plus, a young woman who pulls a car off of her father saving his life. like a scene out of superman. you have to see this. pretty incredible. up first, the golden girls. of course, everyone still talking about the magical night for the u.s. women s gymnastics team. they routed the russians and everyone else on their way to the gold medal in the team competition. take a look, folks. michael phelps cementing his legacy. he is now the most decorated olympian of all time. winning his record breaking 19th medal and adding another gold just for fun to his all-time mark. amanda davies is live in london. amanda, the debate is raging this morning. also here, mr. john berman and i have been debating this. is michael phelps the best olympian ever? reporter: morning. i ll tell you, there s no debate about the fact it was stars and stripes all the way here at the olympics last night. but it s a really difficult question to answer that. it is the topic of conversation across breakfast
morning pressing the candidate. shark attack. cape cod on alert this morning. a man bitten on both legs just 75 feet from shore. onlookers say a large dorsal fin broke the surface just before. plus this. the drought is spreading across the midwest. there is no rain in the forecast, and it is hot. just how bad will the corn crop be? farmers won t know until they harvest the corn. but what is certain, food prices are rising for you. cnn newsroom starts right now. and good morning. thank you for joining us. it carol costello. we begin with a teenaged chinese supergirl who at age 16 swam at such an incredible speed some suspect she cheated. she won gold in the 400 meter. she swam the last 50 meters or 164 feet faster than american ryan lochte s time in the men s competition. amazing feat, considering according to the bbc that she is 5 6 and 141 pounds, and lochte is 6 1 and 194 pounds. john leonard, the director of the world s swimming coaches calls the win disturbing a
an interesting outcome. this may be good news. plus, a school district that pays struggling students to go to summer school. talk about outrage. we re going to chat about that this morning. we re going to begin with the olympics and the night that was filled with so much promise and ended in so much disappointment for the u.s. men s gymnastics team after finishing first in the trials, they entered the finals last night as favorites. but a fall on the floor, two costly errors in the pommel horse and a fall on the vault undid team usa. halfway through six rotations they were in last place. last. but they rallied at the last minute to finish in fifth place. better, but still not great. amanda davies joins us from london. they were talking so big going into the finals. what happened? i think the mood in london at the olympic park today probably reflects the mood of the u.s. men s gymnastics team. gray and gloomy is the best way to sum it up. they were hotly tipped for a
investigated. we know it was under a car and that s about it. we ll continue to follow this for more information on that. a wild day in london from extreme disappoint to a golden moment for an american teenager, we start though with a 16-year-old chinese swimmer who did one lap faster than ryan lochte. it s raising doping suspicions. atika schubert is live in london. reporter: it was an incredible performance, she basically won at the 400 meter individual medley with stunning speed. she was literally for the last 50 meters faster than the u.s. gold winner in the same event, ryan lochte for the mens. as you can imagine, a lot of speculation into possible doping. here s what the international olympic committee had to say about it. so the sudden rise in the performance or a surprise win be primarily suspected for being acheat, sport is a danger for sure because it partially ruins the charm of competitive sport if a surprise win is surrounded by suspicions and question marks.
good evening, everyone. i m erin burnett. outfront tonight, the big scare. with just four days in the congress high tails it out of washingt washington, there was plenty of talk about the looming consequences of the looming fiscal cliff. we re talking about tax cuts expiring for everyone automatically, payroll taxes going up, emergency unemployment benefits ending and, of course, the $1.2 trillion in so-called sequestration cuts. about half of that sum is going to come from defense. the obligation of the commander in chief is to act like the commander in chief, and that would be to prevent these cuts, which in the words of his own secretary of defense, would devastate our national security. interesting, acting like a commander in chief, because a lot of the previous commanders in chief have done a lot more than barack obama may be about to do. we ve certainly been here before. former president ronald reagan during his second term cut defense spending by about 10%. the c