airport security here in the united states for a possible future terrorist attack. they were taken into custody after arriving in amsterdam on a united flight out of chicago. officials say that suspicious items were found in one of the suspect s checked bags but that the luggage wasn t with them but rather on a different plane. homeland security correspondent jeanne meserve has been working this story from the very beginning. she joins us live this morning from washington. what s the latest, jeanne? kiran, the two men have been identified by a u.s. law enforcement official. the men are still in custody in amsterdam and according to dutch prosecutors are still being questioned. a spokesman for those dutch prosecutors would not say if they have been formally arrested or charged with any crime. the fear expressed by u.s. authorities is that they may have been testing aviation security. the department of homeland security says in a statement, suspicious items were located in c
way. reporter: absolutely, kiran. a lot of anxiety all across the country reflected in this new nbc/ wall street journal poll that has really bad numbers for the president. they say they don t govern by polls but they can hardly be ignored. finding the president s approval rating at 4 had 7%, disapproval at 48%. more worrisome for this white house perhaps is that 6 in 10 americans, including 83% of those all important independent voters that went with barack obama in 2008, 6 in 10 now saying that they are only somewhat or not confident that the president has the policies to improve the economic situation. that s why once again the president was here at the white house trying to deal with this issue. so while we have fought back from the worst of this recession, we ve still got a lot of work to do. we ve still got a long way to go. and i m more determined than ever to do every single thing we can to hasten our economic recovery and get our people back to work. that s why
intact enabling four other passengers to survive the crash. rescuers were kept at bay for 12 critical hours. ted stevens body is back home this morning, the longest serving republican in u.s. senate history being remembered as the man who literally put alaska on the map. casey wian is live in anchorage for us this morning with the very latest. reporter: good morning, john. we re at the hospital in anchorage where those four su vifrs of that horrific plane crash have been taken. we have new information about their condition. sean o keefe, the former nasa administrator, one of the survivors, is listed in critical condition this morning. his teenage son, kevin o keefe, is in serious condition. and another passenger, jim morhard, also listed in serious condition. there was a young 13-year-old, minor, male, whose condition has not been disclosed. his father who s been of the victims who died in that crash. the crash that they survived, one of the pilots that we spoke with yester
1052 from pittsburgh pulled up at the gate yesterday afternoon. the passenger refused and continued removing his luggage from an overhead bin. that luggage accidentally struck the flight attendant. legislator demanded an apology, the passenger declined using a not-very-nice four-letter word. legislator then turned on the public address system and addressed the message to the passenger and particularly the man who declined to hit. he enacted the inflatable slide, grabbed a few beers from the alley and slid out of his career as a flight attendant, got in his car at jfk and drove home but he s now facing two felony charges, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief. theoretically that could land him in prison for seven years. safe to say that mr. legislator is no longer presenting a flight risk. from what we understand, he really did enjoy the perks of working for an airline. we know he loved the free travel. i guess the beer every once in a while. his famyspace page says i
year. so far across the south and the eastern part of the united states, we couple the heat and humidity, there s no escaping it. reporter: how hot is it? yesterday, the asphalt tripped at 160. reporter: temperatures that can scald in a meat of seconds. there s no shade. no place to hide. reporter: whether you work or play in the sun there s no escape. across much of the country, temperatures and heat indexes shot well into the triple digits. with the oil, you know it s hot. reporter: pushing people and power grids to the limit. in arkansas, officials say the brutal heat buckled concrete and firefighters were busy with more than a dozen wildfires. it s pitiful. it s hard on us. hard on the grass. it s just too hot. reporter: water lines burst in tulsa. and in the nation s capital, officials cut the speed of commuter trains in fear that the metal tracks might bend. everywhere, the sick and elderly are vulnerable. keeping the ac cranking, literally a meat of l