they're favored many most of the 13 state primaries and caucuses. for democrats, it's a step toward certainty. for republicans another jolt in the party's identity crisis. polls show trump leading in at least six states, but he is trailing ted cruz in cruz's home state of texas. the republican race, heady, profane and unprecedented, now has prominent republicans talking of an independent candidate if trump wins the nomination. race became the weapon of choice today and major garrett is with the republicans. >> reporter: following the news that former kkk leader david duke was supporting donald trump, a group of black lives matter protesters interrupted a trump rally in virginia. [bleeped] [bleeped]. a "time" magazine photographer tried to leave the press area to shoot the protesters as they were escorted from the venue. he was thrown to the ground by a secret service agent. photographer chris morris later admitted to cursing at the agent

morris said the agent grabbed him by the neck and put him in a chokehold. >> i'm dealing with some real sleaze bags up here, believe me. i think the press is worse. i'm telling you. they're worse than the politicians. >> reporter: trumps make a sport of criticizing reporters and makes it clear protesters are unwelcome. >> out. get out. out. >> reporter: trump's momentum toward the g.o.p. nomination has brought a sharper edge to his already-raucous rallies. marco rubio complained today the gutter rhetoric makes headlines. >> what a sad indictment on the state of the political debate in this country today. [applause] >> reporter: but yesterday rubio himself dove into the mud. >> and you know what they say about men with small hands. you can't trust them. you can't trust them. >> reporter: rubio is hoping for strong enough finishes tomorrow to stay competitive in the delegate count while ted cruz is banking on a victory in his home state of texas. >> and we are, i believe, going to have a big chunk of

be way, way, way behind. at that point it will become abundantly clear this is a two-man race. >> reporter: the secret service interviewed the agent involved at the trump rally. agency policy is to protect the candidate, not interfere with news gathering. the photographer involved, chris morris, has said he will not press charges. >> pelley: especially not after the way he provoked the agent. major garrett reporting for us. major, thank you. all of this followed trump's various responses to the support that he is getting, wanted or not, from the ku klux klan. today mitt romney said trump has been disqualified. here's dean reynolds. >> reporter: campaigning in virginia today, donald trump was boasting again. >> we have amazing endorsements, and the people that really mean... we have hundreds of people now that want to endorse. >> reporter: but praise from david duke, former grand wiz of the ku klux klan, may test his following more than ever. >> voting for these people. voting against donald trump at this point is really treason to

>> reporter: last friday trump seemed the say no thanks. >> i disavow. okay. >> reporter: but sunday he declined to renounce the kkk, duke or his support. >> i don't know anything about david duke. okay. i don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. so i don't know. >> reporter: trump eventually tried to clear up any confusion. >> i disavowed david duke all twitter. >> reporter: he said a bad earpiece made it hard to hear the question about the kkk on sunday, even though he used the same one for several interviews. in any case it's clear some far right groups like what they're hearing from him. that's won the backing of the neo-nazi web site the dail stormer, for example, and the american national super pac is making calls in super tuesday states. >> we don't need muslims. we need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. vote trump. >> reporter: the southern poverty law center, which tracks

was started by the white supremacist american freedom party. mark potok of the splc said trump's rhetoric is a coded appeal to racists. >> the idea that any mildly educated person in this country could not know what the ku klux klan was is perhaps one of the most ludicrous statements we've heard in mainstream politics in many years. >> reporter: the super pac backing marco rubio put hit the way. >> trump refuses to denounce the kkk. think about that. for president? >> reporter: donald trump has been heavily criticized before, scott, and so far his support for the nomination among voters in the party of abraham lincoln has held firm. >> pelley: dean reynolds reporting for us tonight. dean, thank you. the polls are pointing for a very good super tuesday for hillary clinton. here's nancy cordes. >> nancy:unanimous >> thank you! >> reporter: campaigning in virginia and massachusetts,

candidates are behaving like gray schoolers. >> remember the little box that used to be on your kids' report cards, "plays well with others"? i'd have to put a big no. >> reporter: she's poised to make the dean's list tomorrow. the latest cbs news battleground tracker shows clinton leading sanders by 20 points in virginia, 24 points in texas and 28 points in georgia. other polls have her up in tennessee, alabama and massachusetts. and she's the former first lady of arkansas. that leaves sanders hoping for a strong showing in oklahoma, colorado, minnesota and his home state of vermont. >> we can win. no question here in minnesota. if we have the turnout. >> reporter: the two have found common cause in their distaste for donald trump. when sanders called trump "a hatemonger" online, clinton retweeted it. but otherwise she has begun to focus less on him and more on her likely race against the

>> one advantage i have is they've been after me for 25 years and i'm still standing. >> reporter: the state department is releasing its final batch of clinton's 30,000 e-mails tonight, but, scott, that does not mean that the saga is over. the f.b.i. is still looking into her use of a private server and a federal judge wants some of her top aides to testify aut it. >> pelley: nancy cordes with the democrats tonight. nancy, thank you. well, john dickerson is our cbs news political director and anchor of "face the nation." at the top of the broadcast, we talked about the identity crisis with the republicans. what's going on with the party? >> reporter: well, if there is a wall between the republican party and donald trump, it's now ten feet taller. in conversations today with republican strategists and staffers at the hill, they are at wit's end about what it would be like to have donald trump as the party nominee. they pointed out in his interview that he seemed to be trying so carefully not to offend anyone and call anyone a

the kkk and white supremacists. suddenly he got politically correct. what they think, republicans i talk to think, is he was basically trying to not offend any southern voters. so in super tuesday tomorrow, what house and senate leaders worried about is what is it going to look like in the fall when they and their colleagues have to respond to every incendiary thing he says. people i talked to today were coming up with all kinds of fantastic notions about how they could take the nomination away at the convention or how they could put a third-party candidate if he became the nominee, slip a third party candidate in there. it's hard to tell whether they're more unsettled about being tainted by trump or by the fact there's not much they can do to stop him from getting the nomination. >> pelley: john dickerson. thank you very much, john. in ohio today, a 14-year-old opened fire on classmates in a school cafeteria north of cincinnati. two students were hit, two others were hurt in the panic that followed.

the suspect ran away but was caught nearby. no word yet on a motive. in virginia, the funeral is tomorrow for the prince william county police officer who was gunned down on her first day on the job. today the prosecutor said he may seek the death penalty. here's justice correspondent jeff pegues. >> reporter: 28-year-old ashley guindon was a decorated marine corps reservist who was just beginning a new career as a police officer. but her first day in uniform would be her last. >> all units respond. shots have been fired. >> reporter: on saturday night she and two other officers were responding to a domestic violence call at this home. as the officers approached the front door, they were shot. >> i know he's got a long gun. we got some people who need some assistance over here. >> reporter: guindon was rushed to the hospital where she was pronounced dead a few hours later. the two other officers are expected to survive. police say 32-year-old ronald

officers with a rifle. hamilton, a staff sergeant in the u.s. army, is also accused of killing his wife, crystal hamilton, in the home. the couple's 11-year-old son managed to run to safety. according to the army, hamilton worked in i.t. at the pentagon for the joint staff support center. he joined the army in 2002 and served in iraq for two tours. prosecutors say hamilton had a previous run-in with the law but would not release details. prince william county prosecutor paul ebert. >> sad, sad, sad. it's an example of an officer's worst nightmare. >> reporter: officer guindon grew up in merrimack, new hampshire. in her 2005 high school yearbook she wrote, "live for something rather than die for nothing." guindon is the 14th police officer killed in the line of duty so far this year. scott, 11 of the 14 were killed by gunfire. that's a number that's risen dramatically compared to the same time last year.

thank you, jeff. turning overseas now, isis has been losing ground on the battlefield, but it's apparently striking back with a series of bombings in and around baghdad these past two days. more than 100 were killed. most at this marketplace in a shiite neighborhood. isis sunni the other main faction of islam. the u.s. ceasefire in syria is holding for the most part, but a atline set up by the u.s. state department for syrians to all right violations has been ringing off the hook. the civil war has left many of syria's cities in ruin, and elizabeth palmer got rare access to homes. a city that once had as many residents as philadelphia but now just a fraction. >> reporter: after four years and megatons of explosives, the syrian army finally took back

fighters. but several rebels escaped into the suburb of al waar, where they tried the make a last stand. in the end, though, the violence was too much. under siege and outgunned, the rebels caved in and agreed to talk. they're just out of sight at the end of that road. the syrian army wouldn't allow us in, but they do allow the women out to get medical care and to shop for food. what's changed? "now there are formal negotiations going on with the government," they tell me. "life has improved. the siege has ended and our electricity and water are back." supplies are flowing in, too, though every single box is checked by the military. and every canister of gasoline is probed for hidden weapons. but now what? in december six bus loads of rebels and their families struck a deal for safe passage out of al waar to an opposition area

that leaves about 1,000 left. they're stuck, still trying the hammer out the terms of their defeat. there have been several of these, call them stalemate, call them minitruces, across the country in the last couple years, scott. they don't always go smoothly. some are more successful than others, but in the end they almost certainly save lives. >> pelley: elizabeth palmer in the syrian capital damascus tonight. liz, thank you. the label said "100% parmesan cheese," but it was 100% wrong. there's a new warning about a contraceptive implant used by hundreds of thousands of women. and the best of america awarded

evening news" continues. every day you read headlines about businesses being hacked and intellectual property being stolen. that is cyber-crime and it affects each and every one of us. microsoft created the digital crimes unit to fight cyber-crime. we use the microsoft cloud to visualize information so we can track down the criminals. when it comes to the cloud, trust and security are paramount. we're building what we learn back into the cloud to make people and organizations safer. i've been blind since birth. i go through periods where it's hard to sleep at night, and stay awake during the day. learn about non-24 by calling 844-844-2424.

this is sheldon whose long day setting up the news starts with minor arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve, the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news.

this news was pretty unappetizing. some parmesan contains wood pulp. an executive at a pennsylvania company plead guilty to selling cheese that had no relation to what was on the label. we asked jim axelrod to take a look. >> reporter: you would think when f.d.a. investigators found castle cheese marketing 100% parmesan cheese that was actually 0% parmesan, the company had a problem. >> the product that they were marketing and which was on the label was not what they were selling. >> reporter: just attorney david hickton brought the case against the company after an f.d.a. inspection in 2012 found the company's parmesan was actually a mixture of cheaper cheeses like swiss and cheddar, and in one case an unknown ingredient. >> advertising it as parmesan and romano and putting something else so the supplier could make more money. that's just clearly fraud on the consumer. >> reporter: this was fraudulent in your view? >> yes. >> reporter: but we found fraud might not be the worst of it.

finished cheese was stored in this unfridgerated room, which could cause bacteria to thrive. what's more, the company found listeria, a potentially deadly pathogen, in its production area ten times, but castle continued to produce and sell its cheese to stores like target and wal-mart without testing it. that might be troubling enough if we didn't also find records from the pennsylvania department of agriculture which inspected castle around the same time as the f.d.a. those records tell a very different story. in june of 2012, state inspector david trotter wrote, "the plant continues to be in excellent condition. i appreciate the plant management and the quality work they do." his glowing reviews continued until august of 2013 when he left the department of agriculture for a new job. director of quality control at castle cheese. >> i'm with cbs news.

to explain his reviews of castle, but he to declined. castle cheese is no longer on the market. the company filed for bankruptcy in 2014. as for the f.d.a., it will be rolling out new food safety regulations. the f.d.a. tells us they're designed to help get state and federal inspectors on the same page. >> pelley: jim, thank you very much.

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>> you realize if they nominated us, i wouldn't even get this job. you all be watching neil patrick harris right now. >> pelley: chris rock roasted the oscars last night on the issue of diversity. all the acting nominees were white, and rock pointed out that's happened many times in the past 88 years.

oscar viewers were the fewest in eight years. george kennedy won an oscar in 1968 for his role in "cool hand luke." he became a fixture in the disaster pictures of the '70s, including all four "airport" movies. he later showed off his comedic side in the "naked gun" movies. george kennedy died yesterday. he was 91. today the f.d.a. said it's issuing its strongest warning about essure, an implantable, permanent contraceptive device used by three-yearts of a million women. some have complained of chronic pain and bleeding. the f.d.a. ordered the manufacturer, bayer, to conduct a new safety study. it stopped short of removing the device from the market. and we will be right back. the life behind it.

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>> pelley: today president obama presented the medal of honor to a 36-year-old navy seal from ohio. david martin has his story. >> reporter: to call edward byers a combat veteran doesn't come close. so am i reading here correctly, that's five bronze stars, two purple hearts? >> that's correct. >> reporter: so how many combat tours have you done? >> i've done nine combat tours. >> reporter: in 2012, as a member of seal team six, he was sent to rescue an american, dr. dilip joseph, who had been kidnapped by the taliban. as they approached the building, the point man saw they had been detected. >> he saw a guard come out of the door, and he shot him. and we started sprinting toward the door. >> reporter: the point man, nicholas cheque, went in first. he was shot and later died. >> i was the second person in. when i entered the room and saw another enemy standing there with a weapon, i shot him, and then i saw another person that

didn't know whether or not that person was the american hostage or if he was an enemy, so i moved down toward him. i was able to get on top of him and pin him down with my legs. >> reporter: he was adjusting his night vision goggles trying to get a better look at the person beneath him when he heard dr. joseph call out from another part of the room. >> that's when i shot the person i was on top of and jumped off him and on to the doctor who was like three or five feet away. >> why did you jump on the doctor? >> andy: we did that because we were wearing body armor and we want to protect him from any other potential threats. when i did, that i realized there was another enemy within arm's reach of where we're laying and so i was able to hold him against the wall by, you know, grabbing him around the throat and that was... that gave enough time for our teammates to get in there and to take care of that threat. >> reporter: when you say "take care of that threat," how did that work? >> our teammates came around and they shot him.

him by the throat against the wall? >> correct, yes. >> reporter: when it was over, five taliban and one navy seal, nicholas cheque, lay dead or dying. dr. joseph was shaken but alive. how long did this last? >> probably it took a minute to actually go in the room and take care of everything we just talked about. >> reporter: that's a lot of action going on in a very confined space. >> that's the nature of this job. it's close quarters combat. >> reporter: and it takes longer to tell it than it did to happen. >> yes, it does. >> reporter: now there is a medal of honor to go with those five bronze stars and two purple hearts. you have to wonder how many other minutes of close quarters combat edward byers saw in his nine combat tours. one thing for sure, he'll never tell. david martin, cbs news, washington. >> pelley: and that's the "cbs evening news" for tonight.

around the world, good night. tonight.. some students are banding together... to help an easley teacher... get his job back.. after facing trouble for an incident that happened off campus. we'll tell you what he's accused of doing.. and why students.. want him to return to class. and .... a teacher from union ... says she was pressured to resign because of what another student did... with pictures on her cell phone. tonight she defends herself.. on 7 news. "been a fire chief here for 21 years, it really affects everybody with adults but with a child it really cuts deep." ----- plus... a little girl... is fighting for her life... after being trapped inside her house... during a fire. coming up...we'll tell you how her family... is pulling together. tonight.. a union teacher says... she was pressured to resign... after a student got her phone ... and sent inappropriate pictures of the teacher... to other students. leigh ann arthur says... teaches at union county career and technology center. she

a few minutes... that's when she says the student took her phone.. and discovered nude pictures... intended for her husband. that student.. then shared the photo throughout the school ... and admitted to it. now.. she has a message for that student: ------ "i forgive you.it don't make it anymore right. but what's done is done and i hope you learned your lesson. and i hope that you learned from this mistake and i hope that you have a wife one day that you treat like gold and you won't want this to ever happen to her" arthur says she's been a teacher in union county for 13 years, and plans on pressing charges against the student next week she says she resigned.. after pressure.. from officials. police are investigating... whether arthur...contributed to the deliquency of a minor: tomorrow...students in easley say ... they plan to protest the decision ... to place a teacher ... on leave. but school officials... are advising students...not to do it. about 2-weeks ago ...

literature students...at the "starving artist cafe"... to read poems. students say... fish had written a poem... relating to a class book... they were reading. it contained a curse word... and one student reported fish.. to administrators. the district says ... they can't comment on the matter.. but did place him on leave. the teacher had been at the school...for more than 15-years ... and had become a favorite with students: ----- he creates a safe place for everyone in the school. his room and the yearbook room is somewhere i can go and express myself, and i can say what's upsetting me and feel validated, and with him not there, i don't have that. ----- the students at easley high school are planning a sit-in tomorrow morning. the school district responded saying every student needs to be in their appropriate class or they will take necessary action. we have new details on a deadly crash - that killed four upstate college students tonight. the spartanburg county coroner has released the toxicology reports .. showing the driver of that car..and at two others...and at two car..driver of that car..and at two others...were