israel across the border. i m michael smerconish in philadelphia. israeli defense forces expanding their ground operation in gaza overnight. an idf spokesman says the forces are in the field and continue the fighting with infinity and armored vehicles backed by massive strikes from the air and the sea, including the bombing of hamas tunnels. the bombardment also knocking out communications in gaza, creating a near information blackout. and largely cutting off the territory s more than 2 million people from the outside world. until now, israel s military had been conducting targeted raids with forces withdrawing after a few hours. it comes as an israeli ground offensive aimed at seizing and holding significant amounts of territory has been widely expected but does not appear that such a significant operation is under way yet. joining me from israel is cnn correspondent jeremy diamond. jeremy, still not the ground incursion that we had anticipated. reporter: well, at least no
boy, that is a nice image. the president is also asking americans to continue to do their part, to get vaccinated, not to let their guards down in the coming months, like wearing masks. john harwood is at the white house. and john, the president, other top officials, they re going to hit the road and promote this. i m sure they have the experience of the 2008 rescue package in mind. started popular, not as pap lar as this. and you see republicans attacking the package around the edges here. is the intention to try to keep this popular. absolutely. and they ll get some help when the checks start arriving in bank accounts this weekend, $1,400 for adults and children in families with incomes under $150,000. so that is going to help them. but they do have to make sheer the other benefits of the plan including new benefits for small businesses that haven t been touched by previous rounds of paycheck protection. but this is a was a speech last night where the president was no
that shalla. clearly there s a big difference between the president and mitt romney on the economic policies. joe down in bobbia, you get the in gboca, you get the final word. i agreed with ed that i don t think it had the effect the first one did. i do think the president won it but i don t think it will change the dynamics of the race. this is going to be very, very close. the last 14 days all the way to the wire. and now they are back to the swing states and it s all about getting out their vote. i think romney did well enough last night to continue to be the alternative president as people are making that decision. joe, i disagree. i think last night s debate had a gigantic impact. i would imagined to bayonet sales are going to absolutely skyrocket. you just watch. joe and ed and al. thank you very much. 20 minutes before the top of the hour. let s do the headlines. can drinking a can of monster