celebrate. one of those attending this historic event is jim nicholson, the former u.s. ambassador. secretary nicholson good to have you here. a big moment but you re leaving soon to attend. well it s a big occasion. we are heading over there tonight and they ll be probably hundreds of thousands of people in the square, many of them from pole land where pope john paul the ii came from. he was the bishop of krakow when he what s elected pope. it s a very significant event in the church, the whole process and the fact this it s occurring. the time was waived. pope benedict the xvi waived the five-year limitation after the death of a person so that he could be considered for beatification, and of course on sunday is going to be beatified.
martha: it s an amazing story. looking at the pictures of pope john paul brings it all back. there are a couple of occasions that you witnessed right after you took your position to ambassador to the value can, one was right after september 11th and you said it was very striking in terms of the way he spoke about what needed to happen after that. i presented my credentials to him on 9-13-01, 48 hours after the events of 9/11 and our formal remarks were put aside and we had a conversation. the first thing we did was to say a prayer together in his summer castle, and we prayed for the victims and their families, and then he said to me, ambassador nicholson, we have to stop these people who are killing in the name of god, which was a very profound thing for the pope to say and it was very helpful to us in putting a coalition together to go into
liftoff. we do understand that president obama will still travel to cape canaveral today and he will tour an or bitter processing facility there. it is unclear if he will meet with the injured arizona congresswoman gabrielle giffords as we had mentioned earlier. we are waiting for a little bit of clarification on whether that meeting will happen. she of course is there, what a momentous thing it is that she was able to make it there for this. she will have to wait a few more days. her husband, markle deis the commander. their story is incredible also for people focusing on this story as well. you may have seen this incredible footage. we ve showed it to you over the past couple of days. a tornado touching down right near the campus of the university of alabama in tuscloosa. watch another piece of this. we are going to speak to him in just a minute.
martha: let s get a look at what is developing in america s newsroom. the head of apple is taking a medical leave of absence. steve jobs says he will remain coe and stay involved in all the major decisions ever the company but stay away from the day-to-day operations. we are waiting for more information on that. may 1st, a very big day for the vatican, pope benedict says he will beatify john paul the ii. officials in brazil having a lot of trouble reaching people there. many have died in the floods and thousands more have lost their homes. bill: more on that here at home. a powerful storm hammering the