election. >> at least in iowa, we all know from edith that women are important. but gloria, seriously, two weeks until south carolina, 49% still undecided or say they may change their mind. do you consider this race wide open or not? >> well, i think we have to see you know, one thing at a time as kevin was saying. mitt romney looks to be the likely winner here in new hampshire, but i think what the other candidates are trying to do, as we discussed the other night, was sort of keep him out of the stratosphere, right? they want to keep him below that 40% mark so they can then say, you know what, we took him down a peg and then we're going to deal with him in south carolina. he's got some pretty heavy duty help with him right now. he's got john mccain, he's got the governor of south carolina, nikki haley, and that's going to be very important to him in that state. but i do think there are those values voters that do flock to rick santorum because he has a message that combines his values with his economic agenda that does have some resonance and he's going up on the airwaves in south carolina on tuesday. >> kevin madden, will mitt romney go right and aggressively so on social issues if pushed this weekend? it seems they may come up because of all of the air time and the strong performance of rick santorum in iowa? >> i think governor romney has made very clear that he shares the same conservative values that many of the voters in south carolina share. i think going to your earlier point, i think there's blue collar voters, there's white collar voters, there are women voters and there are men voters. they are all very concerned. their main anxiety in this election right now and what's animating the electorate is the economy, the state of the economy. governor romney has had a very focused message on what he would do to put the american economy back on track and put americans back to work. i think that's why you're going to see that message resonate and that's why he's gaining a high level of support in new hampshire, south carolina, florida and all these early contests. >> thanks so much to all three of you, appreciate it. it's going to be a very busy weekend. gloria borger, stay warm. u.s. sailors rescued a group of iranians after they were attacked by pirates. the full story in our outer circle. and the parents of florida's missing mom, michelle parker. her mother "outfront" with a plea. we do this at the same time every night, our outer circle, where we reach out to sources around the world. today, to the north arabian sea where iranian sailors were rescued by americans stationed on the destroyer "uss kidd." the rescue happened just two days after iran said the u.s. shouldn't send any more warships into the persian gulf. michael adler is a public policy scholar at the woodrow wilson center and we asked him what this means. >> i don't think this will profoundly modify the confrontation we're seeing between the two countries over sanctions, the nuclear program and how to go forward, but it is ironic that a u.s. ship which was part of a group which the iranians want out of the gulf rescued an iranian ship. and now to egypt and the trial of hosni mubarak. prosecutors have asked for the death penalty by hanging for the former president. he is accused of corruption and ordering the killing of protesters during the uprising last year. he denies it. steven cook is a fellow at the council of foreign relations and we asked whether mubarak could really be hanged and how common this form of punishment is in egypt. >> well, it's not at all common for people to be hanged in egypt. the prosecutors are clearly posturing for political effect. in this seen of the unthinkable becoming reality, there is always the possibility that if mubarak is found guilty that the prosecutors will seek the death penalty. and now to nigeria, the most populous country in africa. fury over the government's decision to end fuel subsidies that doubled the prices overnight. hundreds of protesters have madder through the capital. angry mobs set fires, shut down gas stations. i've been there and seen that and it is terrifying. nigerian union chiefs are calling for a general strike next week. we asked why they would do this. >> there's a very strong economic rationale to the nigerian government removing the subsidy. after all, it cost them $8 billion roughly last year. politically, the decision is harder to explain. most nigerians on less than $2 a day and are really feeling the pinch from this decision and very unhappy on the streets of the main cities in nigeria right now. now a plea for help. 33-year-old michelle parker disappeared seven weeks ago and her family is still looking for answers. the florida mother vanished on november 17th after dropping off her 3-year-old twins with their father, dale smith. smith and parker were once engaged but their five-year relationship ended in a fight over an engagement on television on "the people's court." coincidentally, the show aired the day she disappeared. he has denied any involvement, has turned down our request to appear on the show and has not been charged. i spoke with her mother before the show and she told me she continues to hold out hope. >> you can't give up. when you don't know where somebody in your family is, you don't give up. you don't roll over and play dead. >> let me ask you what you're doing now. i know you have been happy with how police and law enforcement have tried to help you, but in orlando, there's three detectives and they are incredibly busy. are you getting the support that you need right now or not? >> you know, erin, at this point, i can't say enough about opd's efforts. they have done a tremendous job. but their resources are limited. and so, you know, we believe that at this time, we need more support from surrounding police departments in the central florida area. >> yvonne, what do you think happened? where do you think she might be? >> she could be anywhere, anywhere near us and we just don't know. we don't know how to find her with just orlando -- the city of orlando. we need -- we need help from the other sheriff departments. we need support with other searchers to help us go out. we need people with k-9 dogs. we need all kinds of help. we have a trust fund set up through we the people. we have our -- i mean for the people. and we have a phone line that you can call me directly and i'll answer the phone and you can talk to us and tell us where you live and we can tell you how to help us. it's 407-687-9740. >> yvonne, let me ask you, i know that you have a custody agreement now with dale, obviously the father of the children that we see here with their faces blurred out. >> yes. >> he and michelle had a volatile, and by all accounts at times, violent relationship. he's the only suspect right now, but obviously he has not been charged. how is the custody arrangement working right now between you and he? >> it's working out very well. he's very agreeable. we haven't had any problems whatsoever. i'm very grateful to see the grandbabies. they have been part of my life for three years now and they're very much a part of me and i know that wherever michelle is, she would want them to still, you know, be part of our lives as well and they are granting me that, so i'm very, very grateful. >> how have the children been? obviously, i know at first matt had indicated that they were told she was still at work or would be coming back, but it's been a long time now. >> right. >> how have they been asking for her? >> well, the thing that's really amazing is that we have michelle's face all over us. we wear it every day. i'm going to be wearing these shirts until the day we bring her home. we have billboards and we have signs all over central florida. they see her as we're driving by. and we just say, oh, mommy's away right now. mommy's away? will she be home tomorrow? and i go, i hope so. i hope so. >> looking back, do you wish that michelle had done anything differently, separating herself from dale earlier or no? >> i think that michelle did everything right. she worked hard. she loved her kids. she went to school full time. she worked full time. she was an awesome mom. those kids were so well taken care of. the only thing that i can see that she might have done is maybe she should have had somebody with her that day. >> yvonne, what is next for you? what are your days like now? >> we're searching every weekend. we're going to be searching again. somebody saw that hummer that night with the glow stickers on it. somebody knows something and we're just hoping that they'll come forward and help us to find my daughter. you can't imagine what it's like to have seven weeks not knowing where your daughter is. this beautiful, young woman, 33 years old and she just vanishes? the last person to see her, he has to know something. somebody knows something, and i'm going to cry because i'm a mom, you know? i miss her so much. and i want her home. she needs to be where she's supposed to be. and i need help. >> well, she sounds like she was a wonderful mother herself from what you say. >> she was. she was the best mom ever. i was real proud of her. i told her that a week before she went missing, how proud of her i am. she's done everything right. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. thank you. >> again, we wanted to make sure that everyone out there in case you do know anything does have the contact information for yvonne as she had shared it with us. 407-687-9740. when we come back, a story about -- well, we'll take you to italy. with your mortgage, want to avoid foreclosure. smart move. candy? 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[honks horn] ...homes around the country. every single day, saving homes. we will talk it over... announcer: if you're facing foreclosure, make sure you're talking to the right people. speak with hud-approved housing counselors free of charge at... ♪ sing polly wolly doodle all the day ♪ ♪ hah will be giving away passafree copies of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. holy cow. you have to take a look at this picture. this bovine has given birth to not one but four calves. it got us thinking, how common is this? we crunched the numbers and we found out the odds of quadruplet cows being born all female and all alive, 1 in 179.2 million. it got us wondering about how natural this is and if hormones were involved. we asked paul roberts, author of "end of food" why our first reaction to this picture which was first rather cute was alarm. >> the first thing we think is what went wrong. 100 years ago, four healthy births, that would have been a miracle. today, given all the questions we have about our food system. about the ingredients, conditions whether it's made, we are wondering if this is a sign of another problem. that's an indication of where we are in the food system and the level of distrust people have about the food system. >> all right. that's pretty interesting thing to think about. let us know what you think about that. now a story comes to us from far away, italy. cortina de ampezzo, a posh ski town in northern italy. the winter resort is one of italy's hottest areas. it's got the shops, restaurants, sports, cars, skiing. it makes it sort of fru, fru. this week, the italian prime minister sent investigators to the town as part of his war on tax evasion and what they found was shocking. of the 251 "super cars," mostly ferraris found in coretina, 42 belonged to people who claimed they could barely could make ends meet. they claimed income of less than 30,000 euros. that's $38,000. yes, you are correct. that would not buy you even a door of a ferrari. this made me think of greece. do you remember last year when the "new york times" reported that just 324 athens residents admitted owning swimming pools, but then greek investigators looked at satellite photos of that same area and came to a very different number. 16,974 pools. that kind of tax evasion has played a significant role in the greek debt crisis and led to the failure of that company. that has cost greece as much as $30 billion a year. all of this got me thinking about a slippery slope, a slope that actually leads to pakistan, a country where only 1% of the population pays their taxes. this summer, i spent time there with three young men and i asked them about the problem. they said this. it's really hard to build a country if you don't have a tax base. it's hard to have other countries give you money to build it when you don't have people in your own country paying taxes. >> gandhi said be the change that you want to see in the world. the only thing you can do is change yourself. i pay my taxes. i pay all of them. our politicians don't. >> those three young men are ready to leave pakistan because there's no rule of law, no one pays their taxes and you can't advance. when no one pays their taxes, you get what we saw in pakistan, that is wealthy people have their own ambulances and armies with ak-47s following them around in the streets because there's no police or hospitals that work. this is a terrible thing for a nation. tax reform has been a huge issue during the gop race in this country.