Glitz, glamour and huge surprises. Right now the red carpet is covered in plastic but that will soon change. The big reveals from the producers, presenters going animated, excitement bubbling over as hollywood gears up for the biggest night of the year. And good morning on a weekend with two big stories brewing. First were counting down to the oscars which will air on abc. The red carpet being rolled out. What the producers are revealing only to us. Hainesy will be covering that. The oscars will be right here over and over. Before they hand out the in South Carolina. They head to the polls this morning in what Hillary Clinton meanwhile, the bombshell endorsement reverberating. Christie joining forces with trump. This alliance raising all kinds of questions. Will it give trump unstoppable momentum heading into super tuesday. What does it mean for a supposedly surging marco rubio. We start our coverage with abcs mary bruce right in washington. Hi, mary. Hi, paula, good 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 un unannounced and dropped a bombshell on Donald Trumps campaign. Well have a first class president in donald trump. Reporter Chris Christie 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. So friendly. Well do it. Ill get it done because i make deals and 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 flail pumps in the last days of a losing campaign. Reporter after rubio let trump have it. If he hadnt inherited 200 million he would be selling watches no, no, no. Reporter then mocked trump for his spelling mistakes on twitter. He meant to say lightwet l hoochlt eight. Great hoener. The e and o are nowhere near each other. As for a full length mirror. The podium goes up to here. He wanted a full length mirror. Maybe to make sure his pants werent wet. You had to see him backstage. He was putting on makeup with a trowel. Reporter and trump doing his drinking water. Its rubio. Reporter but rubio seems to be rather unimpressed with trumps big endorsement saying he probably called christie because he needed a life line after that bruising debate. At least on twitter there are signs of opposition growing against the frontrunner. The nevertrump has been trending for the last ten hours. Dan. All part of the elevated discourse of american politics this morning. Mary bruce, thank you. For more lets bring in abc news political analyst matt dowd who is in austin, texas, this morning. How big a deal is this christie endorsement . Does it actually matter . Well, endorsements dont usually matter and especially in president ial contexts but i think in this case it wont add support to donald trump, i think what it does in the aftermath, it solidifies his support going into sum tuesday. Leading most of the polls in nearly every state, his support solidifies and not bleeding off to marco rubio or somebody else is a help that christie could provide. Whats in it for christie . Why would he do this . Well, i mean obviously thats a question. Im a person that assumes the Good Intention in the course of in that theres not some nefarious thing that somebodys finagled some endorsements a certain way and a couple of thing, first, is Chris Christie and donald trump have had a personal relationship. One does a lot of development in new jersey, one the governor there and had a personal relationship and, two, Chris Christie has come to the conclusion that donald trump in his mind will be the gop nominee. So why not get on board now and at a critical 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 . Its like a 10yearold insult contest between the two of them. I actually think i think marco rubio can criticize donald trump and attack him on substantive things. I think when he tries to out2ru6r7 trump thats a problem for marco rubio. Keep in mind for a year marco rubio has ron on the non nonattacking aspirational 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 super tuesday. A big turnaround. Matthew dowd, we love having your analysis. Thank you. Paula, over to you. Things much calmer in the democratic ring. 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 will give us that side of the story. 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 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 in her last few Campaign Stops here Hillary Clinton was already looking ahead to the general election. I dont know who theyre 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 africanamericans make up more than half the democratic 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. Like shes always stood with us. Reporter recent polls show clinton crushing sanders 21 among black voters giving her a to win over young voters and 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. Reporter win or lose today, theres one man show wasnt have at her feet, Bernie Sanders insists he plans to stay in the race all the way to california. Imagining the day when youre on that stage with donald trump, what do you say to him . What is your strategy for taking him down . Why would i tell you . Hes probably watching your show. Reporter the polls are open today till 7 00 p. M. Clinton ahead by double digits and the Sanders Campaign looking forward to tuesday and hoping some big wins there will keep them in the race, paula. All right, david. We want to thank you. The conversation continues tomorrow on this week and super tuesday just a couple of days. The abc News Division will be out in full force, George Stephanopoulos will lead our team for a prime time special at 10 00 eastern and full coverage on Good Morning America as and we do want to move on to the new zika virus alert. The cdc has just confirmed another round of pregnant women here in the u. S. Contracted zika while traveling. Our chief health and medical editor dr. Richard besser is here to explain. Rich, good morning to you. First and foremost in this new report we have nine new cases of pregnant women here in the u. S. What were those findings . Yeah, so theyre keeping a registry of all pregnant women who have been infected so we can learn more. What they found was two women had miscarriage, two had abortions and in one the ultrasound showed severe brain damage. One baby born with micro selfie. Two healthy babies and two still pregnant. Gives more evidence zika could be cautioning this. All had symptoms. It doesnt tell us whether if you dont have simms and get infected theres a problem and doesnt tell us whether the first trimester is the riskiest but its pointing in that direction. Transmitted it but traveled to countries where zika was transmitted. The cdc also issued a report to those considering traveling to brazil for the summer olympics. Yes. What is their cautionary tale. The same travel recommendations theyve been making and say pregnant women should not go to the olympics. If you have to go or youre insisting on going, make sure you do everything you can to prevent mosquito bites. If your male partner goes for the rest of the pregnancy you have to prevent sexual transmission and any woman trying to get pregnant should talk to her doctor before going to the olympics. Thanks 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 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 shootings that ended here in this rural kansas town and how the gunman a convicted felon was able to get his hands on those guns. Almost 30 minutes of pure terror ending with the gunman marching into a kansas lawn mower factory and offduty paramedic one of the first inside. 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 sado youski and josh higby. At least 14 wounded. Minutes before the rampage, ford was served at work with a restraining order to stay away from his exgirlfriend who alleges he is in desperate need of medical and psychological help. Another former girlfriend now behind bars accused of giving the ak47 and glock pistol used 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 weapons from 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. Hopkins has not yet entered a plea. If convicted she could face up to ten years in federal prison. Dan and paula. We want to move 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, dan, sara, we begin overseas, a deadly car bombing thatting ared syria just hours after a ceasefire brought relative calm to that wartorn nation. This morning there are scattered reports of violence. The temporary truce, though, does appear to be for the most part holding. Isis and al qaeda are part of that so the fight against them will continue. But russia says it will not carry out any air strikes today. Almost 100 antigovernment rebel groups have agreed to the temporary ceasefire. 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 she was only suffering from dehydration and will likely be discharged from the hospital later today. Good news there. The irs saying that the were hacked last year was actually more than double what they initially reported. The agency has 700,000 accounts were hacked giving cyberthieves access to Social Security numbers, birth dates and other date that that could be used to file false tax returns. A former guantanamo detainee back in somalia calling for jihad. He released an audiotape promoting an uprising sentenced to 14 years detention but released from get mow in 2012 for cooperating with authorities. And take a look at this. A frightening scene on a busy texas highway friday morning. An outofcontrol dump truck plowing right through that intersection in austin, texas, causing a multicar accident. Amazingly nobody was seriously hurt. The driver was on his way to deliver a load of gravel when that happened. And finally, music filled the white house as president obama joined in song with some of hey hey ho ho hey hey ho ho hey hey ho ho leading a singalong in the tribute to the late great ray charles in the white house east room. The president said initially he would not sing but broke that promise for better or worse. For better. You think so . He has a great voice. A month of celebrations of black history month. Pretty good voice. When he sang Amazing Grace it sounded beautiful. When hes singing he does it with a really serious face, im president even though im singing ray charles. Thank you, ron. Lets check the weather now. Meteorologist indra petersons. How much do you love this . A melting snowman out towards minnesota. I think it says it all. Temperatures are way above normal. Talking like 20 degrees above normal all thanks to where the High Pressure is. Around that high, right, so if you are on the back side of this youre talking about all that warm air coming in out of the gulf and unfortunately if youre on the front side on the northeast that cool air is coming down from canada. The high will shift so first the chilly temperatures. Northeast, you are feeling a little bit of that chill. Windchills below freezing but it is changing. Its going to feel so good. Look at this dome of High Pressure bringing temperatures i good 20 degrees above normal into the midwest and 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. The 50 were all talking about how cold it is. I hall pass. Tomorrows warm but ill let you stay on the couch. A melting snowman is indescribably sad. No, cute. Actually paula was saying the same thing. Indra was like youre going to love this picture. A dying snowman. Hilarious. Im done. Now were going to the warmer coast. The countdown to oscar sunday, hollywoods 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, the theme of the oscars we all dream in gold and you know that is how the stars will be sleeping but not everybody gets to take home an oscar, the real star of the show. Biggest night in hollywood. Crews busy making the finishing 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, to another sphere of emotion. Reporter right now the red carpet is covered in plastic but that will soon change and it will be no easy task because its 500 feet long, 33 feet wide. You can see it coming up a little bit right there. This will be clean so youll have more than 16,000 square feet of glamour. The official champagne of the oscars piperheidsieck has 1500 bottles to pop, expecting to pour 9,000 glasses. Fans will be treated to an epic animated 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. Sat down with oscar producers david hill and reginald hudlin. When we sat down there were two things that happened pretty much instantly. We agreed chris rock should be the host and we agreed to bring the orchestra back into the theater. Reporter the duo enlisting the biggest names to go along with an even bigger production and got everyone from a sitting Vice President joe biden to the most animated presenters. We were lucky enough to get the minions to present best short animation because who better to present best short animation. Short and animated. And buzz and woody are presenting best animation. Reporter the producers say its going to be hard to step away from the show because they shook up the format as well so stay tuned for all the surprises. So, keep an eye out when youre watching for all kinds of razzledazzle details if you will. For example, the champagne that the celebs will be drinking has all of these really cool details see oscars in this gold inlay so, dan and paula, were not popping the bottles in the newsroom but you know they will do that come oscar sunday. We wont tell anybody in case you want to. Thats an extraordinarily large i think they call it a magnum. Youre right. You know what else about this, apparently you can take this off and it becomes a tiara just in case. Kayna, on that one the beauty is really on the inside. Drink it. Absolutely. All right, kayna, now you can pop the cork, okay . Youre off the air. Thank you, paula, with your blessing. Im headed out to l. A. Right after the show. Thats right. Ive seen i dont know if im allowed to show it. You saw me a sneak pre1r50u of the dress. Did you say yes to that dress. Resounding yes. While he was reading the paper, uhhuh, yeah. Ing looks good. I was half paying attention. Im excited. Ill meet rob marciano. We have a big day at the spa planned. Seque