iran's nuclear program and a lot of questions about what those talks will actually produce. national security correspondent jennifer griffin is live at the pentagon. jennifer, what can you tell us about the missiles and some of the war games we're seeing out of iran today? >> reporter: well, jenna this is a shaw hab-3 missile that is capable of going 800 miles. it is capable of striking israel and capable of hitting different american american bases in the region whether kuwait, qatar or bahrain. we have forces based in all three of those places. what is worrisome is the timing of the test. it is clear that the iranians are feeling pressure because the oil embargo from the e.u. went into effect on july 1st but it is not a new missile that they tested and it is also important to point out this missile can not reach the united states. it is not a long-range ballistic missile. but it also is significant because it comes on the heels of the threat in the last 24 hours of legislators in iran who have passed a law saying that they will close the strait of hormuz where all of that oil, the world's oil passes through each day, they will close it to any countries who are a part of this oil embargo against iran right now, jenna? jenna: jennifer, we know the navy has patrols around that area. that is part of some regular patrols that happened but we also understand the pentagon has been quietly sending additional assets so that area? tell us more about that. >> reporter: that's right, jenna. we are not seeing the navy, has not announced it is sending an additional aircraft carrier. it already has one aircraft carrier group in the persian gulf region. another one nearby. they have had a two carrier policy for some time but what we've seen in recent months the placement, for instance, of a f-22 squadron at two different bases in the persian gulf. those f-22s have not been deployed, for instance, in afghanistan or elsewhere in recent years. they are a very significant asset if the u.s. or its allies wanted to strike deep within iran. so the placement of the f-22 is a bit of a buildup as we as the increase in mine sweepers. the navy doubled the number of mine sweepers to eight naval mine sweepers as well as deploying the uss ponce. that was used, remember, off the coast of libya but was reconfigured. there was emergency request for money to reconfigure it into a essentially a floating flotilla. it arrived in recent weeks. it can be used to base special operations forces as well as the navy mine sweepers which would be crucial in keeping the strait of hormuz open should the iranians try to close it. general i can't. jenna: more on this developing story throughout the day. jennifer, thank you. jon: now this fox news extreme weather alert. triple digit heat causing widespread misery and utility crews struggle to restore power to 1 1/2 million people from the midwest to the mid-atlantic, in the wake of those powerful storms that swept across a wide region killing at least 22 people. in richmond, virginia, normally quiet neighborhoods look more like construction zones right now as residents and crews clear away scores of downed trees. others are mourning the loss of loved ones like this woman in north carolina whose friend was killed while cleaning up storm debris. >> he couldn't outrun it. >> i run up to the hospital to see him. he looked like he was sleeping. i've lost people but not like this. told him i loved him. because i still do. jon: folks in hard-hit west virgina are trying to get things back to normal as more than 340,000 people, almost 20% of the state remains in the dark without electricity. in many cases without water. in maryland many folks there hunting for dry ice, trying to save what is left of their food ahead of the july 4th holiday. >> trying to get some ice to go in my refrigerator. >> i think we have $300 worth of food in our fridge. >> the holiday, there is over $750. jon: joining us now on the phone, sergeant michael bayless with the west virgina state police. we heard how bad the situation is in your state, sergeant. is there a bright spot here? is there any prospect for getting that power back on soon? >> well, good morning, jon. we're making progress and the governor's office and his staff are staying on top of what is going on here. they're doing a fantastic job coordinating available resources and in fact just before i got on the phone here i received a call from the governor's office saying tonight at 5:00 p.m. governor tomlin and many of the state employees will be distributing canned foods at the governor's mansion. jon: overall, what is the biggest problem? is it the lack of power and lack of refrigeration? >> i would say so, yes. lack of power and refrigeration and there is a very big need for ice in a lot of areas as well. jon: i know that in so many of these storms you know the electricity goes out. then you don't have power to pump the gas pumps so people can't get gas for their cars. you can't get gas for generators in that kind of a situation. are you seeing that kind of a problem? >> well the gas stations are, more of them are getting online here and power to them and we're not experiencing as many problems as we did over the weekend. jon: we're looking at pictures of trees that are down and polls that are down. do you still have a lot of roads blocked? >> a lot of roads have been cleared. we still have many so lines down in some areas. again they're making quite a bit of progress. men and women with the power company and everyone else who has been assisting are really doing a fantastic job, working as hard as they can. jon: sergeant michael bayluos with the west virgina state police. we wish you well. i know you have a huge job ahead there. we hope the whole state pulls through. >> thank you. jenna: west virgina is one state among many that lost power from severe storms. the problem is raising a lot of serious questions about our nation's infrastructure. rick folbaum has details from our breaking news desk. >> reporter: what a mess. folks are outraged they would be without power for a long time. not that anybody in washington is talking about what it would take to keep it from happening again. spending is loaded word in the capital where federal deficits stand. not investing for the power grid could be a national security problem. a former official in the bush white house says these power outages keep officials up at night making the country vulnerable to any kind of attack. it was after hurricane katrina the federal government began preparing for all hazards approaches meaning a plan for manmade and natural disasters. for updating the power grid, has components which date back to the days of thomas edison, the obama administration allocated $11 billion toward that effort. a third of that dedicated building a grid with new smart technology. how much of that money has been spent? a small fraction. less than 1.4 billion overall. the rest of it held up in washington red tape. meantime lawmakers are home for the july 4th holiday while people who live full-time in the beltway and other mid-atlantic areas, powerless in triple-digit temperatures. the problem is getting worse, jenna. major power outages more than doubled in the last decade. we all pay for them no matter where we live. a study from the university of minnesota found power outages and disruptions cost the u.s. economy between up to $188 billion each year, making that $11 billion power grid update seem kind of cheap. back to you. jenna: a problem you don't really think about until there is a bad storm and no one has power. then it is a little too late to think about. hopefully we're more proactive. rick, thank you. >> reporter: sure. jon: while while utility crews work to get power back on more trouble could be on the way. dangerous heat seems like the norm in large parts of the country and new areas could get slammed with more severe storms. meteorologist maria molina has the latest from the fox weather center. >> jon, good to see you. unfortunately we're looking at a long stretch of hot weather across a big part of the country stretching from the rockies to the east coast. we're expecting warm temperatures to con in place through at least this friday. you have several more days to go. hopefully people get power back real soon. look at temperatures for today. more triple digit numbers across the state of nebraska. north florida they are expecting a high of 101. rapid city, 105 degrees and 105 in miles city in montana. hot temperatures continue to linger. 100 as well in wichita and kansas city and across portions of the ohio valley and tennessee valley we're continuing to see high temperatures as well in the upper 90s like in chicago and st. louis and nashville. expecting a high temperature at 97 degrees. when you factor humidity it feels hotter. heat index values are well over 100 degrees out here. we have a number of heat advisories stretching from parts of south dakota and nebraska to parts of west virgina. many states under some form of heat advisory or excessive heat warnering which means you're looking at dangerous levels of heat. for tomorrow, big holiday, 4th of july. a lot of people will head outdoors for picnics and barbecues. the heat will still be in place. in minneapolis you expect a high temperature of 100. that will be high temperature, not just heat index value. 103 in kansas city. memphis expecting a high temperature of 101. d.c. you will be in the 90s again. widespread temperatures in the 90s across the state of virginia and maryland. otherwise we more storms and showerses firing up. and they will produce storms in mon tan, north dakota and parts of the great lakes. that is north of that ridge of high pressure producing heat across the country. jon? jon: lots of hot air erywhere looks like. maria molina thanks. jenna: that heat is certainly not helping the wildfires at all. a big story for us today as we take a look and continue to look what is happening in colorado. crews are losing a key tool to fight the fast-moving flames. we'll tell you why. jon: also the house of representatives voting to hold the nation's top prosecutor in contempt of congress. now attorney general eric holder says he knows the real reason behind it. he claims it is not only about documents in the "fast and furious" investigation. why he says it has to do with president obama and the upcoming election. we're going to go in depth on that. jenna: plus the supreme court's landmark ruling on health care, why it is leaving many states in a very sticky situation. we talked to the attorney general of texas next. hi. we're spreading the word about new honey bunches of oats fruit blends and their unique taste combinations. like peach/raspberry. with one flavor in the granola bunch and one on the flake. two flavors. in harmony. honey bunches of oats. ke your day hes better. jon: new information on a story we brought you yesterday on those terrible western wildfires. we're now learning two crewmembers died in the crash of that c-130 aircraft we told you about. the big plane went down while fighting to contain the wildfires near edgemont, south dakota. as a result of the crash the air force is grounding all c-130s helping the firefighting effort, leaving crews across the west without one of the key tools they use to put a stop to the flames. look at what they're dealing with. this is brand new video shot by firefighters of colorado's wall dough fire at its peak. it is now 70% contained. but the wall dough fire -- waldo fire damaged 350 homes. giving many their first opportunity to see the damage from one of the worst fires in colorado history. jenna: that is incredible images there. we'll move a little south to texas now. the supreme court's decision upholding most of the president's health care law leaving many states with some tough decisions right now to make. specifically on deciding whether or not to accept of dollars in new funding starting in a few years, in 2014 to cover an expansion of medicaid. that is the federal state insurance program for the poor. joining me now, texas attorney general greg abbott. general abbott, nice to have you with us today. >> thank you, jenna. great to be with you. jenna: you said in an interview you're in the process of evaluating another potential legal challenge to the law. what do you mean by that? >> we already have one additional legal challenge to the law. it is a lawsuit we filed along with some other states and some other parties earlier this year challenging the federal government's regulation issued by health and human services forcing certain reledge just-based organizations to implement measures and provied products contrary to their first amendment freedom of religion beliefs. that is one that is already existing. we'll be looking at others, jenna, because the devil is in the details of health care mandates. as new rulings are issued it could violate american's constitutional rights. jenna: you think your strategy to go after the law, now that the supreme court had the ruling about this big ruling overall on this 2400 page document, is that your strategy, now, to go after the law piece by piece? >> well, the strategy is to make sure that the rule of law is upheld and that americans and states constitutional rights are not trampled. anytime we see regulations issued by the agency's trying to implement obamacare, that violate the constitution it is our responsibility to file a legal challenge to those regulations. and so now that we have passed this first stage, the first court ruling it is incumbent upon us to make sure that the law is implemented in a constitutional way but, jenna, one last point here, and that is americans today are facing something they were not facing this time last week. that is a new, huge, tax mandate on them. americans may have pushed back against their politicians more had they been aware that obamacare was really an obama tax. so we'll have to be taking a look at the tax consequences of this legislation. jenna: so americans will not have to pay that tax though, if they do have insurance. one out of tour texans is without insurance right now. the way in theory this is supposed to go, those without insurance can turn to the state exchanges and find affordable health care. it is up to the states how they set up those exchanges. general abbott, will the texas government set up the exchanges so small businesses and individuals can shop and find affordable insurance? >> well, we still believe that it is putting the cart before the horse because, this is a tax law now, it is different procedurally in the united states senate than it was before it was a tax law. when you consider as i understand it, this can go through the reconciliation process. when you consider that americans may push back against this tax law more than they would have before, you can see the prospects all of obamacare, all of the new obama tax could be brought down four months from now after the election. we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves and put the cart before the horse and in reality the law may go away in a few short months. jenna: so you have a blueprint just in case? >> we are evaluating the issues whether or not texas should have to spend more tax dollars, engage in more government programs. that is just kind of not the pathway that texans believe is the appropriate pathway. we believe more in limited government, spending fewer tax dollars. we need to find a way to deal with the overwhelming mandates from washington consistent with our philosophy here in texas. jenna: we look forward to have you back especially with your background as a judge as well. important we stay close and continue to follow your pathway here as we move ahead towards the full implementation of this law. thank you for your time today. >> thank you, jenna. jon: one of the big concerns in this country right now, the unemployment rate. it now stands at well, more than 8%. could be even worse though because get this, some folks out of work are not even being counted. jenna: that is always tough. the numbers don't always tell the complete story. jon: no they don't. jenna: eric holder coming out swinging against the contempt vote against him. the attorney general says it has more to do with politics than anything else. we'll have a fair and balanced debate on that coming up. the postal service is critical to our economy, delivering mail, medicine and packages. yet the house is considering a bill to close thousands of offices, slash service and layoff over 100,000 workers. the postal service is recording financial losses but not for reasons you might think. the problem ? a burden no other agency or company bears. a 2006 law that drains $5 billion a year from post office revenue while the postal service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts. house bill 2309 is not the answer. jon: some new developments on the job front now where the may unemployment rate stands at 8.2%, and the numbers for june not expected to change when they are released this friday, well that makes it the longest stretch which joblessness exceeded 8% in more than 60 years. and while the numbers sound bad, it is really even worse than you might think because a lot of folks without a job aren't even counted anymore. jeff flock has their story in a preview of the fox special, out of work. so, jeff, why don't they count everyone who is unemployed? >> you would think you would but, jon, there are actually six separate measures of unemployment in this country. we hear that 8.2 pig. that is something called u-3. if you're out of work and looked in the past four weeks. what happens if you have given up looking? what happens if you're a part-time worker wants to be full time but can't find a full-time job? you don't get counted. what if you're sick and unemployed but can't look for work? that is goes into something called u-6. that is more than 14%. that is historically a great premium to the actual unemployment rate. in other words there are a lot more people who dropped out of the labor force and not getting counted and it is a real problem. jon: what else did you find as you put this report together? >> reporter: well, yeah, the, a couple things, you find that the unemployment rate is actually based on a survey. it is not based on real actual numbers of everything. it is just a government survey. there is some question about the accuracy of it. we found people, that is the best way to tell a story, somebody, a woman who spent a career managing million dollar a yearbook stores, who found herself shelving books at borders. another guy who had been a court clerk in west palm beach, florida. flew down there to talk to him who just can not find another job and, is, days away from going out on the street. and another guy in milwaukee, a guy named pete, about the most apolitical guy in the world but spent his life repairing typewriters, and is not a not not a bright guy but can't can't find work. very apolitical but he just wants to work. he got up every day, put on a tie and searched for a job. the best he could land years, years later was a emit job only to lose it to a knee injury. he became uncounted. >> thank you, everybody, god bless you. god bless america. >> reporter: when president obama held a rally back in february he took a sign he had made saying, i want to work. you don't look like a protester to me. >> i'm not protesting. i just want to get back to work. there is going to be people like me that will work no matter what. >> reporter: it's funny, a lot of these people we talked to, jon, we sometimes make this political and it is no political at all. they feel as though politicians on both sides of the aisle don't get it, don't understand how serious the job problem in this country is. jon: a lot of people take a lot of pride in