we ll bring you all the highlights. good morning to you. happitry, it s october 28th. this is your a.m. wake-up call. i m carol costello in new york. you re waking up to some of the best news in recent memory. gdp up 2.5%, nearly double the rate of last quarter. we have gains on thursday, up 340 points. the dow is heading for its best month in 24 years. the broader s&p, october could close as the best month since 1974. cnn s erin burnett asked pete kenny for his take. are you optimistic. i am. the drivers that we ve been getting are positive, surprisingly positive given weakness in some of the sectors of the economy but also the eu, toe as you had mention there s a lot of work to be done, it still takes a lost risk off the table, particularly for the financials. on a day like today, you ve seen tremendous leadership by the financials, that s a good indicator that there s room left on this move up. right now european markets are all looking up. the ftse, the dax, all w
and pakistan. clinton just left libya. the visit there was the first by a cabinet-level official since the overthrow of moammar gadhafi. there are reports that turkish forces killed 15 militants in iraq. they were in pursuit of kurdish rebels. the fighters have waged a campaign for a separate state for several decades. france s president and first lady welcomed a baby girl wednesday night. a close family friend says she is doing well after giving birth to the first baby born to a sitting french president. nicolas sarkozy visited his wife and new daughter in a paris hospital a few hours after the girl was born. those are the headlines. i m zain vergee and world business today starts now. good morning, from cnn london, i m nina dos santos. and a very good afternoon from cnn hong kong, i m andrew stevens. welcome to world business today. the top stories this thursday, october 20th, you re looking at live pictures of crowds gathering in athens, constitution square
animals, including lions, bears, leopards and 18 endangered bengal tigers. officials say only a monkey has not been accounted for. the humane society lashed out at the governor for allowing a statewide ban for buying and selling exotic animals to expire in april. at the end of the day there will be legislation. officials say they had no choice but to kill the animals because of the danger they posed to the public. now, the man who owned those animals was released from prison just a few weeks ago. terry thompson served a year for possessing illegal firearms. he and his estranged wife kept the animals in cages on a 73-acre private reserve. friends say they were animal lovers but he, thompson, had been convicted of animal cruelty. officials have not said what might have caused him to kill himself. secretary of state hillary clinton is in kabul, after after this morning for talks with afghan president and other top officials there. she s expected to assure president karzai
he was arrested wednesday after turning out what to be fake explosives from undercover officials. amanda knox s attorneys begin closing arguments today. the american student was convicted of killing her roommate, meredith kircher. world business today starts now. good morning from cnn london, i m charles hodson. and good afternoon from cnn hong kong, i m andrew stevens. welcome to world business today. the top stories this thursday, september 29th. vote yes to say the euro. angela merkel takes the eu rescue package to the german parliament. while politicians rangel over the future, normal people are faced with radical new cuts. and can the kindle fire set the tablet market ablaze. okay. we ll start with the markets. we ll start with the asian markets today. a bit of a change here. we want to show you these pictures straight away. the hang seng index was closed for trading today. this is the reason. this is the result of typhoon nesat. it brought with it pr
a distant second is rick perry, who spent a lot of time down there in florida, and pundits thought he would be the one to win that straw poll result. the other one that came out this weekend, michigan, and mitt romney is at the top. no surprise here. listen, romney was born in michigan. his father a former governor there. very popular. romney won the primary there back in 2008. he was expected to win. but perry did go up to michigan and campaign and he was a distant second. for perry, i think a lot of people are saying that those uneven debate performances, especially last week and the attacks on rick perry over his stance on illegal immigration, may be taking a toll. one other thing from the debates or from the straw polls, michele bachmann nowhere to be seen near the top. remember she won the straw poll in iowa in august. but she finished very low down in both of these straw polls. one thing about those, they are important. they are a gauge or a test or a barometer of a cam