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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 governors of maryland, ohio, west virginia and virginia. we're live in montgomery county, maryland this morning. give me the story from where you are. it's a little dark behind you. but essentially it's a story about heat and a story about power and a story about storms all converging in one thing. >> you know it is, ashlee. one of the big issues with not having power, as of last night, 395 traffic signals just in this county alone were out. we're standing at one of them. this is a major intersection, it's only 5:00 a.m. and you're seeing cars come through. the traffic signals aren't working. you have police out helping to direct traffic, there's flares in the road, they've put up a generator for lights. this is the issue that agencies will be dealing with. federal agencies are going to be open, they've said that nonemergency employees can work remotely. if you're one of those people without power and you've been dealing with zero air conditioning and food issues and water supply issues all weekend, you might be looking forward to coming into work today. this is one of the issues that we're going to be seeing. i can tell you in virginia, about 200 national guard troops are on stand-by, able to help out with dealing with traffic as well. this is an area that has traffic problems anyway day, it's going to be worse today, actually. >> the governors have declared a state of emergency in a number of places to allow fema to get involved is that the story in maryland? >> it's not clear whether maryland has asked fema for federal assistance. there was a conference call in virginia yesterday, that government was asked what neef done. they hadn't yet asked for assistance, either, but they know it's going to be available. the real issue today is dealing with the people, dealing with the high 90s and 100-degree temperatures, those people who don't have power are still going to be looking for cooling centers like the 110 cooling centers open in virginia. going to places like libraries, shopping malls, any place that has air to help them stay cool. another scorcher and the weather has been a bit unstable. it continues to be unstable. there were storms last night in the region that caused some problems. we've already seen lightning this morning and we could see more storms in this area as early as today. and so all of that talk of when the power will come back, it's all going to depend on when, how the weather cooperates, most utility companies are saying by the end of the week, that's still several more days, it's only monday. >> oh, lord, that sounds terrible. hopefully the people searching for places of work. hopefully the places of work have power and ac and some relief for them. we should let you know as well, despite temperatures approaching the triple digits today, federal agencies in washington, d.c. are planning to be open. the employees are given the option of taking unscheduled leave or in some cases working from home, too. emergency personnel are expected to report to work this morning. and in new york, there is a labor dispute. raging at the power company at the height of the heat wave. can you see a lot of anger there, and 8,000 employees at the company, con edison have been locked out after contract talks broke down over this very hot weekend. so meter readings have been suspended and walk-in centers have been closed as 5,000 management-level workers try to keep the power flowing to 3.2 million customers. colorado battling high temperatures and deadly wildfires. meteorologist rob marciano has been there in colorado springs, covering the wildfires for us. rob, we're going to get to the latest on the fires. first, can you update us on the extreme heat? >> unbelievable heat that we've seen over the weekend, zoraida. over 1800 records have fallen in the past seven days. 150, over 150 all-time record highs so in many cases this is unprecedented heat. and certainly dangerously so. take a look at the record high temperatures, just from yesterday. chattanooga, 107 degrees. atlanta, georgia, 105. some of these again, all-time records, in nashville, 105. laguardia seeing a high temperature of 97 degrees as wellth and d.c. getting into the mid 90s. those temperatures measured in the shade, they don't include humidity. we do have a weak cold front and i emphasize weak, that's sliding across the northeast. we don't have nearly as many heat advisories and warnings today. still, there's a slew of states from the western great lakes to the southeast, including the mid south under a heat advisory and heat warning today, with heat indices expected to get to 110, 115 degrees food. most of the areas still in the areas that still have no power, no heat advisories, but it's not going to be cool, in the mid 90s in d.c. it will still touch 90 degrees in new york city. so even though we're seeing a little relief, temperatures will remain well above average through the next several days. still dangerous heat when you're talking about people without power and with humidity levels that are still relatively high. and the overall pattern, zoraida over the next several days looks for the heat to basically build back up. we're in the middle of summer and no real cool pool of air that's going do dive south from canada so we have to kind of grin and bear it. >> no kidding, it looks the same across the board, really. so authorities have lifted the evacuation orders, we understand. for all but 3,000 people in colorado springs. what's the latest there? >> that's right. big doings over the weekend here, a lot of folks were allowed to come back and look at their homes. at one point they were going do allow people to come back in buses and not get out of the bus to see what's left of their home, 346 homes completely destroyed by this. they did a caravan, people were allowed to drive in their own vehicles to investigate and look at their neighborhoods and look at what's left of their homes. an extremely emotional event. we caught up with several families that went in to check out their homes and here's some sound from one of those families and their experience. >> it looked like a war zone. it was just, it was completely caved in, it didn't even look like a house. it was bad. and it just, the smell, it smelled like smoke. it was, you got down in it and it smelled like ash. it was awful. >> a lot of these people had already waited five, six days, just to go back and look. so it's been a long, long haul. the fire itself, we've made great strides in the containment, 55% contained. this is still not the only fire that's burning across the west, several large fires, not only in colorado, but across wyoming. there was a c-130 firefighting aircraft. a reserve air force aircraft modified to fly. the battle continues in colorado and a slew of western states and we're just getting into fire season. but this fire they believe it's mostly under control. still, there's 3,000 people that are not allowed do go back into their homes. for a slew of reasons, one their neighborhood is destroyed or two, utilities have to get back in order. over the weekend we had a scare with black bears invading some of these neighborhoods, because their habitat has been burned. kind of confused, kind of odd. but these houses bump up against some of the national forests and you can imagine that the wildlife reeling from this event as well. >> all right. rob, we appreciate it. a lot of folks have been asking how they can help. can you go to cnn.com/impact if you would like to help the folks in that area. it's nine minutes past 5:00 on the east coast and three members of nato's international security force have been shot and killed in southern afghanistan. they were gunned down yesterday, by a man wearing an afghan national police uniform. the identities of the victims and their nationalities have not yet been released. it isn't clear whether the attacker was in fact a police officer or instead was an infiltrator just wearing the afghan police uniform. >> the only abortion clinic still operating in mississippi can stay open at least for now. a new law in the state went into effect yesterday, requiring abortion providers to be certified obgyns. practitioners with privileges at area hospitals as well. that law puts the jackson women's health organization at risk. a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that will keep the clinic's doors open at least until a hearing on july 11th. it looks like mexico's old guard may be returning to power after being absent for the last 12 years. an official preliminary vote count has enrique of the institutional revolutionary party winning yesterday's election. however, a leftist candidate is refusing to concede. pieneato's party controlled the government for 11 years until vincente fox in 2001. more on tonight's runoff between two olympic hopefuls, tonight. every communications provider is different but centurylink is committed to being a different kind of communications company. ♪ we link people and fortune 500 companies nationwide and around the world. and we will continue to free you to do more and focus on what matters. a living, breathing intelligence helping business, do more business. in here, opportunities are created and protected. gonna need more wool! demand is instantly recognized and securely acted on across the company. around the world. turning a new trend, into a global phenomenon. it's the at&t network -- securing a world of new opportunities. ♪ sven's home security gets the most rewards of any small business credit card! how does this thing work? 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[ male announcer ] the spark business card from capital one. choose unlimited rewards with 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase, every day! what's in your wallet? here's your invoice. welcome back, 14 minutes past the hour. what do you do when two sprinters competing for the last spot on the olympic team tie? you remember this photo, we brought the story to you last week -- wrong photo. can we get the photo of the two gals up? two female runners finished the olympic trial race exactly at the same time, we're getting the photo ready for you, not even a 3,000 frames per second camera could determine who finished first. allison felix and jeneba tarmoh will compete in a runoff tonight to determine who will get the last spot on the u.s. olympic team's 100-meter squad. joining me now, "sports illustrated".com's maggie gray. those poor girls, i got to tell you, that was a tough one to come up with that decision. but don't answer me yet because i want to get to what happened last night if we can start talking about the events that happened last night. phelps competing in eight events we understand. >> yeah, michael phelps said he was going to scale back his olympic program in these games, it turns out he has the exact same program as he did in beijing. five individual events, three relays, still determining whether he will be in the pool for all of those. that's the program right now. >> missy franklin, only 17 years old, a phenom that we should be watching. >> she'll be a huge story in the games if she swims all seven events, she'll be the first olympic woman to ever swim that many events in one olympic games, we'll be hearing her name a lot. >> and gabby douglas won gymnastics all around. >> she beat jordan weaver by .1 of a point. they're saying that this gymnastics squad could be the best since atlanta in 1996, remember that gold medal-winning group. >> let's get to the photo finish, right? there are reports that one of these throats may drop out. tell us about that. >> this is drama that is unfolding in real-time right now. in oregon. they're still deciding what they're going to do. jeneba tarmoh sources said last night said she has pulled out of the race, she has not officially withdrawn. but right now she does not want to rub in this runoff. she believes that she won the race, that was the unofficial score that she was the third-place finisher and should be on the olympic team. she does not want a runoff, she does not want a coin toss, they're in a tough position. >> it shocked me that they offered them a coin toss. can we go back to the photo? i want everybody to see it on the photo finish. this is the reason she believes she won, right? is it the leg? >> essentially it's the torso but that's a very subjective term. the person who is responsible for photo finishes is not a usa track and field referee. it's an outside company that they have been doing this for so many years and he has done thousands of races so he's using his best knowledge of where the torso would be. you can see by the bib there, that's on on allison felix is by the bib and tarmoh is kind of turned a little bit. so they use data points on a laptop. you mentioned the 3,000 frames per second on the camera, and they try to determine who crossed the finish line first. they said it was tarmoh who finished 1/100th of a second before felix. she took the victory lap. but the guy who did the photo finish called the referee to come and he overturned it and said we have a dead heat. >> some said felix would be the one to drop out. why is that? >> she already made the olympic team for the 200-meter. she has two silver medals for that. she is the favorite in london to win gold. the 100 is a really specific and crucial part of her 200 walk-up. neither woman is going to back down. you have to understand why. you think that you can just -- >> there's a lot at stake. >> we say hey, just run the race again, like that would be a really easy thing to do. but for these athletes, every minuscule, every second is so important to them. to just run again is not as frivolous to them as it would seem to us. >> there's a lot going on here, folks. these girls are also good friends. so maggie is going to come back later in the hour and talk to us a lot more about these olympic hopefuls, thank you so much for joining us, appreciate it. back to you. it's 19 minutes past 5:00 on the east coast. from the midwest to the northeast, millions of people are facing another day of killer, killer temperatures. 16 people have now died since thursday, when triple-digit temperatures unleashed killer storms and left millions of people without power. this morning, 20 states, 20 are under heat advisory warnings. state of emergency has been declared by the governors of maryland, ohio, west virginia, and also virginia. a suspected gang member from the west side of chicago is being held without bond in the fatal shooting of a 7-year-old girl. a 26-year-old man is facing first-degree murder charges. and police say, the little girl and her mother were selling candy to neighborhood kids last wednesday when two men approached the group and opened fire. police are still looking for the second gunman. amy copeland, the 24-year-old graduate student from georgia although lost her hands, her left leg and right foot to flesh-eating bacteria is getting ready to enter a rehab center. amy's father says she will move today to an undisclosed facility for inpatient treatment. japan's freeways could be filled with driverless cars as soon as the next decade. japanese government is now opening talks with nissan, mazda, toyota and honda, hoping to produce the robot cars for the masses by the 2020s. >> one major issue, though, how to you assign the responsibility for an accident that does not involve human beings who are driving? >> that's a bit tricky. >> that is tricky. 20 minutes past the hour. an early read on local news that's making national headlines. the four middle school students who verbally harassed their school bus monitor have been suspended from school and the bus for one year. you will remember the youtube video went viral. we showed it to you. all four students will be sent to an alternative education center instead of school. school district says they must also complete 50 hours of community service with senior citizens. meantime, the democrat chronicle newspaper says new york bus monitor, karen klein, will spend the nearly $700,000 raised on her behalf to pay bills, help her children and she says she's going to donate some money to charity as well. from that great story to this -- really awful story. homeless man living high on the hog, on other people's money. here's how he figured out his scam. police in florida arrested a 30-year-old man they said was sneaking into ritzy hotel rooms, racking up thousands of dollars and sticking the previous guest with the tab. it sounds simple enough, right? not so. the "orlando sentinel" said he watched guests as they were leaving, they called the front desk quickly to say, i want to extend my stay instead. the officers say he ordered food and wine and room service and believe it or not, even clothing. i don't know how you get room service of clothing. that's what this dude did. apparently he was doing it for a while. scamming hotels for nearly two years. the jig is up, buddy. that's over. for an expanded look at all stories, head to our blog, cnn.com/earlystart. what's in a name? $60 million of that name in ipad, more of the dispute that forced apple to write a huge check. i'm one of six children that my mother raised by herself, and so college was a dream when i was a kid. i didn't know how i was gonna to do it, but i knew i was gonna get that opportunity one day, and that's what happened with university of phoenix. nothing can stop me now. i feel like the sky's the limit with what i can do and what i can accomplish. my name is naphtali bryant and i am a phoenix. visit phoenix.edu to find the program that's right for you. enroll now. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs. a place where innovation meets determination... and businesses lead the world. the new new york works for business. find out how it can work for yours at thenewny.com. ♪ [ male announcer ] its lightweight construction makes it nimble... ♪ its road gripping performance makes it a cadillac. introducing the all-new cadillac xts. available with advanced haldex all-wheel drive. 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