gasoline prices jumped 3 cents a gal just overnight to a national average now of $3.61. that makes 16 straight days of higher prices. and experts say we're heading for $4 a gal gas by summer if not sooner. president obama seized the political warning signs and knows the attack's already coming. this afternoon in florida he tried to stay ahead of the curve. >> since it's an election year, they're already dusting off their three-point plan for $2 gas. and i'll save you the suspense. step one is to drill and step two is to drill. and then step three is to keep drilling. anybody who tells you that we can drill our way out of this problem doesn't know what they're talking about, or just isn't telling you the truth. >> let's take a closer look at the problem. our chief business correspondent ali velsshey. oil. >> increase of oil prices up $1.53 a barrel to end at $107.83. that's for the oil that we buy here in the united states. that's not a huge increase. opeq has sort of said they want to keep oil at about $100 a barrel. but what we've seen is a faster than normal increase in the price of gasoline. now, what's that got to do with? a lot of things. the threat from iran, the fact that iran has stopped selling its oil. europe has stopped buying its oil. what could happen to the strait of hormuz. it has to do with demand in the world, with supply. but it's a bunch of different culprits. what it's doing is causing gas to go up faster than oil. that is threatening this economic recovery that we're in the middle of, john. >> in terms of the political debate, ali, anything that the president or congress or the politicians can do to lower gas prices short term? >> not really short term. you've seen the president release oil from the strategic petroleum preserves. it helps for a short amount of time. this is a supply problem and demand problem in the long term in the united states. we also have all sorts of regulatory issues that prevent us from getting more drilling done. that's something that the republicans are going to talk about. but a claim that you can bring oil -- a campaign promise to bring oil down to $2 a gallon doesn't seem to be something that's within the reach of most presidents unless they're able to trigger a recession. that will do it. that will bring gas down to $2 a gallon or lower. >> ali, thanks. let's take a closer look at what he's talking about here. number one we show you the region where the tensions with iran. 1/5 of the daily oil trade comes through the straits of hormuz. one of the reasons prices are going up. tensions in the region here. how does that play off back home? that's what we were talking about here. take a look at oil prices. $3.61 a gallon average. up three cents just from yesterday, up 10% this year. go back and look at the price of gas during the obama presidency the when president too many office we were below $2 a gal. $1.60 a gallon. there was a steady climb, steady climb. then you see the arab spring here and it spiked way up. gas prices had been coming down. back up to $3.61. this can depend on where you live in the country. let me turn this graph off. there you go. where you live in the country depends a lot on how you pay because of state gas taxes, transportation costs and like. darker the state, the higher the costs. $4.25 in california, in new york state. in some states you have to drive longer distances to get to work. some states people are poorer. if you see the orange or red states those are states where people spend 10% or more of their income just on gas. a big toll there economically. we'll watch this play out from a policy standpoint and in the politics in the weeks ahead. moving to more politics, rick santorum was the target early and often in our big republican debate last night. >> our gains were successful. but while i was fighting to save the olympics you were fighting to save the bridge to nowhere. >> governor romney got some help making his case santorum is no fiscal conservative. >> congressman paul, you've questioned the fiscal conservative credentials of all these gentlemen. but particularly this week on? santorum. you have a new television ad that labels him a fake. why? >> because he's a fake. [ laughter ] >> i'm real. i'm real. >> so did the debates stop of slow the santorum surge? voters in michigan and arizona will give us the biggest clue on tuesday. in a new poll today we should note taken before last night's feisty debate suggests a tight and tense struggle for michigan. rick santorum 38% to 34% over governor romney. within the poll's margin of error 4 percentage points. with us to talk about the campaign, deputy washington bureau chief michael crowley. did the debate change anything fundamentally in the race? >> not fundamentally but it blunted rick santorum's momentum. it's hard to run for president as a senator. you cast a lot of votes on capitol hill that become hard to defend when taken out of context. when you're talking the inside language of parliamentary procedure. he got into that last night. i think mitt romney was kind of able to slow him down and bring out some of the negative side of him voters may not be familiar with. not a great night. >> at a time when he is leading a very tight race in michigan. the romney people would say they've been down more a week ago. they're making steady progress in the polls. how important is michigan to rick santorum? we talked about important it is to mitt romney. if mitt romney gets two wins on tuesday they'll think they have stability back. if santorum comes away with nothing on tuesday what does that mean? >> it's tough. presidential politics always is about this kind of strange expectations game that might seem odd for a distance, but the reality is the expectations got so high for romney that it looked as though he was in deep trouble. but now we're seeing a situation where they got kind of high for santorum. romney is starting to make a comeback. if he can be the comeback kid as one of his supporters said the other day, it's a nice little boost for him. here's the caveat to that, john. super tuesday is not a very friendly terrain for mitt romney. you've got a lot of southern states. you're going to have a conservative electorate. georgia voting which is newt gingrich's home state. not a lot of easy plays there for romney. i think there is a chance that romney could come out strong in michigan and arizona but then things get muddled up again on super tuesday. that said it would be nice for romney to win one or both states, particularly michigan. i think the picture's brightening especially after last night's debate. >> anybody else jump out? santorum's surge blunted. gingrich get anything back? ron paul distinguish himself? >> gingrich did a good job. quite sedate and muted in one of those debates previously where he grabbed a moment. he didn't have those youtube viral lines, no conflicts with the debate moderator for instance. ron paul the interesting thing about that is the way he was going after santorum. a ron paul-romney alliance. ron paul has money to spend on advertising. he's targeting santorum. mitt romney appreciates that. >> thank you for helping us out. today we got our first look at the scene of a deadly helicopter crash in an arizona marine base. seven marines died when a pair of helicopters collided over the desert in arizona last night. routine training operation as the marines prepared for deployment to afghanistan. cnn's reporter miguel marquez is there in yuma. miguel, what do we know about this awful accident? >> reporter: we do know there was a collision at 10:30 eastern time last night between two work horses or the marine corps, cobra helicopter, a close in attack helicopter and an huey. we also know there was a highly trained, highly experienced training pilot in that huey in one of the seats. we don't actually know who was in command or in control of that huey at the time of the crash. he may have been assisting a lesser experienced pilot or they may have been training on a new weapons program. it's just not clear. investigators are on the scene. everyone there has been identified. all the dead have beenfied fired. six of them are from camp pendleton in california and one of them that trainer here from yuma. john? >> such a horrible event in arizona. miguel, thanks so much on your reporting there. a man wearing an afghan army uniform killed two u.s. troops today amid a growing storm of violent protests after nato forces confiscated and burned some detainee's qurans and other relicious materials. students paraded and burned an effigy of president obama. in an effort to sooth the anger, president obama took the extraordinary step of writing an apology calling the quran burning inadvertent and an era. >> reporter: two american soldiers shot dead on a base east of where i'm standing by a man in afghan army uniform. apparently an act connected to the protests happening outside that same base which themselves turned violent two protesters shot dead, seven injured. protests popping up around the country in the past three days and deep concerns that tomorrow around friday prayers religious leaders may stir afghan crowds by talking about this. we could see yet further unrest. america is doing its best to apologize as much as it can but there's no one more senior left to apologize since today president obama had his ambassador here hand deliver a letter to the afghan president saying they'd hold rebels behind this accountable and hope it would never happen again. afghan authorities are rushing forward their investigation into how this happened, saying today they'd like to see restraint from afghans but also suggesting they might like to see a trial for the u.s. soldier who was behind this obvious unintentional mistake. that's going to cause a huge headache for u.s. officials if afghans insist upon that. the question still remaining how on earth did this happen. i understand from a military official this was religious texts in a detention facility being used to pass what they refer to as extremist messages. they were gathered, handed up, meant to be disposed of differently but ended up being sent to the conventional incinerator they use on the base. local afghans saw this, and then spread the word causing these protests. but really now there's no real sign the violence is going to slow. and this is exactly what nato does not need as it tries to push this message of security here so it can begin to withdraw its troops and hand over to afghan security forces a country on edge really for tomorrow. john? >> cnn's nick payton walsh there in afghanistan. within the past hour in spokane, washington newt gingrich slammed the president for making any kind of an apology. >> the president apologized for the burning. but i haven't seen the president demand that the government of afghanistan apologize for the killing of two young americans. there seems to be nothing that radical islamists can do to get barack obama's attention in a negative way. and he has consistently apologizing to people who do not deserve the apology of the president of the united states period. [ cheers and applause ] >> last hour coming up here the united states formally support the opposition against the syrian president bashar al assad. plus new details in the man accused of engineering the biggest leak of classified information in u.s. history. for a limited time, passages malibu will be giving away free copies of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. . disturbing new images from syria where reports say -- united nations report identifies syrian commanders and high-ranking officials who the u.n. says bear responsibility for gross violations of human rights. in another important development just today, secretary of state hillary clinton signalled the united states may now throw its support behind the opposition of president bashar al assad despite misgivings about that situation. >> it's a fluid situation. but if i was a betting person for the medium term and certainly the long term, i would be betting against assad. >> let's get some perspective from cnn's fareed zakaria. the secretary of state says the united states should lean toward this opposition, be prepared now to embrace this opposition. i want to listen here to what general martin dempsey the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff told you the other day. he seems quite worried about that. >> there's indications that al qaeda is involved and that they're interested in supporting the opposition. there's a number of players, all of whom are trying to reinforce their particular side of this issue. and until we're a lot clearer about who they are and what they are, i think it would be premature to talk about arming them. >> now general dempsey's talking about arming them. what about the idea of embracing them? is there a split and should there be caution on that front? >> i think that's a very smart question, john. everyone has assumed that the only way that we can support the syrian opposition is to arm them. and of course that is the most effective way we could do it and of course that's probably what they want. but there are many things we can do short of that. because that involves us in what has essentially become a civil war. and we're not sure we understand it well enough to take that jump. but perhaps what we could be doing is trying to support them, help them organize, figure out who they are so that some of general dempsey's concerns can be address zbld arwa damon is one of our brave cnn reporters who has been going into syria, risking her life. listen to this account for help from a father of two in syria. >> reporter: if there is an outside interference it will be an ocean of blood, an ocean of blood if this situation continues like this. people will explode. they won't be able to take it anymore. they won't respond to us. it will be a cycle of your attacking me so i have to attack you. >> when you hear these ominous accounts mixed with appeals for help, fareed, and then you see the international community is having a hard time coming up with a consensus upon what to do, what does that tell you? >> well, the truth of the matter is that syria has some backing. that is why international support is so difficult to muster for the opposition. they have russia, china in the security council, iran next door. and so when that gentleman says, if you don't get involved there will be oceans of blood, unfortunately the tragedy is that if we would get involved there would perhaps be even more blood. because there would be activism on all sides. already syria is turning into a kind of cockpit where there is a cold war between iran on the one side supporting the syrian government, saudi arabia on the other side supporting increasingly these militants who are either in syria or coming into syria. so when we talk about bloodshed, there will be a lot more bloodshed. that's not a reason not to support the opposition. because at the end of the day we want to do the right thing both politically and morally. but let's face it. getting more involved in iraq or getting more involved in afghanistan did not produce less bloodshed. it produced more. it wide, the war. >> it certainly would. i want you to listen here. i asked the republican candidates for president last night what they would do differently from the current president. here's what mitt romney said. >> with assad in trouble, we need to communicate to the ail alowites to say you have a future if you abandon that guy assad. we need to work with saudi arabia and turkey to say you guys provide the kind of weaponry that's needed to help the rebels inside syria. this is a critical time for us. if we can turn syria and lebanon away from iran we finally have the capacity to get iran to pull back. >> a reasonable answer? >> yes, i thought it was actually a very intelligent answer. you're used to hearing such frankly nonsense on the campaign trail because people make wild accusations. that was a sensible, thoughtful, sophisticated answer. in an odd sense, of course, what mitt romney is suggesting is a version of barack obama's strategy in libya. in libya we let the europeans take the lead and we said we will support what you do but you guys have to be out in front. what he's suggesting is turkey and saudi arabia should take the lead and we would support it. i'm sure he's not going to call it leading from behind but that's sort of what he's suggesting. >> i was just going to close on that point if you didn't. i'll bet everything i have in my pocket governor romney is not going to call that leading from behind. fareed zakaria, thanks as always. >> a pleasure. coming up a tight race on governor romney's home turf. new details about how the battle for michigan is shaping up. and harry potter fans get excited. here's j. k. rowling writing a new book. this one for adults. in fact, i'm already seeing your best friend, justin. ♪ i would've appreciated a proactive update on the status of our relationship. who do you think i am, tim? 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[ male announcer ] ocuvite. today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site. now starting unit nine. some of the world's cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america's biggest cities. siemens. answers. welcome back. here's kate bolduan with the latest news you need to know right now. >> reporter: hello to you, actually. this is what the bureau looks like. >> fly back from phoenix to beautiful washington. >> reporter: you're back. good evening, everyone. news to catch you up on. the court-martial of army private bradley manning is under way. the 24-year-old private was formally charged in military court today with the connection with the wikileaks scandal, large in history. it will be april before former university of virginia lacrosse player george huguely finds out how much time he'll be spending in jail. a jury recommended 26 years after convicting him of second degree murder in the 2010 death of his girlfriend. at his april 16th sentencing the judge can accept or reduce the jury's recommendations. in a big win for privacy advocates on the internet, some of the largest web companies including google have reversed course and have now agreed to support a do not track button to be embedded in most web browsers. the move will give users greater control over their personal data collected about them as they go online. and now that harry potter and jenny was ely are parents, j. k. rowling is ready to write her first series for adults. unfortunately rowling is keeping the details of the new series secret until later in the year. the harry potter has sold more than 400 million copies worldwide and turned into a blockbuster film. >> did you read the series? >> i read the earlier ones alongside my son. then as he got older and took less interest i flipped through. but i have seen the movies. >> more interested in other things. >> we'll just