and comedian bill mahre matches his political sympathies with 1 million bucks. we ll tell you who gets the we ll tell you who gets the money. captions by vitac www.vitac.com we begin first with the increasingly shrill politics of what you re paying at the gas pump. in today s case it s 3 cents a gal more than yesterday. aaa says the national average is just under $3.65 a gal, 12 cents higher than it was at the beginning of the week. this is the 18th straight day gas prices are up. the political blame game moved into high gear during this week s cnn presidential debate when newt gingrich said he had a plan to get gas prices back to 2.50 a gallon, a notion president obama ridiculed during a stop in florida. only in politics do people root for bad news. do they greet bad news so enthusiastically. you pay more, they re licking their chops. and you can bet that since it s an election year they re already dusting off their three-point plan for $2 gas. and today in washing
month. the u.n. general assembly plans to stroet this afternoon on a resolution condemning president assad for the brutal crackdown. our journalists in syria say government forces appear to be losing their tight grip across the northern part of the country. we re going to get a firsthand account on the ground from cnn s ivan watson. reporter: young men and old sit on the ground chain-smoking next to assault rifles, but they say they ve gotten these weapons within the last couple of months. they re trying to protect their communities, their families and villages by laying rings of improvised land mines but they re aware they do not have weaponry to match the tanks or personal carriers and air power of bashar al assad s army. we are learning more about how whitney houston spent her last days. they say she was drinking heavily the week before her body was found in a beverly hills hotel room. hotel guests heard her complaining that her drinks waurpted down. here s what dr. dr
took the spotlight. he was asking to have an open marriage and i refused. he wanted an open marriage? yeah. that i accept the fact that he has somebody else in his life. she says that you came to her in 1999, at a time when you were having an affair. she says you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. would you like to take some time to respond to that? no, but i will. and i am frankly astounded that cnn would take trash like that and use it to open a presidential debate. i am tired of the elite media protecting barack obama by attacking republicans. joe johns is at the republican leadership conference where gingrich is speaking at this hour. joe, gingrich got a standing o when he was asked about that interview. reporter: yeah, he sure did. i mean, this is you can say a lot of things about it, but i think probably the most important thing to say, kyra, is that this is the south. this is newt gingrich s home base. if there s anywhere these charges have
work. thank you so much. facebook.com/carolcnn if you d like to continue the conversation. let s continue the cnn newsroom with randi kaye. hello, it s 1:00. two short days before the make or break south carolina primary. one gop hopeful is out. governor rick perry who dominated the field so briefly last summer called it a race. good morning, i have come to the conclusion that there is no more viable path for me in this campaign. therefore, today i m suspending my campaign and endorsing newt gingrich for president of the united states. our latest polls shows gingrich gaining on romney and perry stuck in fifth with single digits. santorum is running third but today he s officially the winner of the iowa caucuses. 16 days ago, you ll recall romney was on top with eight votes but the final results show santorum actually won by a total of 34 votes. it s basically a toss-up because eight votes are still missing. four republican candidates will meet tonight and wolf blitz
virtual tie for the lead. what happened to newt gingrich nice guy? he vowed not to go negative in response to the other candidates attack ads, but that didn t stop gingrich from blasting ron paul. in an interview with cnn s wolf blitzer he said he wouldn t vote for paul. gingrich pointed to incendiary newsletters distributed under paul s name in the 80s and 90s. you look at his newsletters and then you look at his ads, his ads are about as accurate as his newsletters. now if he were to get the republican nomination. he won t. let s say he were. could you vote for him? no. amateur video out of syria is said to show defectors trying to ambush security forces in daraa. cnn cannot independently confirm this claim. observers from the arab league are now in the country for a second day to determine if the government has kept its promise to stop the bloody crackdown on its citizens. a league official tells cnn they have postponed trips to three cities today due to l