. ♪ we are farmers ♪ bum, ba-da-bum, bum, bum, bum ♪ >>> judd gregg is the man who turned down a job as obama's secretary of commerce. he said thanks but no thanks to president of the united states is clearly not a man to speak his mind. and he joins us now. let me ask you about your reaction first to what's happening in libya? >> the people of libya deserve a free government and hopefully that he can proceed on to an orderly path of democracy. it's just a positive thing to have occur for the world. >> obviously there are several schools of thought here about a post-gadhafi libya. one is that these kinds of dictators keep a lid on what's trouble in their countries as well as causing it, of course, and there is a danger without them controlling the worst elements of society in this country, things could suddenly explode. are you concerned about that? >> i think we have to be in any arab country. obviously the most cohesive groups are the most radical groups. you have to be concerned that they take control, and that they establish instead of a dictatorship, some sort of theocracy like

gregg: skip this one. few hurricanes ever came close to new york city and in fact since 1851, only five have tracked within 75 miles of the big apple. hurricane gloria, the most recent one, tracked back in 1985, eerily similar to this one, irene's projected path and gloria made landfall in north carolina's outer banks, september 27, 1985 and at the time was a category-3 and traveled all the way up the east coast, lashing new york's long island with 80 to 100 miles per hour, all told, it caused $900 million worth of damage in today's dollars. at least 8 people in the united states died as a result of gloria. and, 3/4 of a million people lost power, in the northeast. so, that gives you a little perspective. martha: might be in for it. all right, back to the huge story, that we are working on, at fox news, right now and that is there are unconfirmed reports that libyan rebels say they have muammar qaddafi and two of his sons, surrounded in tripoli. let's go to jennifer griffin, who is working the phones of co

gregg: that's really dumb. don't do that. martha: thank you for being here, everybody. "happening now" starts right now. have a good day. jenna: we start with this fox news alert out of libya, brand new developments, on the one hand, you have reports, reports that the rebels inside libya have this man, qaddafi, surrounded in the residential compound. those reports are unsubstantiated at this time and we have this just coming to us from the associated press, the spokesman for moammar qaddafi, telling the a.p. that qaddafi is safe, healthy, his morale is high, he is indeed leading the battle for our freedom, and independence every day. so one consistencey in the story seems to be the inconsistencies of reports coming out from inside libya. we have a live report from our very own steve harrigan, straight ahead. >>> first a fox news weather alert and brand new information coming in on the track of hurricane irene. it's one of our big stories this week. we're so glad you're with us, i'm jenna lee. rick: i'm rick folbaum in for jon: jon scott and irene isa category three, gro