>> one-man race. primaries in five states today will push mitt romney closer to the gop nomination, and with little competition, he's focusing on president obama. >> so he's out of ideas, and he's out of excuses. and in 2012 we've got to make sure and put him out of office. going broke. a new report shows just how fast social security and medicare are running out of money. and mining the skies. the well known names' backup plan to retrieve precious metals from outer space. captioning funded by cbs good morning. thanking forning good morning. thanking for joining us. i'm michelle miller. well, the presumed republican presidential nominee mitt romney

is hoping for a big day. republican primary voters in five northeastern states go to the polls today. some 200 delegates are up for grabs. meanwhile romney is on board for the student loan proposal championed by president obama. susan mcginnis is in washington with more. good morning, susan. >> good morning. a turnout could be low. he's been out there campaigning with florida senator marco rubio and that's raising speculation about a running mate. mitt romney campaigned throughout pennsylvania, focusing on his matchup with president obama in november. >> i'd like you to go out and vote in your primary and give me your support and show that we're ready and willing to take on president obama. >> reporter: pennsylvania is one of five primaries today. romney is expected to win them all and bring him closer to the 1,144 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination. >> the next president of the united states. >> monday romney campaigned with florida senator marco rubio leading many to speculate he

might end up on the ticket. the former massachusetts governor says not so fast. >> the process for selecting a vice-presidential running mate is just beginning. >> the latest national polls show mitt romney and president obama in a dead heat. the president is trying to rally young voters this week. president obama kicks off a two-day three-state tour of college campuses with a stop at unc chapel hill this afternoon. students there started lining up for tickets over the weekend. >> really, whatever he has to say, we're ready to hear. >> the president is pushing for an extension of low interest rates for student loans. >> once we graduate, we have ridiculous amounts of loans and it's hard to pay them off because a lot of times you end up getting a job as a waitress or in retail because it's hard finding professional work. >> mitt romney says he supports the extension as well. >> in part because of the extraordinarily poor conditions in the job market.

>> the job market and the economy are expected to be the key issues in november. now, as this race turning to the general election it's expected to be as nasty as the primaries have been. each side, michelle, is expected to be raising upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars. >> susan mcginnis in washington. thank you. well, john edwards' trial resumes today in greensboro, north carolina, with the government's key witness returning to the stand. the former presidential candidate is charged with using violating campaign finance funds. he used the funds to hide the secret of his pregnant mistress. one of the donors provided much of the money at issue. now to the secret service prostitution scandal. a 12th member of the military has been linked to the incident in colombia prior to the president's visit earlier this month. secretary of defense leon panetta arrived in colombia yesterday. he said the pentagon has suspended the security clearance of all the military personnel allegedly involved.

>> my biggest concern is the issue of security and what could possibly have been jeopardized by virtue of this kind of behavior. >> 12 secret service employees have been implicated. six have lost their jobs. george zimmerman, who admits shooting and killing florida teenager trayvon martin, is next due in court on may 8. zimmerman is in hiding this morning and not being protected by police. meanwhile the police chief who allowed zimmerman to stay free tried to resign. randall pinkston reports. >> reporter: sanford florida police chief bill lee tried to quit his job, but city leader s won't let him. at a special meeting sanford commission rejected his resignation by a vote. chief lee deserves a better

shake than this. >> reporter: he is said to have allowed george zimmerman to walk free after shooting and killing trayvon martin. last month he attempted to resign. city leaders say he will remain on administrative lead until an outside investigation is completed. state investigators took over the case and eventually charged zimmerman with second-degree murder. the neighborhood watch volunteer was released from jail after posting bail. his attorney is not revealing where his client is staying over fears for his safety. >> now that he's out, he's out and exposed. but i'm just hopeful we can keep him safe and truly hopeful that people will just let it work and let's find out what exactly happened. >> reporter: there are reports zimmerman was allowed to leave the state of florida. authorities say that he's wearing a gps monitoring device and they can track his every move. zimmerman has yet to official employ li plead in court but newly released documents show his attorney filed a written not guilty plea days ago.

during his bond hearing on friday, zimmerman apologized to martin's parents. they say his apology was not sincere. if convicted of second-degree murder, zimmerman could face life in prison. randall pinkston, cbs news. sanford, florida. on the "cbs moneywatch," government benefit programs used by millions of americans are running out of money. in an audacious plan to align objects in outer space. ashley morrison is here with more on that. good morning. >> good morning to you, michelle. the trustees in charge of social security and medicare say the benefit programs are closer to going broke than previously thought and they are placing a blame on a surge of retires, a weak economy, and a lack of reform from washington. the trustees are reporting social security trust funds will likely run dry in 2033, three years earlier than previously projected.

social security disability benefits could run out by 2016, and medicare's hospital insurance fund will be out of money by 2024. back overseas we're mostly lower this morning. to tokyo's nikkei fell losing more than half a percent, while hong kong's hang seng rose about a quarter percent. the dow drops 102 points while the nasdaq lost 30. gas prices continue to inch back down, according to aaa. the average cost of a gallon of regular is now $3.85. that's down 5 cents from a week ago and is about the same price from exactly one year ago. industry analysts say prices should hover there until about summer but he warns lower prices are not necessarily a positive sign. >> it's kind of like rooting for a recession. if you really want to see sharply lower prices, you need to root for a recession or you need to root for a technological

breakthrough, which isn't out there right now. >> as tensions with iran has eased, so has speculation on crude oil prices and that has lead to lower prices at the pump. metlife has agreed to pay nearly half billion dollars to settle claims it did not provide life insurance benefits to some customers. an investigation revealed metlife had information on the deaths of some policyholders, but did not pay what was owed. metlife will pay out $188 million this year and the remaining sum over the next 17 years. and imagine the gold rush in outer space. that's a plan a group of high-tech moguls are outlining today. google executives along with film maker james cameron are backing a project aimed at extracting precious metals and minerals and astroids close to earth. the project called planetary resources says it could add a trillion to gdp and ensure

humanity's prosperity. other billionaires who have signed on to the project are executives of google and ross perot. can you imagine what they might find? >> truly it's one of those outer space ideas. >> how do we get in? >> count me in. ashley morrison here in new york. thank you. coming up on the "cbs morning news" sticker shock for medical care as some patients get stuck with medical bills. first, though, scott pelley has a preview of tonight's "cbs evening news". it was big business when the house market was booming. real estate investors who were profiting by fixing up and reselling distressed homes. is this a sign that the housing industry is turning around? we'll have that story tonight on the "cbs evening news." off kenmore appliances. 20% plus, an extra 15% off all appliance brands with your sears card. or get 50% off all kenmore wall ovens with your sears card. thinking of going somewhere else? think again. sears.

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pennsylvania, and folks in communities from western new york into maryland got socked by a foot and a half of heaven wet snow. it buried flowering plants, knock dound tree limn limbs, and left at least 50,000 customers without power. in health news more than a quarter million emergency appendectomies are performed every year in this country, but huge studied found that hospitals vary in what they charge for that surgery. here's dr. jon lapook. >> jamie birdwell was still in college when she was rushed to the hospital with appendicitis. >> we have prett good insurance and i thought everything would be covered. >> but it wasn't. tl hospital charged $13,000 for the one-day stay. the insurance picked up most of the charges but two years later she's paying $1,100. >> there are three different payments we had to keep track of. >> it turns out she was on the low side.

the study looked at over 19,000 parents hospitalized with apenld sigh it is without complications. there was a wide variation in costs from $1,500 to nearly $183,000. the middle ground was nearly $33,000. the lead doctor of the study, rene shaw, says it adds up to complete confusion for the patient. >> the hospitals can change whatever they want because there's no guideline on how hospitals come up with what a charge is. >> that's because hospitals create long itemized bills for each service provided during the stay. this patient was charged $4,500 for cat scans, $6,800 for cat scans. the total, $53,728. >> i studied this and i'm a physician and i can't figure this out. >> so how much should it cost? around $7,000. one puts the cost at $8,000 to $10,000. >> that's one of the main problems with our industry is

that there's no way to know what you get and how much it should cost. >> if you go into a grocery store and a loaf of bread costs $5,000, you're going to whack out and go across the street. but if you roll into the emergency room with a heart attack, you have no choice. that's where you're having your procedure. same thing with appendicitis. that's where you're having your appendectomy. that's why patients need a more standardized and transparent way of figuring out how much things cost. dr. jon lapook, cbs news, new york. straight ahead your tuesday morning weather and in sports the nets play a good-bye guy in new jersey but they get no last hurrah from the governor. the calcium they take because they don't take it with food. switch to citracal maximum plus d. it's the only calcium supplement that can be taken with or without food. that's why my doctor recommends citracal maximum. it's all about absorption.

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ask your rheumatologist how you can defend against... ...and help stop further joint damage with humira. here's a look at today's forecast in some cities around the country. new york, cloudy, 60, miami, sunny, 75. chicago, partly cloudy, 61, dallas, sunny, 86, and los angeles, mostly cloudy and 68. now for a check of today's national forecast. showers will linger over pennsylvania, western new york, and new england with some snow in higher elevations. showers and thunderstorms, some severe, will develop over the tennessee, ohio, and mid-mississippi valleys. there will be scattered thunderstorms in the northwest. in sports now, the 76ers are in the nba playoffs. and the nets are out of new jersey. it was the nets' final home game in newark before moving on to

brooklyn, new york, next season. but they spoiled any chance of a going-away party by nailing down the final playoff berth in the eastern conference. earlier new jersey governor chris christie was asked about the nets' departure and he didn't mince words. >> i'm not going to the nets game tonight and our message to the nets is good-bye. you know? if you don't want to stay, we don't want you. >> say how you really feel, governor. he thinks another nba team will relocate to the garden state. now to the nhl, it's phoenix and chicago. they scored three times including a pair by gilbert brule. phoenix won it 4-0 to take the sears but there will be a seventh game between new york and ottawa. the rangers' brad richards scored a power-play goal en

route. game seven is thursday night. now to baseball and a good night for chicago. first, cardinals and cubs and bottom of the ninth. cubs down by one with two men on base, two outs and two strikes on joe mather who racks one up the middle scoring both runners for a walk-off 3-2 win. and then in oakland, adam dunn and paul konerko hit back-to-back homers in the fourth inning and right-hander jake peavy through a three-hitter as they beat the a's, 4-0. when we come back, another look at this morning's top stories and a teenage girl discovers the pitfalls of walking on the sidewalk. discovers the pitfalls of walking on the sidewalk. when these come together, and these come together, one thing you can depend on is that these will come together. delicious and wholesome. some combinations were just meant to be. tomato soup from campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do. so it stays on in conditions like sand... sun... 100-degree heat, and ocean water.

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here's a look at today's forecast in some cities around the country. washington, d.c., is cloudy and 60. atlanta, partly sunny and 68. st. louis, partly cloudy and 72. denver, partly sunny, 87, and seattle, mostly cloudy and 65.

here's another look at this morning's top stories. mitt romney is expected to win in five states that hold primaries today. some 200 delegates are at stake, and a strong showing would allow the presumptive republican nominee to switch more of his focus on president obama. and a 12th member of the military has been implicated in the secret service colombian prostitution scandal. all of the implicated military personnel have had their security clearance lifted. students are back in class at a california college where a gunman killed seven people and wounded three others earlier this month. the christian school in oakland reopened yesterday for one language class. the building has been cleaned and repaired, but a makeshift memorial remains in place. police say the murder suspect, is on a hunger strike and has lost 20 pounds. in chicago singer and

actress jennifer hudson testified in court about the murders of her mother and two other family members. she was the first witness in the trial of william balfour, her former brother-in-law charged in the killings. hudson broke down and wept on the stand and described how the murders in 2008 shook her close-knit family. in china, surveillance video showed a teenager walking, then suddenly falling straight through the sidewalk down 20 feet. a nearby cab driver jumped out of his car and went in after her. the sidewalk had apparently been eroded by underground water. f firefighters later rushed to the scene and used a ladder to get both the girl and the man out. well, coming up after your local new news the link between stress and colds. plus a conversation with actor john lithgow.

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we want to take a look at fist warning doppler weather radar. cloudy skies in the area and that's what you're going to notice. no stars, no moon, but there is also no moisture. that has moved squarely up to the northeast. 39 degrees right now. 60 at lunch on its way to the low 60s. by the next bedtime 51 and noticeably milder. take it away. >> here's what we've got our eye on today. baltimore city leaders discussing tim pact of the latest legislative session. the school board announcing the next superinte. already making news this

morning, progresz into the investigation into the beating and robbery of a tourist outside the city courthouse. and more in the death of trayvon martin. around the latest on a three alarm fire that tore through a warehouse in a southeast baltimore neighborhood. more news and your first morning weather in a couple of minutes. homicide of young people in america has an impact on all of us. how can we save these young people's lives? as a police chief, i have an opportunity to affect what happens in a major city. if you want to make a difference, you have to have the right education. university of phoenix opened the door. my name is james craig, i am committed to making a difference, and i am a phoenix. visit phoenix.edu to find the program that's right for you. enroll now. see that film?

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