0 >> marcy hines is a producer here. she was in kenya recently and took these pictures. it was taken at what's called my brother's keeper ministry which helps people living with aids and hiv. >> fantastic stuff. showing one of the helpers at the ministry showing off her children to the camera. lovely stuff. >> uh-huh. okay. that's going to do it for us. there were more pictures but another day. >> news room" starts now. that's why. see you tomorrow. see you tomorrow. >> ballpark. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >> hello, i'm wolf blitzer in washington. we're only one hour away from the release of the 911 calls that marked one of the worst mat shootingses in u.s. history when adown young gunman blasted his way into the sandy hook elementary school in newtown, connecticut and massacred 26 people in cold blood. 20 of them little children. first grade ares. the first anniversary of the tragedy is ten days from today. releasing the recordings from that morning of calls to the newtown police department came only after a long and contentious lawsuit by several news organizations including cnn. many people are upset by that decision to release the tapes. they fear the 911 calls will reopen old wounds and trigger relapse in the emotional trauma. deborah feyerick joins us from new york right now. deb, why did the judge order that these calls, the tapes, the audio tapes be made public? >> well, the judge who decided and who upheld a lower court ruling said yes, indeed there was value to releasing the tapes and they should be made public under the freedom of information act. that's why these calls will be released. just to give you a little bit of background, it's about 25 minutes worth of calls, seven phone calls that were made from land lines inside sandy hook elementary school by different people. the cell phone calls are not being released. those are we'll in the custody of the connecticut state police. that's a different sort of request to have those released. but today we're expecting to hear about 25 minutes, seven phone calls from inside the school, people who were there and who were calling for help while this rampage was taking place, wolf. >> and the families of the victims, most of them i take it they're not very happy we're going to be reliving this one more time this on the eve of the anniversary. >> and it's always a very difficult decision whether you release this kind of thing, but there was a feeling that in fact, there was some value to releasing this, again, all care is going to be taken to make sure it's done in a way that maintains the dignity of both the families but also the integrity of the information on those tapes. again, it wasn't a decision that was made lightly but it is one that right now will happen within the next hour. wolf? >> we'll go through the tapes and release and air some of them here on cn. n. i know you're going to be working with a team of folks to make sure we do it in the appropriate way. thanks very much. at the bottom of the hour, by the way, i'm going to be speaking with a newtown catholic priest on how the town is reacting to all of this. i spoke with him a year ago when i was in newtown. anxious to get his reaction to what's going on a year later. the sandy hook massacre set off a fierce national debate over gun control. for a time, public sentiment leaned in favor of tougher new loss. that support has since tapered off. the country is almost evenly divided on the issue with 49% saying they support stricter loss. compare that with 20 years ago when the brady bill was enacted. back then 70% said they favored tighter gun control. economic inequality between the richest and poorest americans is on president obama's mind today, likely the focus of his state of the union address in january. a little while ago, the president spoke about that, and he had a special message for republicans who oppose the affordable care act. >> if you still don't like obama care, and i know you don't, even though it's built on market-based ideas of choice and competition in the private sector, then you should explain how exactly you'd cut costs and cover more people and make insurance more secure. you owe it to the american people to tell us what you are for. not just what you're against. >> our senior white house correspondent jim an costas is joining us from the white house right now. sounds the president was throwing down a little bit of a gauntlet to the republicans. what else did he say? >> he really was, wolf. you know, this was billed as a speech on the economy but as more and more details came out there are a couple of things that would emerge in his speech. he was sort of going back to his base trying to sort of enlivan what has been a dispirited liberal base of the democratic party. sort of disappointed with the way this rollout has occurred with the affordable care act. but at the same time, you know, white house officials say there was something substantive going on in this speech and that the president was talking about income inequality and that is something you're going to be hearing this president talk a lot about during the remaining three years he has in office. he's going to be talking about it in the state of the union speech, for example. he ticked off a number of things he would like to see happen over the next several months. one is a hike in the minimum wage. right now it's $725. he would like to see that around $10. he would also like to see extension of unemployment benefits. both those measures republicans are very cool to right now and indicated they're not going to support either one of those things. so perhaps the president also at the same time drawing some battle lines for next year's midterm elections. listen to how the president framed the debate over extending unemployment benefits during his speech. here's what the president had to say. >> christmastime is no time for congress to tell more than one million americans that they have lost their unemployment insurance, which is what will happen if congress does not act before they leave on their holiday vacation. >> so sort of painting republicans as ebenezer scrooge there, wolf. then the other thing you heard and you mentioned this as you were tossing it out to me, the president did offer again another stout defense of obama care. he said that republicans owe it to americans to say not just what they're against but what they're for, and on that front, wolf, we should also mention that i an source familiar with enrollment numbers did confirm to cnn within the last couple hours that they enrolled 29,000 people in the first two days since december 1st when the website was supposed to be working for the vast majority of people. 29,000 people. that's more than the number of people that enrolled in october. it's an indication the administration says now that they have the website working at least better, that that enrollment number is starting to accelerate rapidly and they feel like that's going to make up some of the ground they lost during the botched rollout of obama care. >> we'll hear more from the president in the coming days. he's on a major pr offensive right now. jim, thanks very much. jim an costas reporting from the white house. coming up later this hour, by the way, the autopsy results on the actor paul walker who died in a car wreck. they are just being released. we'll have a live report. that's coming up. also, a truck is stolen near mexico city, and its cargo has u.s. and international authorities very concerned. we're going to tell you why. that's coming up, as well. [ female announcer ] we give you relief from your cold symptoms. you give them the giggles. tylenol cold® helps relieve your worst cold and flu symptoms. but for everything we do, we know you do so much more. tylenol cold®. diarrhea, gas, bloating? yes! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. live the regular life. phillips'. [ male announcer ] they are a glowing example of what it means to be the best. and at this special time of year, they shine even brighter. come to the winter event and get the mercedes-benz you've always wished for, now for an exceptional price. [ santa ] ho, ho, ho, ho! [ male announcer ] lease the 2014 e350 for $579 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer.