tie. doesn t change the delegate count. mitt romney saying in his statement this, the results from the iowa caucus revealed a virtual tie. i would like to thank the iowa republican party for their careful attention to the caucus process. people might want to talk about that a little bit and recognize rick santorum for his strong performance in the state. great start to defeating president obama in iowa and else where in the general election. he leaves out a big thing which is, really, is he 34 points behind rick santorum and does it matter? let s get to shannon travis in des moines this morning and also bring in our panelists. let s start at the far end this morning. roland martin, finally, has joined us here. ron brownstein back with us, again. shannon, update us here on what happened and what the implications could be. this is a bombshell. let s say that. this was already, soledad, the closest vote in iowa caucus history and mitt romney, we thought he claimed iowa and the
numbers that we were hoping to see and hopefully will continue. so new jobless claims plunged to 352,000 last week. that s a huge drop. down by 50,000. this demonstrates there are fewer layoffs. however, jobless claims can be a little volatile. for example, we saw claims jump a few weeks ago because of the temporary holiday workers that were laid off. and also the prior week was revised a little bit higher, not much. just by about 3,000. it did go above 400,000. we need to stay below that in order to associate that with actual job creation. today s report is good news. we need to see it continue in the long term. all right. felecia, thanks so much. let s get to politics now. we begin in iowa. yes, iowa. just when you thought it was a done deal. well, the des moines register is reporting the iowa caucuses were a virtual tie, that rick santorum actually ended up with a 34 vote advantage and that romney did not win. so now we re being told that in about 15 minutes we re goin
their boat tipping over after it ran aground off of one of italy s islands. this is not how you re supposed to see the sunset from a cruise ship. look at those pictures. they are unbelievable. three people are dead. among more than 4,000 who were onboard that ship, and here is what authorities are saying. they say 43 to 70 people could still be missing. an estimated 16 americans, 126 were on the cruise, but none of them are reported hurt. the italian captain is under arrest right now. he could be charged with manslaughter and abandoning ship. the ship is owned by carnival. the biggest cruise line in the world based in miami. cnn spoke with one of the americans who had to flee the ship, army colonel vivian shafer on an r&r leave. we had just been on only a few hours. we didn t even have the safety brief yet. it was really bizarre. we had finished dinner and we were at the magic show. we thought it was really sort of a bizarre trick to have the curtains all be sideways and th
a number of people. this was after a football game in texas. you see the effort going on there to try to stop this runaway cart. they finally did. questions this morning about why it was going on its own in the first place. also, many of you need to be prepping for a major winter storm that s expected to drop up to 15 inches of snow. our reynolds wolf is all over this. he ll be along in a moment. it started as shock and awe nearly nine years ago. it s ended with sand and dust on a desert highway headed into kuwait. the last convoy of u.s. troops has left iraq. watch. [ horn ] a much different scene from the shock and awe that we saw of nine years ago almost. the pictures from overnight, cover of darkness going through the middle of the desert. about 500 u.s. service members from ft. hood, texas, traveling. about 110 military vehicles made a five-hour nighttime trip from camp adder into kuwait. the route was cleared of any roadside bombs by the first elements of the conv
speaker john boehner accuses the senate of kicking the can down the road and says he s holding out for a full year extension. the house takes up the senate bill tomorrow. a major snowstorm is brewing in the southwest. travel will become dangerous if not impossible across much of the region tomorrow. texas and oklahoma are expecting up to 15 inches of snow. so we begin our political hour with some key endorsements for republican presidential candidate mitt romney. the latest comes from former gop presidential nominee bob dole. dole announced his choice in an advertisement in today s des moines register. he says he s the best candidate suited to beat president obama in 2012. dole s public backing comes a day after the des moines paper announced its support for romney. the state s largest newspaper says the former massachusetts governor is the most qualified candidate competing in the caucuses. the conservative christian group the family leader is expected to release its e