political checkers examined claims made by and about former governor mitt romney and president bashar al assad barack obama. this portion of the event runs an hour. >> thank you, kathleen. thanks to all of you for sticking around for the final panel today. these are the guys who on the news side take these commercials and truth test them. and i think that's an important part of the process so that's what we're going to get into for the next hour. we were talking in the last panel about how the money is flowing this year and you may or may not know that across the country, it's now estimated that close to $10 billion will be spent in this political season both by the candidates themselves and by the super pacs. and you know, as was mentioned, a lot of that is going to go to key battleground states. there was an article in the "usa today" a couple of weeks ago that quoted a general manager of a station in columbus, ohio, a good media market in a very important battleground state. and he said, you know what? we're running around with a bushel basket just trying to catch all the money that's falling out of the

president barack obama raelg turning up the heat now on syria and he wants countries like russia and china to just get on board and put pressure on bashar al assad get him out. >> there has been pressure on assad, and he has made promises that he has not kept. so what more can you do? >> reporter: that is the big question and the difficulty with syria. you know? one of the big challenges, though, diplomatically is that russia and china don't want to pile on the pressure on syria. and russia in particular has strong historical relationships with syria and is close to bashar al assad. the hope seems like we saw in houla and in other parts of syria will just continue to pile on the pressure on the asarsad regime. they don't seem like they are going any. president obama is looking for pressure and possible military option because the syrian people want those strife. >> two americans arrested in tokyo. police questioning them about an irish woman's death inside that hotel. what more we are learning about this case is just ahead. >> announcer: with nothing but his computer, an identity thief is able to use your information to open a bank account in or