nevada. appreciate it. here is kyra phillips with cnn. >> the president plans to give an unusually personal speech about his religious faith, talking about the way he praise, studies scripture and some other spiritual disciplines that impact his daily life. so we're going to go ahead and listen in. at a time, by the way, saying more and more americans still believe that he is a muslim. but as you know, he has proclaimed he is a christian and he is going to share a story of his personal faith this morning. >> i want to begin by just saying a word to mark kelly who is here. we have been praying for mark's wife, gabby giffords, for many days now, but i want gabby and mark and their entire family to know that we are with them for the long haul, and god is with them for the long haul. and even as we pray -- even as we pray for gabby in the aftermath of a tragedy here at home, we're also mindful of the violence that we're now seeing in the middle east and we pray that the violence in egypt will end and that the rights and aspirations of the egyptian people will be realized, and that a better day will dawn over egypt and throughout the world. for almost 60 years, going back to president eisenhower, this gathering has been attended by our president. it's a tradition that i'm proud to uphold, not only as a fellow believer, but as an elected leader whose entry into public service was actually through the church. this may come as a surprise. as some of you know, i did not come from a particularly religious family. my father, who i barely knew, i only met once for a month in my entire life, was said to be a nonbeliever throughout his life. my mother, whose parents were baptist and methodist grew up with a certain concept tichl about organized religion and only took me to church on easter and christmas, sometimes. and, yet, my mother was also one of the most spiritual people that i ever knew. she was somebody who was instinctively guided by the golden rule and who nagged me constantly about the home-spun values of her kansas upbringing. values like honesty and hard work and kindness and fair play. and it's because of her that i came to understand the equal worth of all men and all women. the imperatives of an ethical life and the necessity to act on your beliefs and because of her arp sense and guidance that despite the absence of a religious formal upbringing, my earlierest inspirations for a life of service ended up being the faith leaders of the civil rights movement. there was, of course, martin luther king and the baptist leaders, the ways in which they helped those who had been subjected to make a way out of no way. and transform a nation through the force of love. but there are also catholic leaders like father theodore hessberg and jewish leaders like rabbi abraham and muslim and hindu leaders and called to fix what was broken in our world. a call rooted in faith is what led me, just a few years out of college, to sign up as a community organizer for a group of churches on the south side of chicago and it was through that experience, working with pastors and laypeople, trying to heal the wounds of hurting neighborhoods, that i came to know jesus christ for myself and embrace him as my lord and savior. now that was over 20 years ago. like all of us, my faith journey has had its twists and turns. it hasn't always been a straight line. i have thanked god for the joys of parenthood and michelle's willingness to put up with me. in the wake of failures and disappointments, i've questioned what god had in store for me and been reminded that god's plans for us may not always match our own short-sided desires, and let me tell you, these past two years, they have deepened my faith. the presidency has a funny way of making a person feel the need to pray. abe lincoln said, as many of you know, i have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that i had no place else to go. unfortunately, i'm not alone in my prayers. pastor friends like joel hunter and t.d. jaks come over the oval office every once in a while to pray with me and pray for the nation. the chapel at camp david has provided consistent respite and fellowship. the director of our faith-based and neighborhood partnerships office, joshua dubau, a young minister himself, he starts my morning off with medicinetatita from scripture. most of all i've gone friends around the country, some who i know and some i don't know, but i know they are friends who are out there praying for me. one is a friend name kay wilson. in our family, we call her ma macay. she happens to be malia and sasha's godmother and she has organized prayer circles for me all around the country. she started small with her own bible study group, but once i started running for president and she heard what they were saying about me on cable, she felt the need to pray harder. by the time i was elected president, she says, i just couldn't keep up on my own! i was having to pray eight, nine times a day just for you! so she enlisted help from around the country. it's also comforting to know the people are praying for you who don't always agree with you. tom coburn, for example, is here. he is not only a dear friend, but also a brother in christ. we came into the senate at the same time. even though we are on opposite sides of a whole bunch of issues, part of what has bound us together as a shared faith, our recognition that we pray to and serve the same god. and i keep praying that god will show him the light and he will vote with me once in a while. it's going to happen, tom. a ray of light is going to beam do down. my christian faith then has been a sustain is force for me over these last few years. all the more so when michelle and i hear our faith questioned from time to time. we are reminded that, ultimately, what matters is not what other people say about us, but whether we're being true to our conscience and true to our god. seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. as i travel across the country, folks often ask me what is it that i pray for? like most of you, my prayers sometimes are general, lord, give me the strength to meet the challenges of my office. sometimes, they are specific. lord, give me patience as i watch malia go to her first dance. where there will be boys. lord, have that skirt get longer as she travels to that dance. but while i petition god for a whole range of things, there are a few common themes that do recur. the first category of prayer comes out of the urgency of the old testament prophets and the gospel itself. i pray for my ability to help those who are struggling. christian tradition teaches that one day, the world will be turned right side up and everything will return as it should be, but until that day, we're called to work on behalf of a god that shows justice and mercy and compassion to the most vulnerable. we have seen a lot of hardship these past two years. and not a day passes when i don't get a letter from somebody or meet someone who is out of work or lost their home or without health care. randall told about his father. that's a story that a whole lot of americans have gone through over these past couple of years. sometimes, i can't help right away, but sometimes what i can do to try to improve the economy or to curb foreclosures or to help deal with the health care system, sometimes it seems so distant and so remote, so profoundly inadequate to the enormity of the need, and it is my faith then that biblical injunction to serve the least of these that keeps me going and that keeps me from being overwhelmed. it's faith that reminds me that despite being just one very imperfect man, i can still help whoever i can, however i can, wherever i can, for as long as i can. and that, somehow, god will buttress these efforts. it also helps to know that none of us are alone in answering this call. it's been taken up each and every day by so many of you. back home, your churches, your temples and synagogues, your fellow congragants, so many great groups across this country graet country of ours. i came upon a group recently called charity water. a group that supports clean water projects overseas. this is a project that was started by a former nightclub promoter named scott harrison who grew weary of living only for himself and feeling like he wasn't following christ as well as he should. and because of scott's good work, charity water has helped 1.7 million people get access to clean water. in the next ten years, he plans to make clean water accessible to a hundred million more. that's the kind of promoting we need more of and that is the kind of faith that moves mountains. there are stories like that scattered across this room of people tag upon themselves to make a difference. now, sometimes faith groups can do the work of caring for the least of these on their own. sometimes, they need a partner. whether it's in business or government, and that is why my administration has taken a fresh look at the way we organize with faith groups, the way we work with faith groups through our office of faith-based and neighborhood partnerships and through that office, we're expanding the way faith groups can partner with our government. we're helping them feed more kids who otherwise would go hungry. we're helping fatherhood groups get dads the support they need to be there for their children. we're working with nonprofits to improve the lives of people around the world and we're doing it in ways that are aligned with our constitutional principles. in this work, we intend to expand it in the days ahead. rooted in the notions of partnership and justice and the imperatives to help the poor. of course, there are some needs that require more resources than faith groups have at their disposal. there is only so much a church can do to help all of the families in need, all those who need help making a mortgage payment or avoiding foreclosure or making sure their child can go to college. there is only so much that a nonprofit can do to help a community rebuild in the wake of disaster. there is only so much the private sector will do to help folks who are desperately sick, get the care that they need. and that is why i continue to believe that in a caring and in a just society, government must have a role to play and our values, our love, and our charity must find expression not just in our familiefamilies, no in our places of work with and our places of worship, but also in our government and in our politics. over the past two years, the nature of these obligations, the property role of government has, obviously, been the subject of enormous controversy. the debates have been fierce. one side's version of compassion and community may be interpreted by the other side as an oppressive and irresponsible expansion of the state or an unacceptable restriction on individual freedom. that's why a second recurring theme in my prayers is a prayer for humility. god answered this prayer for me early on by having me marry michelle because whether it's reminding me of a chore undone or questioning the wisdom of watching my third football game in a row on sunday, she keeps me humble. but in this life of politics when debates have become so bitterly polarized and changes in the media lead so many of us just to listen to those who reinforce our existing biases, it's useful to go back to scripture to remind ourselves that none of us has all of the answers, none of us, no matter what our political party or our station in life. the full breadth of human knowledge is like a grain of sands in god's hands. and there are some mysteries in this world we cannot fully comprehend. as is written in job, god's voice thunders in marvelous ways. he does great things beyond our understandings. the challenge i find then is to balance this uncertainty, this humility with the need to fight for deeply held convictions, to be open to other points of view, but firm in our core principles. i pray for this wisdom every day. >> a different touch to the prayer breakfast this year in washington, d.c. the president actually giving an unusually personal speech about his own faith, taking a very serious approach, but also a very light-hearted approach as well on a serious note talking about how he does meditate on scripture every morning and that as he is constantly questioned by americans about his faith, that he is a muslim, he and michelle work really hard to stay focused on god and the fact that he, 20 years ago, did embrace christ as his lord and savior and that he is a christian and that is exactly the type of values that he and michelle instill in his children. a little fun note there. he says he praise not only for strength in office, but also for patience as his daughter malia gets ready to go to the school dances, hoping that that skirt just gets longer and longer as she journeys to the dance where boys will be. so the president giving, obviously, a serious heart-felt speech on his faith this morning, adding a little humor and we will follow it, of course, throughout the rest of the morning. if you want to watch the entire thing, you can actually go on the white house website to watch it in its entirety. we're going to have more on egypt in the chaos there. give you an update on what is taking place this morning and how it is looking right now. a lot calmer than yesterday when you saw pro and anti-mubarak forces going at each other. a lot more calm this morning. we will update you in a second. and while it can never be fully answered, it helps to have a financial partner like northern trust. by gaining a keen understanding of your financial needs, we're able to tailor a plan using a full suite... of sophisticated investment strategies and solutions. so whatever's around the corner can be faced with confidence. ♪ northern trust. look ahead with us at northerntrust.com. ♪ missing something? now you get a cleanser with scope freshness. ♪ new fixodent plus scope ingredients. ♪ cleans...kills germs that cause denture odors... and provides your dentures with the freshness of scope. ♪ new fixodent cleanser plus scope ingredients. good morning, everyone. if you're just waking up here are the stories we are talking about this morning. you might be able to fly today. most airports hope to get back to their norm schedule. some 14,000 flights had been cancel'd because of the monster winter storm. dallas still feeling the effects. a bad time to be forced out of your bed into the cold. a big fire at a dallas apartment complex still burning. no reports of injuries. the ice making it really hard for firefighters to get their footing in there. people in northern queensland in australia woke up to cyclone yasi is the biggest storm to ever hit the region. let's turn to cairo now. one day after the bloody free-for-all there have been occasional bursts of violence between anti-government protesters and supporters of the embattled president. but rock throwing gave way to isolated clashes and a breath-taking contrast to yesterday's massive explosion of violence between those groups. guns, rocks, machete and molotov cocktails. the police force plamed for many of the casualties. five dead and 836 wounded. this is video posted on facebook. a policeman roars through a crowd on a city street, makes little effort to avoid innocent passersby. president obama called attention to the plight in a national prayer breakfast that is still going on now in washington. >> aeven as we pray for gabby in the aftermath of a tragedies here at home, we're also mindful of the violence that we're now seeing in the middle east and we pray that the violence in egypt will end and that the rights and aspirations of the egyptian people will be realized, and that a better day will dawn over egypt, and throughout the world. >> now the white house says that the next couple of days are critical. the situation could get worse. as a matter of fact, this just in. state department -- actually its spokesperson p.j. crowley tweeted a short time ago. let's get the latest from cairo and cnn's frederik pleitgen. what did that tweet say? i didn't see. here is what crowley actually tweeted. there is a concerted campaign to intimidate international journalists in cairo and interfere with their reporting. we condemn with these actions. all right. frederik pleitgen, with that in tow, yesterday, we saw a number of journalists get attacked, including our own. how do you feel about this tweet? do you think that they will listen? have there been any issues today? >> reporter: there have been masses of issues today, already. we have had one of our crews harassed and i have been harassed by pro-mubarak demonstrators. as the battles have been picking up again in cairo, things have drastically deteriorated in the last comuple of minutes. raging battles in the street here right now. crews keep getting harassed and right now, it's very, very dangerous. four foreign journalists wandered outside of their hotels. if you run into the pro-mubarak crowd you're in serious danger of getting beat up and possibly even detained. one thing i can tell you each side of this battle that's going on here are taking prisoners. the anti-mubarak crowd, they, obviously, want to see the western journalists in here reporting but the pro-mubarak crowd is a far different story. yes, i've seen a lot of people harassed and cameras confiscated and camera crews beat up and i've had a mob of people try to beat me up and really we had to barrel out of a situation in our car and our car got pelted with rocks. it is really commonplace. by the way, these street battles, i don't know how much you can see, are really getting worse here in the streets. kyra? >> well, do you get the feeling, fred, it's sort of moved away, this is the message we want to get across, we want hosni mubarak out and now thugs running around beating up anybody they can? no reason to beat up journalists who are trying to cover the story. to point out if you've been attacked, you are almost seven feet tall. that says a lot they are going at anybody and everybody. >> reporter: yeah, you're right, if they attack me, then they will try with anybody. but no. it really is still about the message. the situation has deteriorated for us journalists. really once the pro-mubarak protesters entered the scene, because they clearly don't want this story to get any international coverage and they are doing everything they can to try to prevent that. now, remember that egypt, even before, was a very, very repressive police state and journalists were intimidated before this was happening. now as these street battles here rage, it is the pro-mubarak crowd has that are trying to keep us from getting the message across. and the violence also has come into this area really as these two sides started clashing yesterday, as these pro-mubarak protesters came into cairo, they came into tahrir square in the middle of town and then the violence erupted and since then, it's become so much more dangerous for us journalists to operate here, because the anti-mubarak protesters have always been very fair with us, they have allowed us to shoot everything. they, obviously, welcome the international media presence because one of the things they are fighting for is more press and i'm hearing more gunfire and i have to lay low here a little bit. gunfire going on. the soldiers shooting into the air at this point. we will have to monitor that situation but, yes, the street battles have gotten a lot, lot worse in the past couple minutes. >> do me a favor and do what is best for you right now. frederik pleitgen, we will continue to check in with you throughout the morning. appreciate it. the protests have flared up in yemen despite efforts by the president to tamp down on public anger. he says he will st