thanks so much. just hours from now, eight presidential candidates will square off in tampa, florida. rick perry the front-runner and also the main target of his fellow republicans. and perry may have made the bull s-eye even bigger by attacking social security, a program considered sacred by millions of older americans. jim accosta is in tampa. and let s begin with word of a new endorsement we re hearing about this morning. reporter: that s right. if mitt romney was looking for a spark to help his campaign, he may have gotten it this morning. former minnesota governor tim pawlenty has announced that he is getting behind the former massachusetts governor. so that is good news for mitt romney. but this debate comes this evening, kyra, as a new cnn/orc poll shows that there is a big lead for rick perry. the race is basically boiling down to rick perry and whoever can keep up. texas governor rick perry has ditched his cowboy boots for his running shoes, staying far ahead of th
hello, everyone. i m fredricka whitfield. breaking news we re covering now. new developments this hour from the conflict in libya. we re working to confirm several reports that one of the sons of toppled leader moammar gadhafi has left libya and may have surfaced in another country. live now from kabul, afghanistan, our senior international correspondent nic robertson. nic, you know that saadi gadhafi may have left. you apparently know him personally, you ve had e-mail exchanges, et cetera. what are you learning about his where abouts? reporter: what we know from the minister of justice and ministerial spokesman as well is that saaad gadhafi has crossed into niger. they say he was allowed into the country for humanitarian reasons. niger is to the south of libya across part of the sahara desert. we do know and i do know from talking to saadi gadhafi last weekend, exactly a week ago today, that he has split essentially with his family, with his father and with his brother. it
bring significant rainfall to the state of texas. we re looking at extreme to exceptional drought. right now, no rain, there are light showers and thunderstorms across portions of the central plains but if you look at the satellite picture, over austin, san antonio, here is the forecast and unfortunately, very warm temperatures in the 90s, that means any water will evaporate and we re expecting those temperatures to rise, upper 90s, just shy of 100 degrees for austin, texas on sunday, and also poor air quality because of all the smoke flying around. alisyn: my gosh, look at those temperatures. if only we could switch places with them and they could take our relentless rain. bill these fires, approaching catastrophic status, more than 3.5 million-acres have been scorched so far this year, that s more than 5000 square miles, an area about the size of connecticut. nearly 85 percent of texas under exceptional drought conditions, and 99 percent