nice to start with a little green on the screen you know? jon: the dow tickling 12,000. jenna: that is not bad. we'll keep it there where we can and when we can to show you what is going on in the markets today. it is one of the biggest gains since august. we're glad you're with us everybody. i'm jenna lee. jon: your 401(k)s are smiling. i'm jon scott. "happening now", surging newt beginning rich challenges mitt romney for frontrunner stat news in the gop presidential race. the former house speaker soaring to first place in polls in key primary states like south carolina and florida. for gingrich the challenge is staying on top. as "washington times" columnist charlie hurt says quote in the round-robin primary, all you have to do is stand in place long enough and you take your turn as the frontrunner. only thing primary voters agree on for any length of time they don't want to nominate mr. romney. other than deep antipathy with president obama, the discomfort with mr. obama is the enly enduring thing with the 2012 primary process. jenna: mitt romney is hitting back. the former massachusetts governor painting gingrich as lifelong washington insider in an interview with "special report"'s bret baier. >> i think to get president obama out of office you will have to bring something to the race that is different than what he brings. he is a lifelong politician. you have to have the credibility understanding how the economy works and i do. that is one reason i'm this race. jon: charlie hurt, the columnist for "the washington times" who wrote that piece we just quoted is with us now. is it just a two-man race now? is it romney against the former speaker? >> i think every day, every minute it is looking more and more like a two move man race. obviously, you know, it is too early to say. you know, that it is completely over. iowa has a long history and new hampshire both have a long history of sort of delivering up surprises. i still think it is possible you could see a rick santorum doing much better than anyone expected out of iowa. of course if mitt romney doesn't clean up in new hampshire there will be another surprise there. yeah, we've sort of been through every single candidate on the stage. i think we're now down to, you know, we're down to the last couple of guys standing. jon: kind of interesting though what's happened. i mean newt gingrich famously said in just about every debate that he doesn't want to attack his fellow republicans and yet he has attacked mitt romney. mitt romney who has not really said anything about it but has tried to avoid going after his fellow republicans is clearly going after newt gingrich right now. why? >> well, i think mitt romney is getting nervous right now because we're getting much closer to iowa, much closer to new hampshire and he realizes that he has never been able to get way up there into the polls where he needs to be in order to sort of maintain this frontrunner status. so i think he is getting nervous and that's why we're seeing him sort of go after some people. newt gingrich's strategy of remaining constant. he is kind of the tortoise in this race. he has been around forever. people know him. to sort of go through these debates just attacking the press i think was a very smart strategy because you don't want to alienate the supporters of the people on stage by attacking the people on stage. i think that is benefited him now where that we've seen some of these other people on stage sort of fallen by the wayside that they were comfortable going to newt gingrich and i think as we watch the cain campaign that looks like the sort of the last vestiges of the cain campaign, i think we're going to see more people going to gingrich because those people that support cain i don't think are going to end up going to romney. jon: maybe we see some of that reflected in this poll out of south carolina. when you take a look at the numbers it is an astounding development for newt gingrich. he has 38% of the vote in south carolina, one of the early primary states again, versus 15% i believe the number is for mitt romney. this just out. >> yeah. those numbers are just astonishing. you know, what it tells us is, if newt gingrich lines up a couple of strong wins early, including south carolina, which is a very, very important state in the republican primary, you have a lot of christian, christian conservative voters in south carolina and so the, however south carolina goes is the way a huge block of the republican party goes. gingrich could really wrap this thing up as amazing to sort of think of the, you know, the voters so much want to kick washington upside down and to have somebody who has been around washington for so long has been a part of this town for decades literally, come in and pick up the mantle of change and reform, it is a pretty amazing development to think of. jon: scott rasmussen's, rasmussen's report is out a new poll how gingrich stacks up against the current. president bush: we'll have that for our viewersers next hour. charlie hurt thank you. >> thanks, jon. jenna: now to another developing story in the gop race for the white house. we're awaiting herman cain at a rally in dayton, ohio, as his campaign manager insists there is no way he will drop out of the race anytime soon despite the latest claims from an atlanta woman that she had a 13 plus year affair with the republican presidential hopeful. cain is reassessing his campaign strategy. we should find out what that means in this rally or at this rally. chief political correspondent carl cameron has been all over the story. he joins us live from washington. carl, cain said he would reassess his campaign. what did you read read into that? >> reporter: he is taking a look at things. what the campaign staff and mr. cain both said they did similar sort of assessments of the state of play after the allegations emerged of sexual harassment charges back in the '90s against him. this morning mr. cain has been already on the campaign trail in westchester, ohio. a fairly good-sized crowd. he was emphatic and he was defiant. he seemed quite determined to stay in the race. he told reporters afterwards that he already experienced a groundswell of support. he didn't make any mention of ginger white's allegations during his remarks but seemed to suggest there is wide conspiracy against him, something he said for some time now. >> they are attacking my character, my reputation, and my name in order to try and bring me down. but you see, i don't believe that america is going to let that happen. i happen to believe that we the people are still in charge of this country. >> reporter: more than a couple times in those remarking cain said he is running for president and gave a variety of explanation as to why. the cain train signaling it will roll on. last night the perhaps the best signal of that they paid the $10,000 filing fee to take part in the nevada caucuses which don't happen until february. as one aide said you don't put down 10 grand if you're not going to be running then. jenna: interesting point that is cain's side of the story or at least what he is doing today. what about the woman accusing him of this affair, ginger white? anymore word from her? >> reporter: she did a live interview on one of the morning shows and described her affair with casual, on again, off again thing. it included gifts and money, quote, consistently over the last two yoof 1/2 years. produced new phone records suggests that indicate she and cain were texting right up until only a few days ago. she said it has been hard on her family. she can't imagine why anybody would do this. at one point described taking plane trips with mr. cain to las vegas to see the mike tyson-holyfield fight. she went at some length. continues to outline her story but it is very clear from mr. cain's remarks that his first event today and schedule in iowa for the rest of the day he is soldiering forth campaigning as running for president. any assessment that suggests he is not going seems to belie what he is doing on the trail. jenna: interesting, carl. we'll hear more from herman cain today. carl, thank you very much. herman cain will talk to neil cavuto today. it will be his first live interview since the latest controversy broke. tune into you're world for "your world" at 4:00 p.m. for the interview. jon: information is crossing our international desk. great britain is withdrawing its embassy staff to iran and ordering all iranian diplomats out of the u.k. within 48 hours. this follows attacks on the british embassy and a residential compound in tehran. britain's foreign secretary saying france and germany are likely to pull their own diplomatic core out of iran as well. scenes of mobs tearing down british flags and tearing up embassy ground reminiscent of the iran hostage crisis back in 1979. jenna: we'll talk a little bit about pakistan now. pakistan's military with footage showing what they say is the aftermath of that nato strike that killed 24 pakistani soldiers. differing versions of saturday's incident are emerging at this time, all sides that the troops were killed by attacks on two posts by nato aircraft. there is no denying that. that conference was upcoming, jon. jon: there is some new information in the search for missing florida mom michelle parker. an emergency custody hearing today for her 3-year-old twins. they are now in custody of the state. the children were taken yesterday from the home of parker's ex-fiance, daily smith, jr.. he is said to be the only suspect in her disappearance. phil keating live in miami with more on this case. the state has the kids now, is that, true, phil? >> reporter: the 3 1/2-year-old kids disappeared her mom disappeared two weeks from tomorrow. daily smith has been. shortly after that that's when they named him the prime suspect. the prime suspect no longer has custody of the kids at this moment. this 10:30 a.m. custody hearing has yet to wrap up. as soon as we know the results we'll let you know. but the family of michelle parker, they're hoping to get custody. as for smith he has lawyered up and yesterday his attorney said him being a suspect makes no sense. >> the children were there so in front of your children, you kill their mother, you dispose of their body, of her body where nobody can find it. there is no marks, no defensive wounds, no scrapes, no blood, nothing suggesting a struggle or a death. >> reporter: after about 10 days finally, within the past couple of days the parker family has now spoken basically against the ex-fiance, urging him to divulge anybody he may know as the prime suspect. they certainly field that he may be involved here and they are definitely at odds. but he wants to get texas equusearch led by tim miller who searched for so many missing children and missing adults around the nation. they are prepared to come into the orlando metro area as of this afternoon and begin a full-scale search. but that will take the blessing of the orlando police department. unclear that is going to happen yet. jon: phil keating live in miami where the mystery continues. thanks, phil. jenna: brand new information on the sex abuse scandal rocking syracuse university. when police first learned of the allegations against assistant basketball coach bernie fine and why they didn't arrest him then. jon: also the dow getting a big boost. up more than 413 points right now as central banks around the world take action to keep the dollars and the other currency flowing. will it stick though after friday's big monthly unemployment report? we'll look ahead at that next. jenna: a lot like 2008, doesn't it? the battle over birth control front and center at a catholic law school. what the students are doing now and why next. ♪ . are you receiving a payout from a legal settlement or annuity over 10 or even 20 years? call imperial structured settlements. the experts at imperial can convert your long-term payout into a lump sum of cash today. urney across america, i've learned that when you ask someone in texas if they want "big" savings on car insurance, it's a bit like asking if they want a big hat... ...'scuse me... ...or a big steak... ...or big hair... i think we have our answer. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. jenna: well are employers starting to feel more comfortable about the economy, maybe considering hiring sometime? we hope so, right? we'll get an idea on friday about what is going on with the job market when the labor department releases that crucial monthly jobs report. the national unemployment rate you're seeing on your screen is still hovering at 9%. there are bits of good news out there. we're getting some of that today. the employee tracking firm, adp, the firm that prints your paychecks, a wide majority of them in your country show employers are adding job. robert gray from the fox business network. what is going on from this report from adp? they say jobs are being added but where? where are those jobs being added? >> reporter: many more were added in the month of november than economists anticipated. 600,000 jobs added according to adp. they do the survey from 600,000 businesses. look at your paycheck or your stub these days as many are electronically deposited and probably likely has adp on it. 130,000 was the estimate. october november revised higher by 20,000 to 130,000. still small numbers considering the size of the economy. you have to like the trend. manufacturing and construction seeing a bump of 28,000. if you want to know the size of the companies we talk about all the time, small businesses creating jobs. take a look within this report. the large companies, we're talking about 499 employees or more, just added about 12,000 jobs. when you look at the medium size companies, 50 to 499 employees, it is 84,000. smallest companies, 50 people or less, jenna, 110,000 jobs added. that is the biggest jump in five years. jenna: you point out. that's where they say the job growth is when it comes to adding jobs to the economy and small businesses. what about the other report we get out before the jobs report? talks about planned layoffs. any story there as far as what it is looking like in the job market? >> reporter: still a mixed picture, jenna. the month of november actually better than october. fewer announced layoffs from challenger gray, and christmas, the outplacement firm. down .7 of 1% from october. down 13% year-over-year. the big story here that year to date layoffs already announced more this year than last year. just 11 months. the big story here the government accounting for about a third of the cuts. a lot of that coming from the military, jenna. as we begin to wind down some of the overseas military actions here you expect to see more of that. as the deficit super-committee failed to come to a resolution, this automatic spending cuts will start to hit the government as well. that is brought out in this report. they say they're concerned about that and financial services as well. 56,000 jobs lost there this year. that is up 162% from a year ago. you have the government, financial services. retail is the third worst hit so far this year. jenna: interesting. you mentioned veterans. veteran unemployment above 12%. something we'll be watching. robert, always nice to see you. >> reporter: likewise. jon: well, months after receiving the medal of honor, the highest award for valor on the battlefield, dakota meyer is a national hero, a recipient of the congressional medal of honor while serving in the marine corps. now he is suing a defense contractor. we'll tell you why and what the pentagon has to say in a live report. also for years his family thought he might be one of the victims of serial killer john wayne gacy. now, decades later, new dna testing helped uncover the truth. forensic pathologist michael baden joins us live next. [ male announcer ] you wouldn't swim in a pool with no water. or visit a museum without art. then why have a medicare health plan that's missing the coverage you need? call now to learn about aarp medicarecomplete insured through unitedhealthcare. it's the complete package -- that may include hospital, doctor visits and prescription drugs in one plan -- often for no more than what you currently pay for original medicare. don't miss out. call unitedhealthcare now to get dependable coverage from a leader in medicare advantage plans. get benefits like an annual physical, preventive screenings and immunizations for a zero dollar copay, vision and hearing benefits and more. and some plans have zero monthly premiums. with the cost of many things going up, aarp medicarecomplete is a smart choice. is your health coverage missing something? call now and get the complete package with aarp medicarecomplete insured through unitedhealthcare. and don't pay more. just get more. the annual enrollment period has changed to october 15th through december 7th. so call unitedhealthcare now. jon: there's controversy swirling now around corporal dakota meyers u.s. marine and recently the recipient of the nation's highest award for valor after he saved three dozen people during a six-hour ambush in afghanistan. now he is suing a defense contractor he blasted for selling equipment to pakistan. meyer claiming the defense contractor ridiculed his medal of honor calling him mentally unstable, suggesting he had a drinking problem and even cost him his job. jennifer griffin is live at the pentagon with more on this. so why did dakota meyer feel like he needed to bring a lawsuit against his former employer? >> reporter: jon, the defamation suit was brought in texas and dakota meyer says his former employer, bae systems, a defense contractor, essentially defamed him and told another employer that he was not fit, fit to be employed, suggesting that he had, as you mentioned, some sort of mental instability as a result of his service in the military and a drinking problem. the tension with his former employer, bae, erupted over a string of e-mails that meyer sent to his supervisors at bae when he found out that the contractor was selling thermal optic sites to the pakistani military. here is one of the e-mails from meyer to is employer. quote. we are taking the best gear, the best technology on the market to date and giving it to guys known to stab us in the back. these are the same people killing our guys. bae and meyer parted ways in the spring. meyer in fact resigned from that job and then bae supposedly did not recommend him when he tried to get another job with a california contractor. jon: what is bae saying about all this? >> reporter: well they of course realize this is a big problem for the company in terms of, you know, a public relations disaster. they are, they are calling dakota meyer a hero. they're wishing him well but this is what the spokesman said in response to the allegations of selling weapons to pakistan. quote, the u.s. department of state, not a -- bae systems makes the decision what defense-related products can be exported. the state department spokesman mark toner was asked about whether these thermal optic sites had been, sights had been sold to pakistan. here is what he said yesterday. >> i'm aware in august we approved or did approve a marketing license that allowed bae to temporarily export up to 20 thermal imaging rifle scopes to pakistan but that was for sales demonstration and none of those scopes were sold. >> reporter: military officials who have i have spoken to say they are not going to comment on this case because dakota meyer is no longer on active duty service but privately they are saying dakota meyer is the type of guy who sees the world in black and white. when he sees something that's wrong, he stands up for it. that is what pushed him to the heroic acts back in pakistan. he went against military ord