happy birthday, sir. that s right. you re stealing my thunder here, gentlemen. one of america s heroes hit another milestone, talking about mel whitfield, we consider him part of the family here, his daughter happens to be our own news anchor, fredricka whitfield whose chair i am sitting in. in his hay day, he was called marvelous mel. won medals in the korean war, spent nights training on military runways in the army air force where he was a gunner on 27 combat missions. he was the first ever active duty soldier to win gold at the olympics. after leaving the army, he spent a career as a diplomat for the state department. mel whitfield turned 89 on friday. fredricka, mel, congratulations. happy birthday! the gridlock in washington not just effecting government workers. coming up, why fishermen worry they may not be able to make the big catch.
department he works for. plus, it s on track to become the strongest storm the region has ever seen. a monster cyclone is taking aim at india s eastern coast, and it s expected to hit in about an hour. a lot happening on capitol hill right now. the senate just convened. the house started at 9:30 in the hopes of ending the government shutdown and prevent a possible debt default. but nothing is expected to happen today, because house members are planning to go back to their districts, though the gop leadership will remain in town. but there s not much time left. october 17th is next week. that s when we hit the debt ceiling. and the government will run out of money to pay its own bills. athena jones is live on capitol hill for us. athena, the talking points seem to seem the same. it looked like they were making progress, but that doesn t seem to be the case anymore. what s going on? reporter: hi, miguel. well, it doesn t look like it s the case right now in terms of leg
0 they split the the stadium right down the middle, and you have fans, they re jostling, going right each other on the 50 yard line. you want to be away from that a little bit, you know? that s firsthand knowledge. by the way, try the fried barbecue peanut butter and jelly sandwiches next time. oh, i will pass on that! no wonder he has so much energy this morning. carlos diaz, thank you very much. that ll do it for us today. thank you so much for being here. stay right here. newsroom continues with miguel marquez. miguel, how are you? very good. how are you? very well. i m mariguel in for fredrick. day 12 in the shutdown. on the capitol hill, the house shifted from the house to the senate back to the house. we re live straight ahead. a third new york city police officer is now being investigated in connection with the motorcycle road rage incident that ended with a violent attack of an suv driver. and you won t believe which department he works for. plus, it
to wait and see. the prosecution has not completed its cross-examination. captions by vitac www.vitac.com in the western u.s. this hour firefighters are up against some of the worst conditions possible as they battle a rash of wildfires. red flag warnings are up in parts of seven states. that means weather conditions, mainly high heat, low humidity and strong winds pose an extreme fire risk. our thelma gutierrez has had to move because of the danger in the area where she has a live report coming in a few moments from now. the fbi says no explosives were found on a us airways plane after a bomb scare. the plane was on its way from dayton, ohio, to washington s reagan national airport. authorities tell us that right before the plane landed, reagan national was told to hold the flight. agents interviewed the passengers and a bomb squad checked out the plane. the fbi says a person who made the threat at the dayton airport is now in custody and may have mental problems.