Lazio Drops Out of NY Gov. Race
BLITZER: Kate Bolduan is monitoring some of the other top stories in the SITUATION ROOM right now. What do you have, Kate?</s>KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Looking at some politics in the state where you are right now, Wolf. Republican Congressman Rick Lazio, well, he's dropping his bid to be New York's next governor. Lazio was defeated this month in the state's GOP gubernatorial primary by tea party favorite, Carl Paladino, but was later endorse by the conservative party. Well, he now says his continued presence in the race would end up helping the Democratic nominee, State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Lazio says, however, that he will not endorse Paladino. And a new unofficial study is predicting big Congressional seat gains for southern and western states in the aftermath of the 2010 census. Election Data Services projects that Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington will each add one additional seat while Florida and Texas will add two and four seats respectively. Meanwhile, a number of states in the Midwest and northeast are projected to lose seats. Southwest Airlines has announced plans to merge with AirTran. The $3.4 billion deal would make the airline the largest in the country and allow it to expand into major airport hubs. A spokesperson says once the deal goes through, all planes would fly under the southwest logo and adopts its less burdensome policy on fees. No word yet on when the merger will be finalized. Those fees, Wolf, its the fewer fees, the better is what I say.</s>BLITZER: I'm with you. And I think most of our viewers are as well. Thank you. It looks like something out of a movie, but it's not. Ahead, we're going to take you inside a scary real life emergency plane landing. Plus, with growing talk that President Obama could be losing a key member of his inner circle, what can he do to regain what's called his mojo? We'll talk about that and more on our "Strategy Session."