good evening, we hope you had a great holiday weekend, but wherever you are in the country, you're probably living a weather headline right now. adjectives like the hottest, the wettest, the earliest and the biggest, everything from fires to floods to sweltering height. ginger zee is tracking what is happening right now. >> reporter: from the pounding rain and rolling surf of the fiercest may storm in a century, to the blazing fires, incinerating parts of the southwest, to the 1,000 heat records shattered in the middle of the country, and today, the no relief. philadelphia closed its public schools early as temperatures soared into the '90s. >> it bothers me because i'm too hot. i feel likike i'm in egypt. >> reporter: up and down the east coast, hot, muggy -- a back to work broil. >> very hot today. it's burning up. >> miserable, miserable, miserable. >> reporter: across the country in new mexico, more than 1,000 firefighters are battling a wildfire that's ontrack to become the largest wildfire that state has ever seen. meanwhile, beryl may have knocked out power to 25,000 homes and washed out the holiday weekend, but it also washed in some unwelcome guests. sharks. surfers at beaches in brevard county, west of orlando, say they've seen swarms of sharks post beryl. a university of north florida shark expert tells me sharks have a keen instinct for changes in the weather. >> they're able to key in on the changes in the barometric pressure and allows them to reels there's a storm coming and move out of the area. >> reporter: and another twist, from the heat to the rain to majestic super cells like this one in texas last week. mother nature has been very busy. >> let me put that picture back up again. tell me what we're seeing there again. >> that's a super cell thunderstorm. when i'm storm chasing, we see them all the time. but that is such a crisp view. and that part of texas is so flat, whoever took that picture got a perfect image of that circulation in the sky. >> what about the weeks ahead? i know you've been talking to experts across the coast. what are you looking for in the next couple weeks? >> well, the next couple of weeks is really when we get into the heart of what should be hurricane season. now, remember, hurricanes are fueled by warm water. so i've been taking measurements and the water here at the beach in jacksonville, is about right, 77 degrees or so. down the southeast, same deal, average. but when you get into the gulf of mexico, they are anywhere from one to three degrees above average. that means extra fuel for any hurricanes that fire in the gulf of mexico. >> one to three degrees above. okay, ginger, thanks so much for reporting right there by the sea. from the beach in jacksonville. from the unpredictable climate to the unpredictable road to the white house. as of tonight, mitt romney will be able to celebrate. it will be official, he has nabbed the 1,144 delegates he needs to become the republican nominee, but look at this picture. who was waiting for him on his big day? donald trump looming large on the tarmac in las vegas where he's giving romney a fund raiser and laying some political land mines. it's your voice, your vote and david muir is watching it all. ♪ >> reporter: it was supposed to be all about the money tonight, but while raising cash for mitt romney, donald trump is also raising tough questions for the campaign. what to do size trump doubts the president was born in the u.s. more than a year ago, the president's hawaii birth certificate was released with trump saying this. >> today i'm very proud of myself. our president has finally released a birth certificate. >> reporter: but late today, trump doubling down. >> a lot of people do not think it was authentic. >> how did you say that? >> but many people do not think it was authentic. >> you see the birth announcement back in 1961. >> and many people did that -- >> listen to me, donald. honolulu -- can i ask a question? >> can you talk without defending obama? >> you're beginning to sound ridiculous. >> no, i think you are. >> when georgia will was asked on abc's this week, why romney keeps pairing up with trump? >> the cost of appearing with this ignoreammus is obvious, it seems to me. >> tonight the obama campaign is asking if john mccain stood up to extremist views four years ago, why won't romney now? >> no, ma'am, no, ma'am. he's a decent family man, citizen. >> the governor responding to the trump question himself. >> you know, i don't agree with all the people that support me. my guess is they don't all agree with everything i believe in. >> reporter: as for the fund raiser, the show goes on tonight. and about the convention in august? >> would donald trump want a speaking role at the republican convention? >> i can say only that if he does participate and if he is the speaker, the event will certainly be a sell-out and will be very exciting. >> the convention, who knows. but tonight we know he will appear and he's repeatedly said he believes the president was born in the u.s. and they tell me that the democrats can talk about this as much as they want, donald trump, but governor romney will be talking about jobs. >> lively day out there in vegas. and we have news on healthy living tonight. what if cancer prevention were as close as your medicine cabinet? a new study out today says aspirin and ibuprofen can cut the risk of skin cancer, including melanoma. >> reporter: on a day like today, millions of americans are armed with sunscreen and hats. but now the encouraging possibility that there could be a new weapon in the war against skin cancer. aspirin. yep, aspirin. a new study shows that people who took a low dose of aspirin or ibuprofen everyday for at least three years are almost 15 percent less likely to develop squamous carcinoma and melanoma, >> so this is very significant. if you were to take 100 people who have a squamous cell carcinoma, maybe 15 would not have gotten it if they were taking a lot of aspirin. >> reporter: the anticancer benefit was even greater for those who took aspirin for at least 7 years at a higher does. why? well, one theory is that aspirin counters cancer growth by suppressing inflammatory pathways, sort of blocking a tumor's ability to expand. michael georgeson has been taking it for years to help prevent heart attacks and strokes. but recent studies show aspirin might also prevent his risk of other types of cancer. >> all the more reason to take it. >> reporter: still, taking an aspirin every day isn't for everyone. just one a day even with food can cause fatal bleeding. so while researchers continue looking at the benefits of aspirin, doctors say this summer, the best bet under the sun is still sunscreen. sharyn alfonsi, abc news, new york. and we go overseas to italy where rescuers are poring through more rubble after the second powerful earthquake in nine days. families sought shelter after the first big quake, but they were rattled again. the latest quake, a 5.8 and abc's jeffrey kofman is there. >> reporter: as the ground shook the buildings tumbled. it hit during this morning newscast, sending the nudes reader fleeing from the studio. but for people here, it's as if the quakes don't stop. a staggering 800 aftershocks since the first big quake hit this region on may 20, killing seven. "we thought the worst was over," she says, yet three big quakes struck today. thousands still living scared, now joinds by a new wave of homelessness. the mayor says they're starting not from zero, but from below zero. seismologists tell us when they see this many earthquakes happening with this frequency it's a sign the seismic terror here isn't likely to end anytime soon. >> thanks so much. now there's growing outrage around the world at the atrocities in syria, which have been laid at the feet of the asatd regime. 108 villagers killed in their homes, nearly half of them children, shot execution style, a bullet in the head. today the u.s. and eight other nations expelled syrian diplomats in protest. they warned syria's president that time is running out on a peaceful solution. today the united nations asked the world to help. a humanitarian crisis of new and epic proportions is descending on a part of the world most of us have never seen. you might remember last year, abc news was the first network to report on the crisis in the african nations of kenya and somalia in east africa. our david muir witnessing the devastation first hand. tonight a new food crisis across the continent, stretching across eight nations in west africa. the u.n. said 18 million people are in danger, three million children on the brink of starvation. it took us two days to reach the people in need and our special coverage is called, a cry for help. >> reporter: getting here isn't easy, a series of plane rides followed by a difficult drive. when we arrived at the village, this is what greeted us. deathly silence. men, women and children, so hungry they are listless, losing a battle. mothers such as mariama can no longer feed her three children. today they ate leaves. >> is this all you have cooked for your family today? >> reporter: mariama is now eating so little, her body cannot produce enough breast milk to feed her six-month-old baby. all she can do, is place traditional charms around little conneda's neck, hoping good luck will ward off illness. families here depend on farming, but this drought has taken everything from them. it ruined last year's crop. if there is no rain in the next four months, another harvest will be lost. just making it through today is harrowing enough. they hand over their children, and watch as they are weighed in buckets. they are measured. their fate, a color wrapped around tiny arms. green is best. their body holding on. but you hardly see any green. yellow is worrying, too thin. red means severe mal nutrition. this child is a year old, really? little nacia, 1 year old, is red. she weighs just eight pounds, what many american babies weigh at birth. today she is lucky. she'll get a meal, a nutritional supplement made up of peanuts and vitamins. a meal from the aid groups here, who are sounding the alarm now, before this turns into an all-out disaster. accept that this mother has to go and pick wild food for her children to eat and if she doesn't go and do it every day, then they don't have anything to eat. >> and for all of you who want to help, a few dollars can make a big difference. one dollar donated to unicef can immunize children against measles. ten can provide a week's worth of nutrition for a starving child. and we have a full list of aid groups and what they do. go to abcnews.com to find them. coming up here, the sky is falling. parts of passenger jets raining down on neighborhoods, from red hot engine parts to cargo doors. why the passengers on the plane may be safer than the people on the ground. those surprising little things she does still make you take notice. there are a million reasons why. but your erectile dysfunction that could be a question of blood flow. cialis for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently or 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day women's 50+ healthy advantage. now to that terrifying incident in the skies yesterday. investigators confirmed today that an engine aboard a jumbo jet started to come apart, spewing burning hot debris on a suburb, and it happens more often than i might think as abc's jim avila tells us. >> reporter: canadian aviation authorities today confirmed it was raining hot metal yesterday. >> i picked it up. it was really hot. >> reporter: shards from air canada 777 engine that exploded on takeoff from toronto, falling thousands of feet, red hot missiles, damaging four cars. >> we had a failure of some time which resulted in the back end of the engine falling apart. debris is rare, but parts do occasionally fall from all over the plane, endangering those on the ground. this fuselage panel landed in a time mall parking lot. in 2000, 747 engine parts scattered sunbathers at an l.a. beach. in 2010, the world's biggest plane, a qantas a360, nearly crashed when its engine fell apart on takeoff. this must have made for a tough landing. a british plane lost the wheels on its landing gear somewhere over the english countryside. and fuselage break-ups can be scar, even deadly for those in the air too. a flight attendant was ejected when an aloha airlines 737 ripped wide open, sending debris flying. >> something comes out and it's hot, coming down from high altitude, you don't want to be in the way. >> reporter: amazingly, even when engines break up at the most critical time, take off -- i think we lost an engine. >> reporter: as i was recently shown in a boeing emulator, the good news for passengers is that by law these jets have enough power in the second engine to climb and return safely. >> very nice. that was a single engine landing! >> reporter: exactly what the air canada pilot performed yesterday with 318 lives on the line. jim avila, abc news, washington. and coming up right here, what if you saw this in your backyard? yes, that's a bear in the pool. right when you see them, they're yours, it's like, ah, it's part of me. it's me again. now that i'm retiring they all have plans for me. i'm excited. last season was the gulf's best tourism season in years. in florida we had more suntans... in alabama we had more beautiful blooms... in mississippi we had more good times... in louisiana we had more fun on the water. last season we broke all kinds of records on the gulf. this year we are out to do even better... and now is a great time to star our beatches are even more relaxing... the fishing's great. so pick your favorite spot on the gulf... and come on down. brought to you by bp and all of us who call the gulf home. begins with back pain and a choice. take advil, and maybe have to take up to four in a day. or take aleve, which can relieve pain all day with just two pills. good eye. mine was earned off vietnam in 1968. over the south pacific in 1943. i got mine in iraq, 2003. usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. because 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summitt and singer songwriter bob dylan there in his sunglasses eternally chill, even at the white house. and a personal note of gratitude if you'll allow me to brown university for the honorary doctorate they gave me this weekend. it was wonderful to be among all those, including civil rights hero john lewis, a ground-breaking biochemist and actress viola davis. my degree was presented in latin so i now know what caesar would have called it, world news in latin. princess diana, the duchess kate, and what his mother would have thought his new bride. an abc news exclusive. like somebody had set a bag of hot charcoal on my neck. i had no idea it came from chickenpox. it's something you never want to encounter. for more of the inside story, visit shinglesinfo.com holding down the fort while you're out catching a movie. 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