berman. nice to have you. i m zoraida sambolin. up first, the shooting rampage in tucson, arizona, takes a dramatic step this morning. jared lee loughner now facing a lifetime in prison after pleading guilty to a shooting that killed six people and almost killed a former member of congress, gabrielle giffords. under the plea deal loughner will be sentenced to life in prison with no parole but will avoid the death penalty. the u.s. attorney prosecuting the case says loughner s mental state was a big factor in this decision. the doctors who have treated and observed mr. loughner since the shooting agree that he suffered from a severe mental illness. that is severe schizophrenia. at the time of the shooting and before the shooting. the fragility of his continued competency to stand trial was taken into account. we re live in tu san. we re used to seeing loughner s picture we just showed on the screen. you saw him in the courtroom yesterday. how did he look to you? report
it is scary in the end. stay tuned. we ll tell you exactly what s going op. good morning. welcome to early start. i m john berman. i m zoraida sambolin. 5:00 a.m. in the east. coming one a man who says he has been cured of hiv. dr. sanjay gupta talked to him. you ll hear about that later this hour. really remarkable. plus, brett favre couldn t stay retired after all. he s back in football taking a job you might not expect. we ll tell you all about it. stay tuned. you need to watch before he retires again. i think it s kind of exciting, actually. i wanted to ask you about that. we ll chat about it. first the latest presidential poll numbers are out this morning. they reveal president obama s ahead of mitt romney by six points. the brand-new nbc news/ wall street journal poll shows obama at 49% to romney s 43%. that s a three percentage point increase from just last month. cnn s political director mark preston joins us now from washington, d.c. nice to have you with
that. that is very bold. very bold. can t wait to share the ending with you. good morning. welcome to early start. i m zoraida sambolin. i m john berman. this morning mitt romney is in ohio. so is bobby jindal and jeb bush. parade? coincidence? it is sort of a parade. all about the veepstakes. also the key state of ohio. more coming up. also nelson mandela s 94th birthday. we ll hear from former president clinton who just visited with the icon in a cnn exclusive. that s coming up. first, zoraidzoraida, the b story affecting so much of the country, the weather and the devastating drought conditions that have turned half of the u.s. into a disaster zone. the department of agriculture is declaring natural disasters in 1,000 counties across 26 states. blistering temperatures are making conditions even worse. across the midwest temperatures have topped more than 100 degrees. and heat advisories are reaching up into the mid-atlantic regions. the bone dry conditions
for you. good morning to you, welcome to early start on this monday morning. i m zoraida sambolin. and i m ashlee. it s the kind of heat that makes it hard to breathe and it is still threatening millions of americans all the way from the midwest to the northeast this morning. about 16 people have now died from this heat since thursday when triple-digit temperatures unleashed killer storms that have now left millions of people without power this morning. it s incredible, but look how many states are now dealing with miserable conditions in ohio, 425,000 people are now without power. that s as of 10:00 p.m. last night. it s the same story in virginia and maryland, where hundreds of thousands of people are just waiting for the power to come back on. just a whiff of ac in these extraordinary temperatures. the problem there doesn t seem to be much of a let-up in sight. 20 states are under heat advisory warnings. and now a state of emergency has been declared by the gove
championship. lebron james. the whole team. lebron james. doesn t everyone just think lebron james is the heat? good morning, everyone. nice to have you with us on this very, very early start. i m ashleigh banfield. i m zoraida sambolin. let s get started here. let s start with the developing news this morning out of egypt about the health of former president hosni mubarak. we re getting conflicting reports about his actual condition. a state news agency is reporting the 84-year-old is clinically dead. but his lawyer says that he is in a coma. the military says mubarak s condition is critical. but that he is, indeed, still alive. all this confusion coming at a very critical time for egypt. thousands gathering overnight in cairo s tahrir square to protest the military leaders who were supposed to oversee the transition to democracy. instead, they are grabbing more power. ivan watson is live in cairo. ivan, what is the latest on mubarak s condition? reporter: the late