[Isha Sesay, Cnn Anchor:] Hello, everyone. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM, live from Los Angeles. I'm Isha Sesay. The headlines this hour
[Sesay:] At least 247 people have been killed in Italy's powerful earthquake. That death toll has just gone up within the past couple of hours. Rescuers have been racing to find survivors in the rubble. Small towns in the epicenter are the hardest hit and more than 1,000 people are displaced.
[Witness:] I took my wife by the hand and in the dark we tried to find our way out. I felt debris under my feet. I felt rocks, pieces of broken furniture and overturned furniture. It was very difficult to get out of the House.
[Sesay:] Very frightening. We'll get the latest on several aftershocks, which are creating challenges for rescue workers. Meteorologist Derek Van Dam joins us now. Derek, what are you seeing?
[Derek Van Dam, Ams Meteorologist:] Well, Isha, the aftershocks keep coming and that's exactly what we would expect with this size of an earthquake. In fact, just within the past few hours, a magnitude 4.7 after shock took place. That wasn't even the strongest aftershock, which was actually a 5.5 that took place almost immediately after the original earthquake happened at 3:36 a.m. local time central Italy. Now, I want to show you this because that was a lot of information here. Let me try and break it down for you. This is typical with this strength of an earthquake. What we typically see is the frequency of earthquakes or I should say after shocks continuing at about the same pace. It's the intensity of these after shocks that start to decrease over time. You can see the seven-day stretch at the bottom portion of the screen. Going forward, we'll continue to feel slight tremors. Let's say magnitude 2 to magnitude 4 and the frequency will continue. But it's those the intensity that should start to fall away. But that doesn't want to we don't want to diminish just how important and how critical these aftershocks can be, because the infrastructure has been weakened. It has been compromised significantly. Take these before and after pictures to give you an example. This is built in the 1300s and I want you to see one particular feature here that is taking place. I find this absolutely fascinating. It's almost frozen in time. This clock tower, 3:36 a.m. If you recall, that was the moment when the earthquake took place. You can see that slight lean with the clock tower. Here is the before image. You can see how clean the roadways are. And we'll go back to the after image and just show you the destruction that this magnitude 6.2 earthquake actually caused. Here is another interesting angle, as well. You can see the rubble that crashed into the city streets, trapping some of the vehicles there. This is a Google image of the exact same corner. They're going on be cleaning up for this for days to come. Speaking of cleanup, let's talk about the weather taking place in that area. Fortunately, they are trying and the temperatures are not too hot and they're not too cold. So if there are still people presumably trapped amongst the rubble, survival times will be increased because the weather is favorable, at least for the time going forward. Temperatures really in the middle 20s. So there's a little bit of life here out of a dark situation Isha?
[Sesay:] Yeah. And we'll take it. We'll take a little bit of light.
[Van Dam:] Absolutely.
[Sesay:] Derek Van Dam, appreciate it. Thank you.
[Van Dam:] Thanks, Isha.
[Sesay:] The U.S. Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, is hammering home his America first message with the help of British nationalist, Nigel Farage. The Brexit champion appeared at a rally in Mississippi on Wednesday as Trump urged voters to re-declare American independence.
[Donald Trump, , Presidential Candidate & Ceo, Trump Organization:] The multi-national banks, the media celebrities, the big donors try to scare the British people out of voting for change. The same thing is happening right here in the United States. It's happening. All the people benefiting from our rigged system don't want things to change.
[Sesay:] Joining us here in L.A., CNN Ron Brownstein, senior political analyst and the senior editor for "The Atlantic." It is so good to have you here, because there is so much to make sense of.
[Ron Brownstein, Cnn Senior Political Analyst:] Yes.
[Sesay:] The Trump campaign inviting thee former leader of the U.K. Independence Party, Nigel Farage, a man who been accused of racism and xenophobia, he was on the stage beside Donald Trump. Before we analyze, let's hear to some of what he had to say.
[Nigel Farage, Former Leader, United Kingdom Independence Party:] If I was an American citizen, I wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton if you paid me.
[Farage:] In fact, I wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton if she paid me.
[Sesay:] I'm counting on you, Ron, to explain the Trump campaign calculation.
[Brownstein:] Yeah. You know, first of all, it is a reminder that Donald Trump is part of a kind of a global trend toward these blood- and-soil nationalist parties that are consistently relying primarily on working class voters who feel both economically and culturally marginalized. There is a similarity in the agenda. But there is something striking about bringing in here at precisely this moment when Donald Trump, after revising his Muslim ban, is making one of the biggest shifts or flip-flops by backing off his call for mass deportation. At precisely the moment that his campaign that an America first argument is not the pathway to victory, they bring in the embodiment of it.
[Sesay:] You mentioned his flip-flopsoftening on the immigration policy
[Brownstein:] Softening. Flip-flop is the word.
[Sesay:] on immigration policy, let's play some of what he had to Sean Hannity, of FOX News, as he spoke to him on Wednesday.
[Sean Hannity, Host, Hannity:] Originally, you had said they're all out and there was a big brouhaha. But you're saying that if somebody can prove that they've been here but here is the big question, though, no citizenship?
[Trump:] No citizenship.
[Hannity:] Everyone agree with that? All right.
[Trump:] I'll go a step further. They pay back taxes. They have to pay taxes. There's no amnesty. There's no amnesty.
[Hannity:] Right.
[Trump:] But we work with them.
[Brownstein:] Extraordinary, right?
[Sesay:] Extraordinary pivot. But one with political risks.
[Brownstein:] But if you go back and you look through the Republican primaries and the exit polls, they asked people what to do here illegally. In every case, except for two, only minority voters supported mass deportation. They provided a majority of his votes. Supporters of deportation provided a majority of his exit polls. So for him now to say, I didn't mean it, I'm going to move closer, which is not that far at all from where Jeb Bush was or John Kasich, which was yes, we're got to let people say but not give them citizenship, which the Democrats would do in a bill that passed the Senate in 2013. That was a stand Donald Trump ridiculed on his way to the nomination. But he's brought in a team that can add, and when they look at where he is, he is stuck somewhere around the low 40s nationally, and the voters in between where he is and where he needs to be, are not supporters of mass deportation. They're also more likely to view it as racially biased. So he's trying to make one of the most head- turning pivots in modern American politics.
[Isha Sesay, Cnn Anchor:] How many days left? 75?
[Brownstein:] And counting. It's like Christmas.
[Sesay:] Without chocolate.
[Brownstein:] Exactly.
[Sesay:] Ron Brownstein, always a pleasure.
[Brownstein:] Thank you. Thank you.
[Sesay:] Thanks for the analysis. New polling in key battleground states shows Trump gaining ground. A CNNORC survey of voters in Arizona gives Trump a five-point edge. Hillary Clinton leads by one point in North Carolina, well within the margin of error. CNN's Tom Foreman reports those numbers don't tell the whole story.
[Tom Foreman, Cnn National Correspondent:] We know Donald Trump is reaching out, trying to get a hold on minority voters out there. If you look at these two states in our latest poll, you get an idea how much work is ahead of him. Out here in North Carolina, African-Americans accounted for one out of five votes in 2012. In this election cycle, 88 percent are going for Hillary Clinton now. Donald Trump is almost off the map here with 3 percent. Gary Johnson has more than twice the support as he does in that state. If you move out here to Arizona where the Latino vote is the big question out here, 57 percent going for Clinton right now. Trump down here at 20 percent. His big pitch to everyone is to say, look, I will be the guy who will bring back the economy and that will mean jobs for everyone. And in both of these states, most voters have faith in his ability to handle the economy, but minority voters believe Hillary Clinton will actually do a better job. On another front, we've talked about the education gap and that's still quite profound. Look at the details from this. Among college graduates in North Carolina, 55 percent want Clinton. 36 percent want Trump. White, non college grads, he absolutely crushes here in the vote. And if you move out to Arizona, same effect. Fairley close here among college graduates. She still has a substantial lead, but then among white college graduates, non college graduates, 62 percent to 31 percent.
[Sesay:] Thanks to Tom Foreman for that breakdown. Now that the Olympics are over, a big decision is looming over Brazil's president. An impeachment trial begins in the next few hours for Dilma Rousseff. Stay with us for details.