[Carol Costello, Cnn Anchor:] Thanks to both of you. Happening now in the NEWSROOM, air scare. American Airlines in full damage control mode this morning after new reports of seats coming loose mid-flight. Now inspectors are on the case. A massive fireball. Explosions and intense heat forcing dozens of people to evacuate. And it's one, two there it is, three. They're in. The Detroit Tigers, the Washington Nationals and the Oakland A's join baseball's playoff party. Plus
[Alison Kosik, Cnn Business Correspondent:] American Express in hot water with the government because of deceptive lending practices. Customers could be in line for refund checks for hundreds of dollars. Should you be getting some cash? Find out. NEWSROOM starts now.
[Announcer:] This is CNN breaking news.
[Costello:] But we do start with breaking news this morning. Two U.S. Border Patrol agents have been shot in southern Arizona and we've now learned that one of those agents has died from his gunshot wounds. The FBI and Cochise County Sheriff's Office, they're leading the investigation. The shooting happened near the town of Naco, Arizona, that's near the area where border with that Border Patrol agent involved in that "Fast and Furious" program was shot and killed, Brian Terry. We'll have much more on this story, we'll get much more information in the next two hours of NEWSROOM. Also this morning, it sounds like something out of a nightmare. Imagine being on a plane and having your seat detach from the floor mid-flight. It's happened at least twice in the past few days on two American Airlines planes.
[Unidentified Male:] Passenger seats, rows 12D, E and F came loose out of the floor. We don't want that thing flying around and hurt the passengers behind them. The seat is loose and can rotate pretty quickly.
[Costello:] Yesterday a flight from New York to Miami had to return to JFK after some seats came loose in the cabin. And last week, a flight from Boston to Miami had to make an emergency landing at JFK in New York after three seats detached from the floor during the flight. The plane was in the air. Our affiliate WPLG's Ross Palumbo has more.
[Ross Palumbo, Reporter, Wplg:] Passengers call it chaos. American Airlines climbing into the sky with seats suddenly coming loose.
[Unidentified Female:] The seats flipped backwards. It was actually a complete nightmare.
[Palumbo:] The nightmare for her began on Saturday. This woman too shaken to show her face says she was just flying from Boston to Miami when suddenly on take-off three seats flipped over.
[Unidentified Female:] And so people were essentially on the laps of the passengers behind them.
[Palumbo:] Humorous now, but a serious scare then. The pilot immediately called for help.
[Unidentified Male:] Passenger seats, rows 12D, E and F came loose out of the floor.
[Palumbo:] With one passenger now in a crew jump seat and two others in two empty seats, the plane immediately diverted to New York's
[Jfk. Unidentified Male:] We don't want that thing flying around and hurt the passengers behind them.
[Palumbo:] They landed without injuries, without further incident. On a similar American Airlines Boeing 757, a similar incident. There was another row of loose seats on take-off. This time on a flight from JFK to Miami and another scare.
[Seth Kaplan, Airline Weekly:] Nobody got hurt. But certainly it's not the most reliable airline right now.
[Palumbo:] From bankruptcy to mass lay-offs, American has had picketing, pilots call in sick, hundreds of flights delayed, hundreds more canceled.
[Kaplan:] This is certainly an airline that's had more than its share of problems.
[Palumbo:] And now this.
[Unidentified Male:] The seat is loose and can rotate pretty quickly.
[Palumbo:] Passengers left flying by the seats of their pants.
[Unidentified Female:] People were hysterical, trying to figure out their connections.
[Costello:] In a statement, the FAA said American Airlines has taken eight aircrafts with similar seat assemblies out of service until they can be inspected. Much more on this story in the next hour of NEWSROOM. In Hong Kong, police have arrested six crew members from two passenger boats that crashed last night, killing at least 38 people. Police arrested the crew members on suspicion of endangering passengers. One hundred, twenty-three people were pulled from the water. It's unknown how many others are still unaccounted for. This is Hong Kong's deadliest ferry accident since 1971. Now the march to the presidential election just five weeks from today. A major weigh station could be tomorrow's presidential debate. But for those minds already made up, two battlegrounds now in play. Earlier voting begins today in the Bellwether state of Ohio. The Obama campaign is mobilizing its supporters to seize an early lead there. And in Florida, the first absentee ballots hit the mail today. Traditionally the state's Republicans tend to have the edge in those mail-in votes, but who will gain the advantage in tomorrow's presidential debate? Despite days of intensive coaching and practice sessions, both candidates trying to appear loose.
[Mitt Romney , Presidential Nominee:] People want to know, who's going to win, who's going to score the punches, and who's going to make the biggest difference in the arguments they make, and there's going to be all the scoring of winning and losing. And, you know, in my view, it's not so much winning and losing.
[Barack Obama, President Of The United States:] Basically they're keeping me indoors all the time. It's a drag. They're making me do my homework.
[Costello:] That was the president at a polling station in Nevada. He just called some random voter and that's what he said. Our CNN political director Mark Preston is in Denver for the showdown and sort of the quiet before the storm. Right, Mark?
[Mark Preston, Cnn Senior Political Director:] It sure is, Carol. But you're right. You know, the candidates right now in their campaigns are trying to lower expectations tomorrow night. Tens of millions of people will tune in. And for a lot of people who haven't made up their mind yet, tomorrow's night debate could be decisive. It could turn people's minds about who they're going to vote for in November. So there's a lot riding on how well Mitt Romney and how well Barack Obama perform tomorrow night.
[Costello:] And just in time, on, I guess, the eve of the debate, there's a new poll of poll out. Tell us about it.
[Preston:] It is, Carol. And we get this new CNN poll of polls, just calculated about an hour ago. We've calculated together six different polls and it shows that the race is really a dead heat right now. Barack Obama has a very, very short lead right now over Mitt Romney nationally. So this is what the national numbers look like, 49 to 46 right now, Barack Obama. But we should note that this race is really going to be won and lost in states where I stand right now. Colorado. Other states such as Nevada, Virginia, Ohio, as you said, which is voting today, in Florida. These are very important states that the candidates will be focusing all of their time on as they head into the spring, into November Carol.
[Costello:] Mark Preston, reporting live from Denver this morning. CNN's live debate coverage begins tomorrow night at 7:00 Eastern. CNN has learned months before the 911 attack in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans, there were security concerns surrounding the diplomatic mission in Benghazi. The White House first called the attack spontaneous, the one in Benghazi that killed the ambassador, but now says it was preplanned by terrorists linked to al Qaeda. The Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers, says it's a clear key information was left out.
[Rep. Mike Rogers , Chairman, House Intelligence Committee:] It is very clear to me that there was this pieces of information for convenience's sake that fit a narrative that they believed you know, I don't want to question their motive, but what they thought they were doing, I don't know if it was political or not. I don't have any information if it was political or not. It was clearly done. And I you know and I know other committees are going back to look at to see if Congress was deliberately misled, which would be a violation of the law.
[Costello:] I'm joined now by our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. And, Barbara, I know you've been digging into this for new information. You say as early as April, the United States sent special forces into Benghazi for a specific reason.
[Barbara Starr, Cnn Pentagon Correspondent:] They did, indeed, Carol. What we've learned is that a very small team of Special Forces commandos were sent to that Benghazi compound. This was back in April. If you think back a U.N., a United Nations convoy in the region had been attacked. There were growing security concerns at that time back in April, about what was going on in that region in eastern Libya. So the U.S. sent a team of about four Special Forces commandos to the Benghazi compound. They did a security assessment. What could be done to improve security at the facility. And they recommended apparently, we are told, a couple of things that seem fairly minor in retrospect. Sand-bagging some positions so Libyan forces who were there, contractors, essentially, could help fight back if the place came under attack and also more training for some of that private security force that was hired for the consulate compound. No word on how much of this was implemented and whether there were additional security recommendations beyond that. But it really goes to the point that as far back as April, there were growing security concerns there, something the ambassador would have been well aware of as the militias in eastern Libya appeared, appeared to be gaining strength and coalescing according to the intelligence coming in at the time.
[Starr:] You know
[Costello:] So here's the question, Barbara. Was there ever any discussion of sending troops back to secure the site?
[Starr:] You know this has been the question on the table. After the attack when you see the pictures, that the site had been trashed, possibly classified information left behind and a real need to guard the facility for potential law enforcement reasons, if the FBI was to come in, it's a crime scene. And yet people are able to walk around. What we are told is there was never a serious request for military help. Because if you think about it, Carol, this was essentially now hostile territory. Insurgents with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, shoulder-fired weapons, you would have to send a pretty heavy military footprint of people and equipment and supplies and have the Libyan government's permission to do all that in order to put the military there to secure the site. So that was not a serious consideration we're told.
[Costello:] Barbara Starr live at the Pentagon this morning. In financial news this morning, the government is taking a closer look at who may be partly responsible for the financial meltdown, and that's now led to a lawsuit against one of the nation's biggest banks. The New York attorney general is accusing JPMorgan Chase of defrauding investors. Alison Kosik is at the New York Stock Exchange with more details. Good morning.
[Kosik:] Good morning, Carol. So let me take you back to 2008. Over the course of a weekend, JPMorgan actually bought Bear Stearns in a government-backed acquirement, actually. So what essentially stands right now is that JPMorgan is legally responsible for Bear's actions. So unfortunately for JPMorgan, these are the types of responsibilities you take on when you acquire a company. So now what's happening is New York the New York attorney general is suing JPMorgan over these mortgage-backed securities. These are mortgages that were bundled together and sold to investors during the housing boom. And it led to the housing bust because when people couldn't make their payments, mortgage-backed securities went south, banks and investors lost billions of dollars. Now attorney general said Bear systematically failed to fully evaluate the loans, largely ignoring the defects that their limited review did uncover and it kept investors in the dark. Translation for you here? Bear didn't do its due diligence. And when the bank did find defects with the mortgages it was selling, it didn't tell anybody. Even worse, the New York attorney general is saying that even when Bear was made aware of the problems, the attorney general says they didn't fix them Carol.
[Costello:] OK. So this is a civil lawsuit because, you know, a lot of people out there think someone should pay, like with jail time for this sort of stuff. But it's a civil lawsuit, and that means fines, it's not jail time, if they're convicted of this.
[Kosik:] Right and exactly. And just so you know, the only major sort of trial that's come from the Wall Street meltdown happened in 2009 when two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers were found not guilty of inflating the price of their mortgage-backed securities. But really that is the big criticism here is who's paying the price? But JPMorgan is responding to this, by the way, Carol. JPMorgan is trying to distance itself from this, it's stressing that the lawsuit deals with Bear Stearns. And you know what, that's understandable. Because the securities in question, they were issued, you know, long before it bought Bear, in 2006 and 2007. But JPMorgan is still planning to contest these allegations with JPMorgan saying it's disappointed the New York attorney general pursued its civil action without offering us an opportunity to rebut the claims. I'm sure we will be following this closely as all of this unfolds Carol.
[Costello:] Thanks, Alison. Alison Kosik at the New York Stock Exchange. It's probably one of the last groups of people you'd think about having voting rights. But civil rights groups are battling out in Florida to make sure former felons can vote.