monster. reporter: late tuesday, a new round of tornadoes ripped through the heartland. this massive twister tore through kansas, leaving downed trees and power lines in its wake. and shawn casey, storm watcher, reported live on cnn there. shawn, you are chasing the tornado right now. what s going on? this is my first interview while looking at a tornado. so we were hoping it will come up on our road and we will drive right up to the center. reporter: just one day before, casey s team captured rare and frightening video of a tornado in smith county, kansas. supercell thunderstorms, damaging winds and hail threaten a number of states from texas to new england today. in the plains, strong damaging tornadoes are possible. an area like oklahoma, already
0 newlyweds ever. enjoy the rest of the honeymoon. i m christine romans. i m john berman. cnn newsroom with carol costello begins right now. happening now in the newsroom wild weather. we re watching a tornado, rain wrapped. oklahoma in the bull s-eye again. and heat wave. ory 100 degrees. also, trapped in a mexican prison. an american mom in florida accused of drug smuggling. and this is a pattern, and we love each other. innocent or framed by mexican police? plus, oh, no, beyonce. a fan dares to slap her there. don t mess with queen b. and live in the cnn newsroom. good morning, thank you so much for being with me. i m carol cost tello. this morning s top story may be lurking in the skies above you. severe weather bearing down on half of the country. and there is concern, especially in the nation s midsection. tornado season spun from quiet to catastrophic since last week. a tornado ripping across central kansas last night. one of seven recorded across the state
we don t want to intercept a tornado with any major flying debris or flying projectiles and this is going through open farmland. didn t have a lot of debris but grass, rocks, dirt and that was about the gist of what was inside the tornado. we have a 16,000-pound tank developed by shawn casey and he s an imax filmmaker. we have flaps and spikes on the vehicle that go in to the earth a little over three feet that help keep us anchored and planted. so the vehicle we re chasing in is designed to intercept tornadoes up to ef-4 strength. as long as they re in open country and little in the way of debris inside that vortex. the tornado, moore, oklahoma, an ef-5. i have to tell you, brandon, a lot of people look at the video. they hear what you re doing and say, you know what? you re crazy. what do you ato these folks? well, i ve been very
else but himself. listen to this. a couple days after that speech and that rally, chicago s board of education voted to close dozens of schools and transfer thousands of students, but his school is one of four that received last minute reprieves and will stay open. and he joins us live from chicago. this is very impressive, shawn. how do you feel about that? how did you decide to get involved and speak so directly to the mayor? well, i got involved by when i first heard about the school closing, which is like like when i was at school, my teacher asked me did i want to speak, i said i would speak to fight for my school. did you prepare a speech, did you practice it, did you write it? tell us how you came into the rally? i came into the rally, i didn t know i was going to
0 that benchmark. that s it for the lead. i m jake tapper. i ll turn you over to wolf blitzer right next door in the situation room. take it away. thanks very much. happening now, president obama and governor chris christie are together again on the jersey shore and they both have something to gain from this visit. house lawmakers now investigating the attorney general eric holder and whether he lied to congress. plus, a truck and a train collide and the resulting derailment sparks a possible hazmat crisis. i m wolf blitzer. you re in the situation room. they were first brought together by superstorm sandy last october. today the president and the new jersey governor both teamed up once again seeing the results of billions of dollars in federal disaster aid and rekindling what you could call their bromance. our chief white house correspondent jessica yellin travels with the president today to new jersey. she is joining us now live. jessica, how did it go? reporter: wolf, th