boot camp for suri? overnight reports that katie holmes didn t want her 6-year-old daughter in an intense religious training program. so was scientology to blame for her split with tom cruise? newsroom begins right now. and good morning to you. i m carol costello. thank you so much for being with us today. we begin this hour with the western wildfires, growing in size and claiming more lives. so far, 1.9 million acres have burned. that s equivalent to an incredible 3,000 square miles. to give you an idea of just how huge that is, it s roughly the size of delaware and rhode island combined. and then there s the human toll. two crew members are confirmed dead in the weekend crash of an air tanker in south dakota. cnn affiliates say two other firefighters aboard that c-130 were also killed. one family member spoke to wbtv just before the doomed flight. it s very exciting. i mean, you know, adrenalin is flowing. we re ready to go. hopefully when we get there, we ll be ready
mayberry. griffith played a single bad who kept the peace and doled out advice in a country town. in the 1980s he found fame again in the courtroom drama matlock. he was a member of the tv and christian music hall of fame. want to bring in our own larry king who joins us by phone who knows mr. griffith well. you interviewed him several times. give us your impressions, your sense of who he was. well, suzanne, he was an incredible person. not only as a talent but as a friend and as an individual. he was always kind and sweet and he was an underrated performer in my opinion. he did a movie called a face in the crowd in which he played a i guess it was sort of a controlling media figure who played sort of a hit who suddenly becomes a famous american, influencing politics and everything has and his comeuppance at the end. he got an academy award nomination. he was bbrilliant. he did a play call eed no time for sergeants which was turned into a film, a great theatrical co
violently mauled by two chimps in south africa. ahead, the horrifying details of the attack. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. these numbers just coming in. let s go to the battle for the white house. a brand new cnn o.r.c. poll is just being released right now. take a look at just how tight the race is. among registered voters nationally, nationally. 49% say they are for president obama versus 46% for mitt romney. that s with a 2.5% samplining err error. despite the landmark ruling, there s been no change in the number for either candidate since the last poll that came out in may. look at this, when it comes to voters in the so-called battleground states, about 15 of them, the numbers aren t so close. let s go straight to cnn s joe johns. he s breaking the numbers for us. he s in des moines, iowa, right now. tell our viewers what we re seeing, joe. reporter: wolf, there s certainly a lot more to this than meets the eye. the main takeaway is mitt romney is r
jerry sandusky s child rape accusations. one from the university s president says dealing with the sex abuse within the school was, quote, humane. it s a cnn exclusive. plus return to power. the political party that ruled mexico for 70 years is back. you re looking at mexico s projected new president, pena nieto. on his agenda reduce the violence from drug cartels that seem to rule the country, but can he do it? a rematch is on or is it? this photo finish was too close to call so these two runners are duking it out tonight fighting for that olympic dream but now reports suggest one of them might not run. newsroom begins right now. and good morning to you. i m carol costello. thank you so much for joining us on this hot monday. we do begin this hour with the brutal heat smothering millions of americans. for many of you, it is downright dangerous. a massive weekend storm toppled power lines from indiana to maryland. this morning nearly 2 million people still have no way
gripping a huge part of the country right now. hot and hotter. that s what the national weather service says that we can expect for the next several days, and you need it know this. at least 16 states under heat advisories or warnings today. adding to the misery, nearly 2 million people without electricity in the d.c. area and surrounding states. deadly storms battered that area over the weekend killing at least 16 people. our brian todd is outside in that heat in the d.c. suburb of wheaton, maryland. brian, what s the biggest problems you re seeing right now? reporter: right now the rush hour is officially over, but really it s not over. one of the biggest problems in this area is traffic snarl. hundreds of traffic lights are out. there s one over here on randolph road just a couple hundred yards up from us now where they are trying to get people through that light. people say treat this like a four-way stop. every stop around here treat it like a four-way stop. this one j