north korea threatening war.

ordering its troops to be ready. and president obama laying out his case for the iran nuclear deal in the letter to congress in a new op-ed. welcome to "early start." i'm christine romans. it is friday, august 21st. 4:0 a.m. in the east. breaking news this morning. kim jun-unhas ordered his troops. turning now to kathy novak in south korea. kathy, what is the latest here? >> reporter: according to kcna, kim jun-uncalled his army to be prepared for operations from around now. south korea is on high alert.

the president has been visiting a military base and update on the latest situation in the south korean defense ministry is promising to retaliate from north korea. it is preparing tomorrow. that is because north korea set a deadline to south korea. it said south korea must stop broadcasting propaganda messages using loud speakers on the dmz by 5:00 p.m. tomorrow afternoon. north korea will launch military action. >> kathy, thank you. keep us posted as tensions rise on the border. jeb bush switching tactics this morning aiming his fire directly at donald trump who has been slamming him for weeks. both men on the campaign trail today. tens of thousands of people set to hear trump at the football stadium in alabama.

bush speaking in ohio this afternoon. will he keep to his new line of attack blasting trump as more democrat than republican? with the latest on the more aggressive jeb bush, cnn's athena jones. >> reporter: good morning, christine, up to the last couple days, bush has seemed hesitant to engage trump. now the gloves are finally coming off. take a listen to how he tried to draw contrast with trump at a town hall in new hampshire. >> you have to win. you don't win when you campaign like this. you don't win when you're the large dog in the room and it is all about you. you win when you connect with people about their aspirations, not about how great you are or how rich you are. >> reporter: i asked him and he said he is not engaging with the voters.

>> i'm proven with the record. he isn't. i have fought for republican causes all of my adult life. i just think when people get this narrative, whatever the new term is, compare and contrast. they will find i'm the guy they will vote for. >> reporter: strong words from bush. christine. >> athena jones. thank you. bush is one of five republican presidential candidates appearing at americans for prosperity events in columbus, ohio. bush and bobby jindal. marco rubio and ted cruz tomorrow. ted cruz on following up on the soap box. and for the democrats, bernie sanders with events in greenville and columbia. hillary clinton has no scheduled events today. a federal judge says hillary clinton did not comply with government policies when she used a private e-mail server as

secretary of state. this came when the judge was ruling in the lawsuit filed by the judicial watch group. the judge ordering the government to ask the fbi to use anything that is relevant to the suit. the freedom of information act searches don't involve private e-mails. the lawyer for bowe bergdahl says donald trump's remarks will threaten his right for a fair trial. at the town hall this week, he said bergdahl is quote, a dirty, rotten traitor. those words are a call for mob justice, his attorney says. new efforts by president obama to shore up support for the iran nuclear deal among democratic lawmakers. the president sending a letter to congress reassuring nervous

democrats that a military option is still on the table if iran cheats on this deal. president obama turning up the pressure with an op-ed that appears in the newspapers across the country. if iran does not abide by this deal. it is possible we won't have any other action than to act militarily. one possible reason for the campaign, polls showing a growing majority oppose the deal with iran. more from cnn's sunlen serfaty. >> reporter: christine, this is not good news with the administration as they try to get the deal through to congress. americans are not embracing it. the cnn poll shows support for the deal is declining. the poll shows a majority, 56% are calling for congress to reject the deal. and that is up from 52% just last month. many do seem to be blaming

president obama for the disapproval. 6 in 10 people disapprove how the president is handling the u.s. relationship with iran. this comes as lawmakers come into the final stretch of the august recess with town halls and hearing from constituents and concerns about the deal. republicans need 11 more democrats to oppose the deal if they hope to override a veto in september. the white house says president obama remains engaged while he continues the last part of his summer vacation. today in about 30 newspapers across the country, the president has written an op-ed. in the white house has said they are confident will get that support. clear here, christine, they still have a lot of convincing. >> yes, they do. sunlen serfaty, thank you. former president jimmy carter taking his cancer diagnosis in stride. saying his future is in god's

hands. carter revealed that melanoma first discovered in his liver has spread to his brain. >> you know, i had a wonderful life. i had thousands of friends and i've had an exciting and adventurous existence. i was surprisingly at ease. much more so than my wife was. now i feel it's in the hands of god whom i worship. i'll be prepared for him when he comes. >> carter began receiving radiation and other treatment on thursday. time for an early start on your money. stocks tanking in asia right now. weak manufacturing data from china adding to worries about the economy. stocks are much lower in europe. greek prime minister tsipras is calling down. he says he will run again.

stock futures are down yesterday. dow down more than 350 points. oil at a six-year low. global slow down fears adding to the issues. yesterday, media shares tanked. time warner, parent of cnn, down 5%. part of a selloff on worries of the future business model. twitter shares below their ipo price. tumbling to a record low on growth worries. we will have more for you this morning. new accusations against bill cosby. more women claiming the comedian sexually assaulted them. they're speaking out next.

new bill cosby accusers are speaking out bringing the number of women who claim the comedian sexual assaulted them to 50. they appeared alongside attorney gloria allred.

>> the next thing i remember was sort of awake in the bed with no clothes and mr. cosby with a robe crawling from the bottom of the bed. i was incapacitated and could not say no. he engaged in sexual activity with me. it was not consensual. >> no one would ever believe me in 1976. i would have been told i put myself in a vulnerable situation and it was my fault. i lived with this shame and this guilt of thinking it was somehow my fault, but it wasn't because if i hadn't been drugged, i would have never ended up in a hotel room with him ever and he knew that. >> cosby has never been charged. he is expected to testify under oath in october in a lawsuit brought by another accuser. defense lawyers grilling the teenage accuser at the cross examination at the prep school

rape trial. she said she was raped by fellow st. paul student. both say the encounter stemmed from senior tradition known as the quests of younger students. officials are trying to determine what caused a gas explosion at the new york city high school. three critically injured in the blast at jfk high school thursday night. >> many people in the neighborhood heard the explosion. we responded all full collapse assignment. we found the contractors seriously injured. the building is seriously damaged. >> the structure damage is limited. david sweat who spent 22 days on the run was indicted on thursday on escape charges arrest promoting prison

contraband. if convicted, he could get an extra seven years in prison. he is already serving life without parole. and an alderman in st. louis says the man who pointed a gun at police was only 14 years old. police say drugs and stolen guns were recovered at the scene. we know the names of the three firefighters killed while battling a wildfire in northern washington state. 20-year-old tom besheski, and 26-year-old andrew shezak. they died putting out flames in twisp. >> with the loss of these three firefighters, we know the smoke is still there and it's thick. it will not obscure their

incredible act of courage. >> so sad. one of 100 wildfires blazing across washington state. will the weather cooperate? efforts to get the wildfires under control. let's get to meteorologist allison chinchar for the forecast. >> christine, we take a look at the fire threat with the red-flag warning continuing through the day. wind gusts will be the big impact for today. we are expecting a lot of them to get up around the 40-mile-an-hour range. fortunately, that will cause several issues for a lot of the firefighters. the heat again continues across the southeast. 87 for the high today in atlanta. 93 in charleston. we top out at 83 degrees in new york. another thing we are keeping an eye on is the tropics. you are looking at hurricane danny. it is expected to decrease a bit over the next couple of days. it likely will not make landfall over the leeward island until we get closer to sunday.

at that point in time, it is expected to weaken to tropical storm status. that is good news. as it continues off to the north and west, it will eventually make its way it puerto rico and then eventually up to the dominican republic. >> thank you, allison. ten years ago, it was ten years ago now that hurricane katrina devastated new orleans. that included the new orleans school system. as the city rebuilds, parents of special needs student felt left behind. >> case was 8 years old at the time of katrina. we came home six weeks after the hurricane. he would look and he would say they broke the house. they broke the house. even if it was a big building. >> hurricane katrina left new orleans in ruins. jackie case wanted to help rebuild. since the storm, new orleans practices open enrollment. no seats are set aside for special needs children like jackie's son who has autism. >> after katrina, the school system had to be reborn.

it's done a great job of rebuilding the public school system, but however, it has not changed enough to educating people with special needs. there is not one public school i know of that i can refer and say this one has it right. when you receive a diagnosis of autism or any disability for your child, it can become a burden or it can become a gift. >> in 2012, jackie opened the raphael academy for autism and down's syndrome and other disabilities cognitively. >> they are not broken and they don't need to be fixed. they just need to be challenged to the best of their ability to express themselves however they can. we spend a lot of time on safety skills, life skills, vocational

skills. how they will be independent as they can be. no longer are the days where you take students and people with disabilities and put them in an institution or separate them from the family. there are so many people with special needs now that the world is going to have to change to embrace them in every factor of life. >> ten years. all right. the manhunt widening in the deadly bangkok bombing. police searching for new suspects in that case. who they are looking for next.

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police say they are now looking for a woman wearing a black shirt in connection with the deadly bangkok shrine bombing. thai authorities say at least ten people may have taken part in the bombing. the attack they say is not likely linked to international terrorists groups. cnn's andrew stevens is in bangkok with the latest. >> reporter: police in bangkok now say they think at least ten people were involved. what they say is a well organized team that executed the attack on erawan shrine on monday evening. they say they obtained evidence to suggest that several people were involved in plotting the attack and also acquiring the materials and building the bomb. all done under the radar, of course. they have not shared what that evidence is at the moment.

at this stage, they are also pulling back on making any link with international terrorism. they say they have been talking to interpol and sharing information with agencies in the u.s. and australia and the consensus upon is it is not an international conspiracy which brings the focus back on to domestic issues. they say they are not ruling anything out at this stage. they've meanwhile increased the reward for any information leading to the arrest of the man in the yellow shirt. the man they say they are now very sure is the bomber. apart from the early breakthrough, there has been little else solid and concrete. they ruled out two other suspects they thought were accomplices. they are now saying the network that was used may be more than ten people. frustrating for the police, but also frustrating and worrying

for the people of bangkok. andrew stevens, cnn, bangkok. >> andrew, thank you. breaking overnight. emergency workers in china racing to put out fires at the site of the chemical blast in the northern city of tianjin. china state run news agency says one ignition point came from an auto distribution point near the blast site. look at the photos. this as high levels of dangerous chemicals remain on the site. water tests show high levels of sodium cyanide. a toxic chemical that can kill humans rapidly. the contaminated water is contained around the blast zone. the explosion killed more than 100 people. breaking overnight. north korea readying its troops and threatening war after change fire with south korea. we are live with the new tensions ahead.

breaking news this morning. north korea threatening war. readying troops for an attack after exchanging fire with south korea. we are live on the border. jeb bush takes on donald trump in the race for president. now both candidates on the campaign trail. president obama's push to the iran nuclear deal laying out his argument in the letter to congress in a new op-ed. welcome back to "early start." i'm christine romans.

north korean leader has ordered his frontline military units into a war time state. this follows an exchange of fire with south korea across the demilitarized zone. turning to cnn's kathy novak. kathy, tensions running high. >> reporter: absolutely, christine. latest from the state news agency kcna says the country is inching closer to the brink of war. kim jun-un and ordered the surprise operations anytime from around now. south korea says it will respond strongly and retaliate to any further provocation from north korea. all eyes that pyongyang has said. it must stop the psychological

warfare to stop messages across the border. it must stop by 5:00 p.m. or it will launch military action. the defense department says it is closely monitoring the situation here. christine. >> a concerning situation. kathy novak, thank you. to politics. jeb bush switching tactics this morning aiming fire directly at donald trump. donald trump who has been slamming jeb bush for weeks. both men on the campaign trail today. tens of thousands set to hear trump at a football stadium in alabama. bush will speak in ohio this afternoon. will he keep to his new line of attack blasting trump as more democrat than republican? with the latest on the more aggressive jeb bush, cnn's athena jones in new hampshire.

>> reporter: good morning, christine. up until the last couple of days, bush is hesitant to take on trump. that is changing. now the gloves are finally coming off. take a listen to how he tried to draw contrast at the town hall in new hampshire. >> you have to win. you have to win with a broader campaign like this. you don't win when you campaign like this. you don't win when you're the large dog in the room where it's all about you. you win when you connect with people about their aspirations. not about how great you are or how rich you are or how this you are. >> reporter: i asked bush to respond to trump's criticism. >> there is a big difference. i'm a proven conservative. i have fought for republican conservative causes all of my adult life. when people get this narrative, whatever the new term is,

compare contrast, i'll be the guy to vote for. >> reporter: strong words. christine. >> thank you. jeb bush defending the use of the term "anchor babies" after reporters were blasting him and donald trump that week. anchor babies is used sometimes to describe children born to illegal immigrants in the u.s. bush grew testy when repeatedly tested by a questioner while speaking to reporters. >> do you regret using the term anchor babies yesterday on the radio? >> i don't. do you have a better term? >> i'm asking you. a lot of folks. >> you give me a better term and i'll use it. serious. don't yell at me behind my ear. >> the language anchor baby. is that not bombastic? >> no, it isn't. give me a better word.

that's not another word. that's a seven -- look. here's the deal. i said it is commonly referred to that. that's what i said. i didn't use it as my own language. you want to get to the policy for a second. i think that people born in the country should be american citizens. okay. we got that over with. >> he was on the bill bennett radio show talking about immigration reform talking about children commonly referred to as "anchor babies." anyway, hillary clinton swiftly responded to the request for a better term with a tweet. it said how about babies, children or american citizens. bush, one of five republican candidates, appearing in columbus, ohio. bush and jindal speaking at defending the dream. marco rubio, ted cruz and rick perry. ted cruz takes his turn on the

soap box following up with the rally for religious liberty in des moines. and bernie sanders has events in greenville and columbia. hillary clinton has no scheduled events today. a federal judge says hillary clinton did not comply with the government policies when she used a private e-mail server as secretary of state. the remarks came and judge sullivan was ruling in a freedom of information lawsuit filed by judicial watch. the judge ordering the state department to ask the fbi for anything found on the private server that is relevant to the suit. the government has been arguing that the freedom of information act searches don't involve federal employees private e-mails. the judge rejecting that argument. new efforts by president obama to shore up waivering support for the nuclear deal with iran. the deal is still open if iran

cheats on the deal. the president posted an op-ed across the newspapers across the nation. if iran does not abide by the deal, we may not have any other choice. one possible reason for the ramped up campaign, polls show a growing majority opposed to the nuclear deal with iran. more from cnn's sunlen serfaty. >> reporter: christine, this is not a good deal for the president. americans are not embracing it. the new cnn/orc poll shows support is declining. the majority, 56%, are calling for congress to reject the deal. and that is up from 52% last month. many are blaming president obama for the issue.

this comes as lawmakers head into the final sketch of august recess with town halls. republicans need 11 more democrats to oppose the deal if they hope to override a presidential veto in september. the white house says president obama remains engaged on the selling of the plan while he continues the last part of the summer vacation. today in 30 nuclear weapoewspap the country, the president has penned an op-ed. very clear here, christine, they still do have a lot of convincing. >> thanks for that, serfaty serve. former president jimmy carter taking his cancer diagnosis in stride. he says his future is in god's hands. carter revealed that melanoma discovered in his liver has now spread to his brain.

>> you know, i had a wonderful life. i had thousands of friends. i had an exciting and adventurous and gratifying existence. i was surprisingly at ease. much more so than my wife was. now i feel it's in the hands of god whom i worship. i'll be prepared for him if he comes. >> i tell you, that press conference was remarkable. he was graceful with a smile on his face. really retrospective in the work he's done and gracious. carter began receiving treatment and radiation on thursday. time for an early start on your money. brutal day for stocks. stocks tanking in asia and europe. major growth worries in asia. now uncertain as the greek prime minister steps down and calls for new elections. stock futures down in this country. yesterday, the dow plunged more

than 350 points. stocks plunging. oil at a six-year low. global slow down fears and roll it all together and big trouble for stocks. media shares tanked. disney down 6%. time warner's parent company is down 5%. and twitter shares fell to a record low as user growth stalls. new accusers coming forward claiming bill cosby assaulted them. we have new details after the break.

two new bill cosby accusers speaking out bringing the number of people accusing him of assaulting them to 50. they spoke alongside gloria allred. they claimed that cosby sexually assaulted them against their will in the 1970s. >> the next thing i remember was i was sort of awake in a bed with no clothes and there was mr. cosby in a robe crawling from the bottom of the bed. i was incapacitated and could not say no. he engaged in sexual activity with me. it was not consensual. >> no one would have believed me in 1976. i would have been told i put myself in a vulnerable situation and it was my fault. i lived with shame and this guilt of thinking it was somehow

my fault. it wasn't. because if i hadn't been drugged, i would have never ended up in a hotel with him ever. he knew that. >> cosby has never been charged. he is expected to testify under oath in october in a lawsuit brought by another accuser. defense lawyers grill the teenager during cross-examinati cross-examination. both sides acknowledge this stemmed from a school tradition known as senior salute. apparent competition with sex-related conquests with younger students. officials trying to determine what caused a gas explosion at a new york city high school. three people injured. this happened thursday night during construction at jfk high school. >> people in the neighborhood heard the explosion.

we found these contractors seriously injured. this building has been seriously damaged. >> fire officials say structure damage to the building itself is limited. david sweat who spent 22 days on the run was indicted thursday. the judge entered a not guilty plea for sweat. if convicted, he could get an extra seven years in prison. we know the names of the three firefighters killed battling a wildfire in northern washington state. they have been identified as 20-year-old tom zbyszewski, 26-year-old, andrew zajac and 31-year-old richard wheeler. they died after their vehicle crashed while putting out flames near the town of twisp. the governor hailing helthese victims as heroes. >> we know the smoke is still there and it's thick.

it will not obscure their incredible act of courage. >> this is 1 of 100 wildfires blazing across washington state. so will the weather cooperate and efforts to get the wildfires under control out west? let's get to meteorologist allison chinchar for the forecast. >> good morning, christine. we are looking at the fires in the northwest. here is the air quality alert. you get all of the smoke that comes with it. that is going to cause bad air quality out there. also the one thing we are keeping an eye on is the winds. they are expected to increase throughout the afternoon with winds gusting as high as 40 miles per hour in places. that causes a lot of problems for the firefighters. it doesn't create new fires, but it doesn't allow them to contain the fires out there already. that is a big condition. the drought monitor came out yesterday. the numbers just keep going up. extreme category now up to 24%

of this region. not the news they wanted to hear. a lot of heat in the northeast, but folks in cincinnati and chicago getting a bit of a break. temperatures now seeing the highs in the low 80s. philadelphia, again up to 89 degrees for the high temperature today. 83 today for the high in new york. we are keeping an eye on to make it off to the north and east over the next couple of y days. christine. allison, thank you. disgraced reality tv star josh duggar calling himself the biggest hypocrite ever after being outed in the ashley madison cheating web site. he said he became unfaithful to his wife and rebroken the trust and family and friends and fans. the show was canceled following revelations that duggar molested

teenagers including his sisters. 47 minutes past the hour. imagine finding a family of bears swimming in your back yard! that's what happened to one new jersey family who caught a mom and five cubs cooling off in their pool. tim basso was relieved to find his daughters and dog safely inside when this happened. mom, dad and the girls, the human mom and dad and girls, watched as the bears splashed in the water and played with the toys. basso caught the whole thing on video and posted it to youtube. so cute. so cute. except, they do have a lot of claws. they might come back. they had so much fun, they might come back. that's the problem. that's your friday video.

investigators identifying more possible suspects in the deadly bangkok bombing. who they want to talk to next.

police say they are now looking for a woman wearing a black shirt in connection with the deadly bangkok shrine bombing. at least ten people may have taken part in the bombing. the attack, police say, is not likely linked to international

terrorist groups. cnn's andrew stevens is in bangkok. >> reporter: police in bangkok now say they think at least ten were involved in what was a well organized team on the erawan shrine on monday evening. they say they obtained evidence to suggest that several people were involved in plotting the attack and acquiring the materials and building the bomb. all done under the radar, of course. they have not shared what that evidence is at the moment. at this stage, they are pulling back on making any link with international terrorism. they say they have been talking to interpol and sharing information with security agencies in the u.s. and the u.k. and australia. the consensus opinion is that it is not an international conspiracy which brings the focus, at least somewhat back on to domestic issues. they say they are not ruling anything out at this stage.

they, meanwhile, increased the reward for any information leading to the arrest of the man in the yellow shirt. the man they say they are now very sure is the bomber. apart from the early breakthrough when they identified the man they think is the bomber, there's been very little else solid and concrete. they actually ruled out two other suspects they thought were initially accomplices and now saying that the network that was used may be more than ten people. very frustrating for the police, but also very frustrating and worrying for the people of bangkok. andrew stevens, cnn, bangkok. >> thank you, andrew. what do registered sex offenders and murderers have to do with your commute? the scary background checks of uber. that's next.

i'm christine romans. let's get an early start on your money. stocks are tanking. the dow plunging 358 points. the dow below 17,000 now for the

first time since october. yesterday's slide was the worst in four years. global slowdown fears and an interest rate hike is macoming. roll that out and it is big trouble for stocks. yesterday, energy stocks and media stocks plunged. twitter below the ipo price as user growth stalls. what do registered sex offenders and a convicted murderer have in common? they passed the uber background check in california. uber is misleading customers that background checks fail to turn up felonies. uber doesn't use a fingerprint identification test. uber says the checks are no less safe than the checks used by taxi companies. how does a four-day workweek

sound? uni glo will offer that as an option to the 10,000 japan based store employees. workers will work four-day workweeks and be asked to work weekends and holidays. employers offering more flexibility to obtain good workers. "early start" continues right now. north korea threatening war. exchanging fire with south korea. ordering troops to be ready. jeb bush launching attacks against donald trump. president obama laying out his case for the nuclear deal in the op-ed this morning. welcome to "early start." i'm christine romans. it is 5:00 a.m. in the east. let's begin now with the breaking news this