positioned himself very much as the grown-up in the room, the reasonable one, something that the president s advisors thought would help him appeal to the independent voters that he needs if he s going to win relection next year. we re seeing a very different tact now. a very aggressive tact, especially after the president saw dismal approval ratings following that bruising debt ceiling battle. we ve seen the president taking his message to the home turf, as you mentioned, of his rivals and calling them out by name. we saw that this past week when he went to the brent spence bridge which is the bridge spanning the home states of house speaker john boehner and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell. here s what he said. the bridge behind us just happens to connect the state that s home to the speaker of the house with with the home state of the republican leader in the senate. now that s just a coincidence. it s purely accidental that that happened. but part of the reason
a week after irene hit the east coast, the central gulf coast is getting ready for storm with flooding rains. louisiana governor bobby jindal already declared a state of emergency. oil companies are pulling workers off the rigs in the gulf. some places including new orleans could get as much as 20 inches of rain. texas could really use some of that rain from the tropical system. it doesn t look promising. 14 big wildfires are burning in that state. just one of them west of dallas. firefighters are finally making some progress. they ve got about the fire half contained or so. we can do all the work by air we want, but as my instructors told me a long time ago, it s boots on the ground that gets it taken care of. employers added no jobs during august. the unemployment rate is unchanged at 9.1%. a couple things we should point out. the report was distorted because it counted thousands of verizon workers who went on strike but that were now back on the job. the numbers also i
ethnic kurds were holding a peace rally, when dozens of young men en masse apparently hijacked that rally. this set off a confrontation with police and kurds are the minority and they ve been out on the streets protesting because many are angry the turkish military have been attacking their villages. president obama is moving his big speech on jobs from next wednesday to next thursday night. john boehner turned down the president s request to address congress wednesday. why? it would be hard. winds whipping 25 miles per hour are spreading west of dallas ft. worth. some 39 homes have been destroyed. 125 families are being forced out of their homes and we have just learned some evacuation orders have been lifted with at least half the fire now contained. it s ugly. it s real ugly. it keeps flaring up, the wind is crazy. the smoke was so see. you had to crawl through it as low as you could in your truck. check this out a fire in oklahoma city is threatening to jump inter
days. last night they found him. gentleman vars crittendon is accused of killing a mother of four in atlanta. the fbi arrested crittendon before he boarded a red-eye flight from orange county, california to atlanta. he was in the news about two years ago when he played for the washington wizards. he and a teammate pulled guns on each other in the locker room. the power is still out for about five million customers courtesy of irene. today a white house team will visit some of the hardest-hit areas, including the state of vermont. floodwaters were still cresting there late last night. waters have damaged more than 200,000 in their communities. intense flooding wrecked the town of pratsville in the new york skill mountains. it took crews four trips and a helicopter to get a man out. a reporter told cnn that she can t get out of prattsville now. we ll give you an idea of the flooding so you understand why we were trapped here. if you can follow me over here. can you see wher
good morning. we begin with lingering misery caused by hurricane irene. you re looking at live pictures now from patterson, new jersey, where crews are actually going door-to-door rescuing people from their homes. that water, by the way, coming from the passaic river is supposed to crest today at its highest level since 1903. a pretty eye-catching image of how massive the storm was. this is coming to us from nasa. it s an animated satellite of irene as it s churning up the eastern seaboard like a buzz saw. at last check, 5 million people are still without power. throughout the morning, the death toll has been jumping as well. 38 people are now confirmed dead in 11 states and it could get even higher. three navy ships off the coast of new york to help with search and rescue missions and reps from the obama administration are going to fan out across three of the hardest hit states, virginia, north carolina, and vermont. let s go ahead and start there where floodwaters have dest