He good morning on a weekend with two big stories brewing. First were counting down to the oscars which will air right here on abc. Check out this timelapsed video of the red carpet being rolled out. Coming up, what the producers are revealing only to us. Hainesy will be covering that. The coverage, you said it once, lets say it twice. The oscars will be right here on abc over and over. Before they hand out the shiny statues in hollywood shgs, eyll award delegates in South Carolina. They head to the polls this morning in what Hillary Clinton hopes will be a decisive win. Meanwhile, the bombshell endorsement reverberating through the republicauniverse this morning. Chris christie joining forces with donald trump. This alliance raising all kinds of questions. Will it give trump unstoppable momentum heading into super tuesday, and what does it mean rubio . We start our coverage this morning with abcs mary bruce right in washingt. Hi, mary. Reporter hi, paula. Go morning. This is a potential game changer in this roller coaster campaign, donald trump getting his first major endorsement from a card carrying member of the republican establishment just as he heads into super tuesday. His former rival showed up unannounced and dropped a bombshell on Donald Trumps campaign. We need a first class president and were going to have it in donald trump. Reporter new jersey governor Kristie Macosko krieger this morning is lending his credibility to trumps runaway campaign. I can guarantee you that the one person that hillary and bill clinton do not want to see on that stage come next september is donald trump. Reporter they werent always so friendly. Well do it. Im going toet it done because i make deals andnd i get deals and im doing deals. Reporter united christie and trump are taking aim at a common enemy, marco rubio. Desperate people in campaigns who do desperate things flailing losing campaign. Reporter after rubio let trump have it at the last debate. If he hadnnt inherid 200 million,ou know where donald trump would be right now . Selling watches no, no, no. Reporter then mocked trump for his spelling mistakes on twitter. He meant to say lightweight, but he felled leight. Great honer. I think he meant to say great honor. I dont know how he got that wrong because the e and o are nowhere near ch other on the keyboard. Reporter now the attacks are getting bizarrely permanently. He asked for a full length mirror. I dont know why because the podium goes up to here. He wanted a full length mirror. Ybe to make sure his pants werent wet. You had to see him you had to see him backstage. He was putting on makeup with a trowel. Reporter andrump doing his best impression of rubio drinking water. Its rubio. Reporter but rubio seems to be rather unimpressed with trumps big endorsement saying because he needed a life line after that bruising debate. And at least on twitter there are signof opposition growing against the frontrunner. The nevertrump has been trending for the last ten hours. Dan. All part of the elevated d discourse of american politics this morning. Mary bruce, thank you. For more on this, lets bring in abc news political analyst matt dowd who is in austin, texas, this morning. Matt, how big a deal is this Chris Christie endorment . Does it actually matter . Well, endorsements dont usually matter and especially in president ial contexts, but i thinin this case it is not going to add pport to donald trump, i think what it does in the aftermath of the debate, it solidifies his support going into super tuesday. So in that way since hes leading most of the polls in nearly every state, his support solidifies and not bleeding off to marco rubio or somebody else is actually a help that Chris Christie could provide. So, whats in it for christie here . Why would he do this . Well, i mean obviously thats the question. Im a person that assumes the this, that theres no some nefarious thing that somebodys finagled some endorsements a certain way. I think a couple of thing, first is Chris Christie and donald trump have had a personal relationship. One is governor of new jersey. One does aot of development in new jersey so theyve had a personal relationship and, two, i think Chris Christie has come to the conclusion that donald trump in his mind is going to be the gop nominee. So why not get on board now at a critic moment for donald trump going into super tuesday and who knows what that might get him in the course of the campaign if donald trump was to win the white house, so i think thats the equation he did. Meanwhile, marco rubio really tearing into donald trump. Do you think this helps or hurts him . Well, as you listen to this, its like a 10yearold insult contest between the two of them. In the course of this right now, i actually think i think marco rubio can criticize donald trump and attack him on substante things. I think when he tries to keep in mind for a year marco rubio has run on the nonattacking aspirational optimistic candidate and now in the course of 48 hours, hes tried to become some version of trump. I dont think thats necessarily a benefit to him going into supetuesday. A big turnaround. Matthew dowd, we love having your analys. Thank you. Paul la, over to you. Things ch calmer in the democratic ring. And todays South Carolina primary, Hillary Clintons predicted to easily best Bernie Sanders. A win gives her momentum heading into their big super tuesday showdown, and abcs david wright is going to give us that side of the story from columbia, South Carolina. Good morning, david. Reporter good morning, paula. The polls are open here in the palmetto state, and even at this hour, a slight crowd is gathering. Democrats only today. The republicans had their South Carolina primary last week, and as you say, Hillary Clinton has a huge advantage here. How are you . Reporter at her last few Campaign Stops here Hillary Clinton was already looking ahead to the general election. Going to end up nominating. Itll be entertaining, thats for sure. Reporter ignoring the fact that just outside the orangeburg fish fry, her democratic rival was waiting for her to finish. Feeling great. Reporter africanamemericans make up more than half the democrat electorate here. Wake up, South Carolina. Reporter so Bernie Sanders has a new radio ad featuring director spike lee. And when bernie gets in the white house, he will do the right thing. Reporter clintons South Carolina ads feature morgan freeman. Just like shes always stood with us. Reporter recent polls show clinton crushing sanders 2 21 among black voters giving her a huge boost here but still trying win over young voters. At one Campaign Stop yesterday, clinton ran into a Bachelor Party and stopped to pose for a photo with all the groomsmen. I love having men at my feet. Here. Theres one man she wont have at her fee Bernie Sanders insists he plans to stay in the race all the way to california. Imaging the day when youre on that stage with donald trump, what do you say to him . How do you whats your strategy for taking him down . Why would i tell you . Hes probably watching your show. Reporter the polls are open today till 7 0p. M. Clinton ahead by double digits here. The Sanders Campaign mostly looking forward to tuesday and theyre hopg that some big wins there will keep them in the race. Paula. All right, david. We want to tnk you. And the conversation continues tomorrow on this week and a reminder, everybody, super tuesday jujust a coue of days. The abc News Division will be out in full force, George Stephanopoulos will lead our whole Political Team for a prime time special at 10 00 eastern plus full corage on Good Morning America as well as world news tonight. And we do want to move on to the new zika virus alert. The cdc has just confirmed another round of pregnant women heren the u. S. Contracted zika while traveling. Our chief health andnd medical editor dr. Richard besser is here to explain. Rich, good morning to you. Good morning. First and foremost in this new report, we have nine new cases of pregnant women here in the u. S. S. What were those findndings . Yeah, so theyre keeping a regiry of all pregnant women who have been infected so we can learn more. What they found was two women had miscarriages, two women had abortions and in one of those ces, the ultrasound showed severe brain damage. One baby born wit microcephaly. Two healthy babies and two still pregnant. Its very concerning and gives more evidence zika could be causing this. All the women had symptoms. It doet tell us whether if you dont have symptoms and get infected theres a problem and doesnt tell us whether the first trimester is the riskiest but its pointing in that direction. All these women traveled to countries. We still dont know how they transmitted it but traveled to countries where zika was ansmitted. The cdc also issued a report to those considering traveling to bril for the summer olympics. Yes. What is their cautionary tale . The samame travel remmendations theyve been making and say pregnant women really should not go to the olympics. Insisting on going, make sure you do everything you can to prevent mosquito bites. If your male partner goes, then for the rest of the pregnancy you have to prevent sexual transmission, and any woman who is trying to get pregnant should talk to her doctor before going to the olympics. Got to heed those warnings. Rich, than for joining us. Appreciate it. Dan. Thanks, guys. We move to the new details about the gunman who went on that Fatal Shooting spree in kansas killing thee at a lawn mower factory where he worked. Were learning more about a possible motive this morning and about the hero cop who put an end to the carnage. Abcs eva pilgrim is on the scene there in hesston, kansas, eva, good morning to you. Reporter good morning, dan. We are learning more about what triggered that series of shootings that ended here in this rural kansas town and how that gunman, a convicted felon, was able to get his hands on those guns. Ending with the gunman marching into a kansas lawn mower ctory. An offduty paramedic was one of the first insidede it was chaos. I mean there were people screaming and yelling. There was, you know, people laying on the ground. Reporter the shooter, 38yearold cedric ford, an employee at the factory excel industries. Investigators now revealing from the first shot ford fired inside his workplace, it took just two minutes for cops to arrive. Hesston police chief Doug Schroeder racing inside to confront ford in a oneonone gun battle. The only reason he stopped shooting is because that officer stopped the shooter. Reporter ford and three of his coworkers are dead identified on friday as renee benjamin, Brian Sadowsky and josh higbee. At least 14 people wounded. Now we are learning that just 90 minutes before the rampage, ford was served at work with a restraining order to stay away fromis exgirlfriend who alleges he is in desperate need of medical and psychological help. Another former girlfriend now behind bars accused of giving in the shooting spree to ford. In Court Documents federal agents say when the couple broke up, 28yearold sara hopkins had Police Escort her to pick up the apons frfr the home they shared. The officer saying she knew the convicted felon could not lawfully possess them. Then in august admitting she returned both guns because ford had threatened her. Just one month later ford posting this video to his Facebook Page firing an ak47 and posting pictures with the gun saying, just doing my thing. Now, hopkins has not yet entered a plea. If convicted, she could face up to ten years in federal prison. Dan and paula. Eva, thank you. We want to move things over to Ron Claiborne tracking all of the other stories that are happening around the globe right now, good morning, ron. Good morning to you, paula, and dan. Good morning, everyone. We begin overseas with a deadly car bombing that rocked syria just hours after a ceasefire brought relive calm to that wartornation. Marquardt in the syrian capital of damascus. Alex. Reporter good morning, ron. This is the quietest syria has been in years. This is an area on the edge of damascus that has been pounded by rebels with mortars and rockets with hundredsilled but this neighborhood as you can see like much of the rest of syria today is calm. Now, isis and al eda are not part of this agreent so the fight will continue against them. Theres little optimism this could last but could waif the way for new pea talks next month. Ron. Alex, thanks. Back in the u. S. A health scare for rock music legend yoko ono. The 83yearold was rushed to a new york City Hospital friday afternoon after calling 911. It was initially reported that ono was suffering from a stroke or strokelike symptoms, but a spokesman for ono now says she was only suffering from dehydration and will likely be discharged from ththe hospit later today. Good news there. Number of taxpayer accounts that were hacked last year is actually more than double what they initially reported. The agency now estimating that 700,000 accounts were hacked giving cyberthieves access to Social Security numbers, birth dates and other data that could be used to file false tax turns. And a former guantanamo detainee is back in somalia a and calling for jihad. Ibrahim al qosi was osama b ladens bodyguard and drer. He released an audiotape promoting an uprising sentenced to 14 years detention but released from gitmo in 2012 for cooperating with authorities. And take a look at this. A frightening scene on a busy xas highway friday morning. An outofcontrol dump truck that you see right there plowing right through that intersection in austin, texas, causing a multicar accident. Amazingly, nobody was seriously hurt. What . The driver was on his way to deliver a load of gravel when that happened. And finally, music filled the white house as presisident obama joined in song with some listen. Hey hey ho ho hey hey ho ho hey hey ho ho a the president as you hear there leading a singalong with usher in the tribute to the late great ray charles in the east room of the white house. The president said initially he would not sing but broke that promise for better or worse. Do you think for betr. Youou think s yes. Hes got a great voice. Caps off a month of celebrations of black history month. You thought it was aretty good voice, huh . When he sang amazing grace, it sounded beautiful. I. I like how even in this context when hes singing, he does it with a really serious face, im president even though im nging ray charles. Thank you, ron. Lets check the weather now. Meteorologist indrdra peterss. How much do you love this . A meltining snowmaout towards minnesota. I think it says it all. Temperatures are way above normal. Were talking like 20 degrees above normal all thanks to where the High Pressure is. Keep in mind winds go clockwise around that high, right, so if youre talking about all that t warm air coming in out of the gulf and unfortunately if youre on the front side like we are in the northeast, it means that cool air is coming down from canada. The high will shift so first the chilly temperatures. This morning in the little bit of that chill. Freezing this morning but it is changing. Its going to feel so good. Look at this dome of High Pressure bringing temperatures a good 20 degrees above normal into the midwest and into the plains. Now once this high starts to shift over, then youre going to be looking at that same warm air moving into the northeast and that comes in tomorrow. Youre going to love this. Look at that. Temperatures going up to even all winter. Were all talking about how cold it is right now. Im going to give you guys a hall pass. Tomorrows warm but ill let you stay on the couch and watch i think a melting snowman is indescribably sad. No, cute. Actually paula was saying the same thing. Indra was like youre going to love this picture. As if like a dying snowman. Yeah, hilarious. You are never happy. Im done. Now were going to the warmer coast. The countdown to oscar sunday, llywoods biggest night is almost here, and abcs Kayna Whitworth is in l. A. With some behindthescenes secrets about the big show. Good morning, kayna. Reporter hey, sara. Good morning to you, so the theme this year of the oscars is we all dream in gold and you know thats how the stars will be sleeping, but not everybody gets to take home an oscar, the real star of the show. Counting down the hours to the touches. Hoping to wow the eyes of several hundred Million People around the globe, the oscars will be broadcast in 225 countries and many sending their own media representatives. The movies take you to another world,d, to anotr sphere of emotion. Reporter right now the red carpet is covered in plastic, but that will soon change, and it will be no easysy task beus its 500 feet long, 33 feet wide. You can see its coming up a little bitit right tre. This will all be clean so youll have more than 16,000 square feet of glamour. The official champagne of the oscars, piperheidsieck, have 150000 bottleso pop, expecting to pour 9,000 glasses. Fans will be treated to an epic animed open with musical score from legendary composer danny elfman. The producers elected to start after the opening montage with this kind of crazy animated thing. Reporter our lara Spencer David hill and reginald hudlin. When we sat down there were two things that happened pretty much instantly. We agreed that chris rock should be the host, and we agreed to bring the orchestra back in