wednesday, october 19th. this is your "a.m. wake-up call." i'm christine romans joining you live from new york. all right. the presidential candidates, the republican hopefuls declaring victory or licking their wounds this morning. all except jon huntsman took the gloves off last night at the debate in las vegas hosted by cnn. this was perhaps the most heated of the five debates held in the past six weeks. much of the focus on the three front-runners, romney, perry and cain. a heated exchange between romney and a very assertive perry. >> they're coming here because there's a magnet, and the magnet is called jobs. and those people that hire illegals ought to be penalized. and mitt, you lose all of your standing from my perspective because you hired illegals in your home, and you knew about it for a year. and the idea that you stand here before us and talk about that you're strong on immigration is on its face the height of hypocrisy. >> governor romney? >> rick, i don't think i've ever hired an illegal in my life. and so i'm looking forward to finding your facts on that -- zbl i'll tell y >> i'll tell you what the facts are. >> i'm speaking. i'm speaking. you get 30 seconds. this is the way the rules work here is that i get 60 seconds. and then you get 30 seconds to respond, right? >> they want to hear you say that you knew you had illegals. >> anderson, will you please wait? are you just going to keep talking? or are you going to let me finish what i'm saying? look, rick -- >> follow the rules. >> this has been a tough couple of debates for rick, and i understand that. so you're going to get tested. >> all right. as for john huntman, he was jon. he was in new hampshire. he's hoping to win the new hampshire primary. the candidates also went after herman cain over his 9-9-9 tax plan. he denied a report by the nonpartisan research group which said his plan would raise taxes for about 84% of americans. at one point he seemed to get flustered in trying to defend his plan in an exchange with mitt romney. >> herman, are you saying that the state sales tax will also go away? >> no, that's an apple. we're replacing a bunch of oranges. >> okay. so governor perry was right. >> no, he wasn't. he was mixing apples and oranges. >> well, will the people in nevada will not have to pay a sales tax? >> mitt romney, you're doing the same thing, you're mixing apples and oranges. no, no, you're going to pay the state sales tax no matter what. >> right. >> whether you throw out the existing code and you put in our plan, you're still going to pay that. that's apples and oranges. >> i'm going to get the baskets with apples and oranges. >> we're going to have much more on the debate and some analysis of that tax plan in about 15 minutes. bears, lions, tigers and cheetahs, just some of the exotic animals on the loose right now in eastern ohio. schools are closed. residents are either staying indoors or they're being extremely careful when they go outside. the animals which also included wolves, camels and giraffes escaped from a wild animal preserve in zainsville, ohio, yesterday. apparently after the death of the owner. now, sheriff's deputies have already shot and killed about 25 of these animals. >> these animals could be in the woods laying down, scared, maybe going to come back to their cages once we vacate the area. >> investigators say when they arrived at the farm, they found the animals' cages open, and they found the body of the owner. so far no word on how the owner died. we're going to bring you a live report on this mystery from ohio in our next half hour. okay. secretary of state hillary clinton is in oman to thank the air ar nation for helping secure the release of three american hikers from iran. yesterday she made a brief unannounced visit to libya after she praised libyans for overthrowing moammar gadhafi. >> this is libya's moment. this is libya's victory and the future belongs to you. >> clinton is the most senior u.s. official to travel to libya since gadhafi's ouster. she told reporters she hopes gadhafi is captured or killed soon. the number of people who have died from a listeria outbreak linked to tainted cantaloupe is now up to 25. this is according to the centers for disease control and prevention. officials say that number could still rise because listeria develops slowly in some people. this is the deadliest known outbreak of food-borne illness in 13 years in this country. let's go live to rob ma marciano. what more can you tell us about this? >> a couple of tornadoes reported here, and the damage in broward county was such that a couple of people were trapped. a total of three tornado reports across parts of south florida. and this is all associated with that system that has been trying to develop as a tropical one. it hasn't had any luck in doing that, but a tremendous amount of rain, wind and obviously a couple of embedded severe thunderstorms doing damage there, even a couple of minor injuries. here's where it is on the radar. it's moving up the eastern seaboard. as it does so, it's going to be spreading rain across the mid-atlantic, delmarva and now beginning to stretch in towards the northeast. and on the backside of this is back in through st. louis and chicago. and that's the cold side. new york metros, you'll see some delays because of this system. same deal with chicago. the winds in chicago and the lower great lakes are going to be blowing and intensifying tonight and tomorrow, especially in d.c., you'll see delays because of the winds as well and the rain, same deal in atlanta. here's that big storm, it kind of gets its entire self together. a combination of really three systems and making its way up towards the northeast. a fairly slow mover now. here's how it's going to work. it's got a little moisture connection to the tropics. and because of that wind, it does rain, it's going to rain fairly heavily. hopefully there will be a dry spot that moves into the cities which have seen so much rain the past couple of months. look at the backside. rain and even snow across the higher terrain of the appalachians. and yeah, freeze warnings have been posted for parts of the plains there. temperatures will fall into the 20s and 30s. and that, my friends, is not baseball weather. tonight, 52 at best. maybe a couple of showers hanging around for the start of game one of the world series between the rangers and st. louis. and the winds, i believe, will be blowing hard. and out to right. so benefiting left-handed pole hitters, i guess. we'll see. >> there you go. thanks, rob. talk to you in about 20 minutes or so. if you have the new iphone 4s, you're probably becoming more acquainted with siri. comedian stephen colbert is getting to know his digital pal. let's see how that's working out for him. >> write the show. >> what would you like to search for? >> i don't want to search for anything. i want to write the show. >> searching the web for search for anything i want to write the shuffle. >> what am i talking about tonight? >> no comment. >> for the love of god, the cameras are on. give me something. >> what cameras are you looking for, camera stores or churches? >> [ bleep ] you. >> i would if i could. >> all right. listen up. blackberry users today, this is the day to load up on some free apps. the cell phone maker is trying to make up with customers after last week's massive outage. but first, our "quote of the day." basketball star lebron james has taken a lot of heat since going to play in miami and struggling in the nba finals. now an nba legend is piling on saying, quote, there's going to always be great players, always guys who win championships in the nba, except lebron. ooh! who said that? i'm going to tell you in 90 seconds. it's about nine minutes after the hour. a vacation on a budget with expedia. make it work. booking a flight by itself is an uh-oh. see if we can "stitch" together a better deal. that's a hint, antoine. ooh! see what anandra did? booking your flight and hotel at the same time gets you prices hotels and airlines won't let expedia show separately. book it. major wow factor! where you book matters. expedia. consumers er wanchai ferry orange chicken... over p.f. chang's home menu orange chicken women men and uh pandas... elbows mmm [ male announcer ] wanchai ferry, try it yourself. ♪ we're centurylink... a new kind of broadband company committed to improving lives with honest, personal service, 5-year price lock guarantees and consistently fast speeds. ♪ all right. it's 11 minutes after the hour. this is your "a.m. wake-up call." now back to our "quote of the day." there's going to always be great players, always guys who win championships in the nba, except lebron. magic johnson poking fun at lebron james while speaking to the university of albany over the weekend. james received a lot of criticism after struggling last year in the finals. his miami heat lost to the mavericks. we've seen superman do it, but now a group of m.i.t. researchers say they've developed a way to see through walls. let's go to kristi lu stout live from hong kong. the practical applications and military applications are fascinating, kristi. >> that's right. researchers at m.i.t., they have developed a way to see through solid concrete walls in realtime. and they have created a device, and it sends microwave signals that bounce up objects and return radar images to the screen. and the images appear as thermal blogs. you don't get a lot of detail, but you can see objects and movement. the system does have its limits, though. it can penetrate only a little more than eight inches. the technology, as you said, it could be a bomb for the u.s. military. researchers say it could be used in urban warfare to increase situational awareness. so christine, quite a game changer. >> i'll say. also a game changer, blackberry is trying to make up to very angry customers. free apps today available to download. tell us about that. >> yeah, i'll give you the details. and i don't know if it's going to be enough. after last week's global outage, the maker of blackberry is saying sorry, not with cash or service credit but with free apps. starting today, research in motion is rolling out new apps. they would usually cost about 100 bucks. they include sims 3, bejeweled, shazam. and i've got to ask, is a business user really going to install "sims 3"? anyway, maybe it's just me, but research in motion says its business clients will also be offered a free month of tech support. what a way to say sorry. christine, back to you. >> all right, kristi lu stout in hong kong, thanks. rick perry takes off the gloves in vegas. he comes out swinging against republican rival mitt romney, but was last night's debate enough to propel him back to the top? 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[ male announcer ] michelin knows it's better for xerox to help manage their finance processing. so they can focus on keeping the world moving. with xerox, you're ready for real business. the republican presidential candidates wasted no time pouncing on herman cain's 9-9-9 plan last night. neither did comedian stephen colbert. here's your "punch line." >> that's right, herman cain is ahead with 27%. as opposed to newt gingrich who is 27% head. and, of course, there is cain's famous 9-9-9 economic plan. everybody's talking about it. >> 9-9-9. >> 9-9-9. >> 9-9-9. >> 9-9-9! >> folks, folks, all cain is saying is hitler had some good ideas. >> that was only a matter of time before that happened. time now for our "political ticker" with tim farley host of "morning briefing." i'm going to ask you, rick perry came out swinging against romney last night. let's listen for a second. >> and mitt, you lose all of your standing from my perspective because you hired illegals. in your home. and you knew about it for a year. >> governor romney? >> rick, i don't think i've ever hired an illegal in my life. >> i'll tell you what the facts are. >> rick, again -- rick, i'm speaking. i'm speaking. i'm speaking. i'm speaking. you get 30 seconds. this is the way the rules work here is that i get 60 seconds and then you get 0 secon30 seco respond, right? anderson -- would you please wait? are you just going to keep talking? >> yes, sir. >> well, i'm just saying. look, rick -- >> follow the rules. >> this has been a tough couple of debates for rick, and i understand that. you're going to get tested. >> so tim, how did perry do? was this aggressive attack helpful? hurtful? was it presidential? and the whole immigration -- this is something that is a retread from the last election, i think, isn't it? >> a lot of these are retread issues, but god love anderson cooper, i actually think he did a pretty good job balancing the opportunity for these candidates to speak as well as trying to maintain some semblance of control. clearly rick perry came to pick a fight with mitt romney. and it's pretty clear that he helped stop the slide or at least slow the slide that he's seen in the polls. i did think at that one point when romney put his hand on perry's shoulder that we might see a texas brawl. but that said, i think that the feistiness is something that people wanted to see out of rick perry. at times it bordered on p petulance. that said, you have to look at what these canned dates wanted going in. romney wanted to stay the front-runner. i think he did. perry wanted to look like he was not just spectating. i think he accomplished that last night. time will tell whether or not people hold that back-and-forth against them eventually, christine. >> right, herman cain has been soaring in the polls. a lot of talk of his 9-9-9 plan. did voters give -- did he give voters more reason to choose him in 2012? did he hold his ground? gain ground or lose ground? >> did he hold his ground? 9-9-9, i think he actually had problems defending the program. and all of the candidates said we like you, we don't like your plan. a nonpartisan center that yesterday had an analysis that showed that herman cain's plan would cost people an awful lot of money. a lot of taxpayers would be paying more. his defense was do your own calculations, do your math which i don't think most american voters want to do is silt down with pen and paper. i don't know how many math was their favorite subject. the other thing was saying look, i don't believe him. it's hard to defend your plan by rejecting the facts. that said, herman cain has never been a threat to mitt romney. i think what he is is a threat to rick perry which is why you saw romney say occasionally say herman, i really like you and i know your plan is a lot more complex than this. i don't think cain did himself huge favors, but i think he's still going to take some votes away from rick perry as time goes by, and that could help mitt romney in some of the early contests, christine. >> is this still a three-man race? >> i think it's a two-man race between romney and perry. perry is doing what he can to undercut romney. that's the dynamic into these next debates where we start seeing more on foreign policy and i think a little bit broader sense of what these candidates are all about. >> all right. tim farley, host of "morning briefing," nice to see you, tim. developing right now, a rocket attack kills at least 24 people in turkey. the president is calling it terrorism. details just ahead. but first, stop what you're doing. take a minute to reflect. what have you accomplished? what's still on your to-do list? that's because today is evaluate your life day. think about that for a minute. it's 20 minutes after the hour. 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(phone ringing) chase sapphire preferred, this is julie in springfield. and people. and the planes can seem the same. so, it comes down to the people. because: bad weather, the price of oil those are every airline's reality. and solutions will not come from 500 tons of metal and a paintjob. they'll come from people. delta people. who made us the biggest airline in the world. and then decided that wasn't enough. an early morning rocket attack in turkey has killed at least 24 people. let's go around the world with monita rajpal. the turkish president blaming terrorists for the attack. at this point, do we know who did it or why? >> well, what we know right now, year quoting authorities that kurdish guerrillas struck forces in a kurdish province that borders iraq. they opened fire with automatic rifles. at least 24 people have been killed in that. reuters is reporting that turkish planes have now bombed kurdish rebel bases in northern iraq. according to recent reports, militants from the kurdish workers party also known as the pkk have been blamed for the deaths of more than 50 turkish security personnel since july. in retaliation, they've launched air raids on rebel targets in northern iraq where the pkk have bases. the pkk was formed in 1970 and since 1984 it has launched an arms struggle against turkey as they seek an independent kurdish state within turkey. turkey considers them a terrorist group. and of course we continue to wait for more information that comes out of that region. christine? >> right now riot police are getting ready in greece calling for the mother of all strikes today and tomorrow. this is over austerity measures again, isn't it? >> absolutely, christine. they are calling it the mother of all strikes. we're showing you live pictures of athens as the strikes get under way. we understand some 5,000 riot police have been called in to maintain security. a 48 general strike has begun in the country where the country will practically go into shutdown mode. air traffic controllers are staging a 12-hour walkout, meaning flights are grounded. there will also be no public transport, and most public services are halted. two big unions have called for their 2 million members to hit the streets as lawmakers in parliament there as you see the building there vote on two bills today and tomorrow. now, the bills include higher taxes, cuts to pensions and salaries, the loss of some 30,000 public service jobs. the country's prime minister says these stark auste