in taxes, that's the headline from mitt romney's tax returns. it was released today. going to have a breakdown ahead. right now romney is on the campaign trail, he's in tampa focusing his attention on president obama. we're actually waiting to hear from him and what he's calling a prebuttal to the president's state of the union address. and rick santorum campaigning in stuart, florida, this hour. florida primary just seven days away. republican candidates are facing off for more -- one more debate rather ahead of tuesday's florida primary. the latest matchup in tampa last night, mitt romney hammered, hammered away at newt gingrich, and his record of leadership. gingrich shot back, accusing romney of lying. here's a taste. >> in the 15 years after he left the speakership, the speaker has been working as an influence peddler in washington and during those 15 years, i helped turn around the olympics, helped begin a very successful turn around in the state of massachusetts. >> he just said four things that are false. i don't want to waste the time on them. i think the american public deserve a discussion about how to beat barack obama, the american public deserves a discussion about what we would do about the economy and i think this is the worst kind of trivial politics. the economy is going to be the main focus of president obama's state of the union address. that is tonight. a democratic source briefed on the speech says it's going to focus on economic inequality, making sure that everybody gets a fair shake. now that's significant because it's aimed at setting the tone for his message roaring into the campaign. syrians turning out by the thousands, just look at that, to the person who posted this on youtube says that the huge crowd is mourning 11 people killed by government forces in the town of duma. across the country, at least 37 people were killed yesterday alone. some of the most powerful countries in the region are now withdrawing their representatives from the arab league, monitoring mission in syria because of what you are watching there ongoing bloodshed. emergency crews in the south, they are looking under the rubble, underneath homes, trying to find anybody who might be alive and trapped. a powerful tornado hit jefferson county, alabama. that happened yesterday, destroying more than 200 homes. a teenager and an 82-year-old man were killed. one man shielded his wife and son in the bathtub when the roof blew off their house. >> when the sirens started, all the power went out, got totally black, and my son started crying for his mom. so, i ran down the hallway to get him. >> all right. you might remember the dozens of arsons that terrorized los angeles over new year's weekend. well you had exploding cars, burned buildings, damage expected now to reach $3 million. the man accused, 24-year-old german national harry burkhart, will be arraigned later this hour. the reason prosecutors say he did it, was his rage against americans. after his mother was arrested during a traffic stop. four convicted murderers who were pardoned earlier this month in mississippi, they're still going to remain free, at least for now. now these men are among almost 200 convicts pardoned by haley barbour in his final days as governor. a judge has put off deciding whether those pardons are constitutional until next week. check out this amazing fiery picture of the sun. this is nasa that actually took it during a largest solar storm in almost seven years. absolutely incredible. fantastic light display tonight. you can see as radiation from the storm will reach the earth. could affect satellite communications as well. so, want to dip in real quick here, let's take a listen in to mitt romney. this is him at a event in tampa after releasing his tax returns. let's listen in to see what he's going to say. >> are silent. warehouses are deserted, corporate offices are empty, and real estate endeavors are abandoned. floridians are struggling to find a job, keep a home, and raise a family. as i travel across the country, i've heard similar stories in virtually every corner of america. high unemployment, record home foreclosures, debt that's too high, opportunities too few. this is the real state of our union. but you won't hear stories like those at president obama's address tonight. the unemployed don't get tickets to sit next to the first lady. instead tonight, the president will do what he does best. he'll give a nice speech, lot of memorable phrases in it, but he won't give you the hard numbers like 9.9% unemployment here in florida. or 25%. that's a percentage of foreclosed homes in america that are here in florida. or $15 trillion, that's the size of america's national debt under this president. instead tonight, president obama will make the opening argument in his campaign against a do-nothing congress, but we cannot forget that for two years, this president had a congress that could do anything he wanted it to do. it was a democrat-controlled congress. with huge democrat majorities in the house and the senate, president obama was free to pursue any policy he pleased. did he fix the economy? no. did he tackle the housing crisis? no. did he get american back to work? no. he spent $787 billion on a stimulus bill that didn't work and put us on track to borrow and spend $5 trillion in just his first term. he forced through obama care. a trillion dollar entitlement we didn't want and we certainly can't afford. he took over auto companies and student loans. he stacked the national labor relations board with union yes men who in turn did favors for his campaign contributors. and his favorite friends. when we needed stability, and solvency, he gave us solyndra. when we needed a climate for private investment, he gave us cash for clunkers. when we needed more domestic energy to keep prices low and to create jobs, he imposed bans on drilling and turned his epa regulators loose to slow our development of natural gas. and he spearheaded one of the largest expansions of government in american history and he's paying with -- paying for all that with money he's borrowed from china. three years ago, we measured candidate obama by his hopeful promises and his slogans. today, president obama has amassed an actual record of debt, decline, and disappointment. this president's agenda made these troubled times last longer. he and his allies made it harder for the economy to recover. instead of solving the housing crisis and getting americans back to work, president obama has been building a european-style welfare state. he's pushed for a second stimulus, deep cuts to our national defense, he's asking the american people for another trillion dollars, and for another term in office and with this in mind he tells people, we can't wait to which i say, oh, yes we can. tonight the president will make what is referred to as the state of the union address, but make no mistake, what he's really offering here are partisan planks for his re-election campaign. the president's been telling people that his agenda will create economic opportunity that's built to last. that's the phrase he'll use, "built to last." let's talk about what's lasted. what's lasted is unemployment above 8% for 35 straight months. what's going to last is almost as much debt in four years as all the prior presidents combined. what's going to last are home values that are too low and foreclosure rates that are too high. and a legacy of debt that will imperil future generations is what will last from this administration. what's critical is we make today barack obama's last state of the union address, no more from barack obama. the president's agenda sounds less like built to last and more like doomed to fail. what he's proposing is more of the same, more taxes, more spending, more regulation. and all of his proposals involve big government and big price tags. tonight we're also going to get treated to more divisive rhetoric from a desperate campaigner in chief. it's shameful for a president to use the state of the union to divide our nation. and someone ought to tell him, in order to put the economy back to work, everyone needs to be working. but more than anything, i expect the president will take this opportunity to take another victory lap, you know, in his big speeches he tends to tell tall tales about an america that's thriving on his watch. in 2010 he announced the worst of this economic storm has passed. i know the people of tampa don't believe that. today. >> you're listening to mitt romney calling president obama the desperate campaigner in chief. want to bring in jim acosta who's with romney in tampa. first of all we'll talk about the details of romney's tax returns, but first, do they think that this is -- this line of critique, that kind of criticism against the president himself, going up against obama soepds to fire power against mitt romney and some of his other republican rivals, that is really effective here that that's going to work, it sets him up to be the guy who people see as the one who's going to be the candidate? >> suzanne, that's a very good question. this what is mitt romney has done for the -- most part in this campaign. he's directed most of his attention at president obama. so in a way, he is going back to what has worked for his campaign for many, many months. he is only just recently been distracted by, you know, the, you know, surging threat to his campaign from newt gingrich and so he's been talking about newt gingrich more and more over the last couple days but going back to what he's talking about this morning in this prebuttal to the president's state of the union address, we're standing inside an abandoned warehouse that mitt romney said would be working if president obama's economic policy was working for the country. you can see that banner over my shoulder, i don't know if you can make it out, it says "obama isn't working." that's been an ongoing theme for the romney campaign. i have to just look at -- point to some of the things mitt romney said a few moments ago i think was striking. he said, quote, it is shameful to use the state of the union to divide our nation. he said the president agenda is less built to last and more doomed to fail. i mean these are tough words directed at the president, but it's all because there's really sort of a tit for tat going on between the president and his political people and mitt romney's campaign. let's be honest here, mitt romney released his tax returns this morning, shows he pays a far lower tax rate than most middle-income americans and this is something that president obama has talked about a lot over the last few months, that the rich should pay more in taxes. they should pay their fair share in taxes. to underline that point tonight, the president's state of the union speech in the first lady's box tonight, warren buffet's secretary, somebody warren buffett has said pays less in an effective tax rate than he does. a back and forth going on between these two campaigns right now. >> jim, thank you. forget about how much money romney made for a minute and just picture this, mitt romney's last two tax returns, taken together, were more than 500 pages long. it's a lot of complex details. obviously our christine romans is digging through all of it and have a look at what she has found about those tax returns in a moment. first your chance to talk back on one of the big stories of the day. president obama going to speaks to the nation tonight in his annual state of the union address. he's expected to discuss big issues facing the economy, jobs, the debt. what do you want to hear from him? that's today's talk back question. carol costello is in d.c. with more. >> hello, suzanne. tonight millions of middle-class americans struggling to find hope in our state of the union like michael and mora binder. represent what middle-class americans fear the most, they'll sink farther under water on a bad mortgage or lose their jobs, they'll fall out of the middle class, all of that has happened to the binders who find thunderstormselves in an economic place they can't phantom. >> there's not a lot of hope for me right now of, you know, somebody's going to fix this. it feels like, you know, we've got to, you know, buckle down and do everything ourselves and, you know, not expect anybody else to figure it out. >> see, they don't care about allocations president obama is a socialist or mitt romney is richer than god or that newt gingrich may or may not be an influence peddler. now they want help and they want specifics. so when colorado congressman doug lambborn says he'll skip the president's speech because he's heard it all before, and house speaker john boehner calls the speech pathetic before he's even heard it, many middle-class americans will wonder if anyone gets it. the same holds true if the president transforms the state of the union into a campaign speech or uses rhetoric to tout an economy getting better but at a glacial pace. our talk back question today, what do you want to hear in obama's state of the union? facebook.com/charl carolcnn. >> state of the unions are always -- what is the state of the union, it's strong. you don't hear presidents saying not so good. what is the real deal here when you look at the economy, look at home foreclosures, all those things. a lot of people, despite what the president has been trying to do, are still suffering. >> that's right. and the speech is supposed to be about the state of the union. not a political campaign speech. so that's what mitt romney was talking about in his speech that you heard down there in florida. we'll see what it turns out to be tonight. >> all right. carol, thank you. here's a run down of the stories we're covering. the first one pretty amazing, a man survives being swept away by an avalanche. and it's all on tape. >> i couldn't move. i mean i just was suffocating in the snow. >> can you breathe? we got you, buddy. we got you. >> that is a lucky guy. unbelievable pictures after a powerful tornado wipes an entire alabama neighborhood off the map. and republican critics call newt gingrich a failed leader. supporters say he is just what the party needs. how the presidential hopeful is trying to bridge the divide with a new swagger. want you to check this out. >> we look forward to working with you. thank you very much. ♪ ♪ how do you like me now ♪ how do you like me now ♪ how do you like me now ♪ how do you like me now -one. -two. -three. -one. two. three. one. -two. -three. -one. -two. -three. 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[ male announcer ] 1, 2, 3 percent cash back for the things you buy most. the bankamericard cash rewards card. apply online or at a bank of america near you. the bankamericard cash rewards card. when bp made a commitment to the gulf, we knew it would take time, but we were determined to see it through. today, while our work continues, i want to update you on the progress: bp has set aside 20 billion dollars to fund economic and environmental recovery. we're paying for all spill- related clean-up costs. and we've established a 500 million dollar fund so independent scientists can study the gulf's wildlife and environment for ten years. thousands of environmental samples from across the gulf have been analyzed by independent labs under the direction of the us coast guard. i'm glad to report all beaches and waters are open for everyone to enjoy. and the economy is showing progress with many areas on the gulf coast having their best tourism seasons in years. i was born here, i'm still here and so is bp. we're committed to the gulf for everyone who loves it, and everyone who calls it home. we're following all things politics including mitt romney, in tampa, florida, making remarks live. he is still speaking. we are live streaming on cnn.com. you can go there if you would like to hear the rest of his speech. we'll probably dip in as well as he continues to try to win votes in tampa, florida. and we're checking stories, our affiliates are covering across country. buried alive. in a matter of seconds the snowmobiler gets swept away by an avalanche. this happened in washington state. one of the guy's friends had a helmet cam. he records this whole thing as it happens. they say it was pretty terrifying. >> i knew that i was buried enough in snow that i couldn't move, i mean i just was suffocating in the snow. >> when they were digging i was like, this isn't good. you know, so i was grabbing a shovel while the guys were in there with their hands. >> can you breathe? we got you buddy. we got you. you're good. >> they knew where i went in the snow and that was the saving grace, snowing where i went in the snow. >> that is unbelievable. to palm springs, california, we are just -- just about every street now shows signs of damage, from winds that hit almost 70 miles an hour. that is close to hurricane strength. now crews are trying to clean up the trees, the branches, the other debris. you can see they are rushing to try to get all of that taken care of. we wish them well. new york, a tractor trailer driver loses control, smashes into a guardrail and ends up dangling off an overpass in his cab. the trailer, meanwhile, crashed through the guardrail, lands on the embankment below. the driver remarkably okay. the vehicle not so much. and devastation in alabama. entire subdivision wiped off the map. in jefferson county, after a tornado with 150-mile-per-hour winds struck early yesterday, many families were actually sleeping when it hit. bob van dillen is joining us from clay, alabama. pob bob, we know two people have lost their lives in clay. rescuers are they still looking for survivors? >> no. at this point they are not. that rescue stage is over with. everybody is accounted for. what they're doing now, if you can look behind me, a lot of people that own those houses are trying to pick through and see what they can salvage. about everybody at every blank house, look at the damage we have, it's in all degrees. one pile of rubble behind me, that's a house that is totally gone. that one is just absolutely demolished. a little bit of the slab is still visible on the left and the debris pile is off to the right. the next house you go to is another house that has a couple rooms left, but we only had one serious injury in this subdivision and it was at that house right there. a guy got sucked out of his room and thrown right on to the ground that hurt him a bit. he should be okay. you go to the next house and you can see the damage right there. notice that green couch sticking out of the window. that's from a house just two houses down to the left, the one totally destroyed. that is not her couch. the lady that lived there, she's on the top story, she got thrown out of her house and landed with her bed and her mattress on top of the rubble you see on the right and then we had a neighbor come by and rescue her. she's okay. go to the next house, look at this one. almost all gone. this was a family with a 1-year-old baby. the baby lucky was staying with neighbors last night. it's good news because that room is gone. the baby's room is gone. she was not there for that to happen. just thank goodness for that. we caught up with a couple people that live in this division itself and i asked them, matt, what's the first thing you did, you saw the tornado go through, what happened next? >> i ran in the house. it was maybe 30 seconds, and i grabbed my family and threw them in the closet. we were all gathered up and heard the big boom and i waited maybe a half a minute and -- and i said, baby, stay here for a second. i came out and sai