duarte geraldino in washington for us. thank you. >>> opponents are working to strike down maryland's same sex marriage law. >> the bill is signed. >> maryland became the 8th state to legalize same sex marriage yesterday. the law takes effect next year. >> we are one maryland and all of us at the end of the day want the same thing for our children. we want them to live in a loving, caring and committed home that is protected equally under the law. >> opponents hope to gather enough signatures to put a referendum calling for the law to be overturned on the november ballot. so far, maine is the only state to overturn a gay marriage law passed by the legislature. >>> like same sex marriage, another social issue making campaign headlines is birth control. the senate upheld president obama's birth control policy voting 51-48. the senate killed the blunt amendment allowing employers to opt out of the president's healthcare law on moral grounds. that includes a requirement to cover the cost of birth control. >>> still, it is uncl

i'm duarte geraldino with the story coming up. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, shooting rampage..rr

and as duarte geraldino reports for wjz, these are some high stakes contests. >> reporter: during hissh for votes in birmingham, alabama, newt gingrich told the crowd of republicans he's in the race for the long haul. >> i do not believe the other two candidates can beat obama and i believe this race is the most important in our lifetime and i will not leave the field. >> reporter: gingrich's strategy has been to focus on southern states to reenergize his campaign. the latest polls show he's in a fight for first or second in both alabama and mississippi going into primary day. >> how you doing? >> reporter: rick santorum supporters called for gingrich to drop out so the base can rally. santorum says it's time for this to be a two man race. >> whether he pulls it out or not where does he go from here? in illinois he's at 10% in the state of illinois. we're at 31%. >> reporter: a new poll shows nationally rick santorum has a four point lead over mitt romney. but the survey also reveals 73% of those polled think it's romney who will end up clinching the nomination. >> watch out for that

i am duarte geraldino coming up with the story. >> i will tell you about that story. >> good morning,fter an earthquake rocks our region the toll is still felt. i am kai jackson, i will explain coming up. >> just like clock works the delays are popping up. we will tell you where in a few. right now over to marty. >> two superstars in the nfl, superstars in other cities have come back home to baltimore, where they are from, to take on some serious community issues. keon carpenter atlanta falcons, bryant johnson, the houston texans, are doing what they can to help out baltimore city. it is an incredible story at 6:45 as the morning edition continues right after this. ,, >>> this is wjz tv, wjz hd, and wjz.com, baltimore. >>> good morning, maryland, now, don scott, marty bass, and the latest breaking news, from wjz's news team, your first warning weather, and wjz traffic control with sharon gibala. it's wjz, maryland's news station. >> it is 6:30 and another dynamite day start, nice and warm outside and a little half moon, less than half moon overhead. sharon has got your traffic right a

duarte geraldino has more. here we go again. newt isn't dropping out. no one is showing love to mitt romney. there is santorum saying we did it again, right? >> reporter: santorum is saying now he has momentum and could clinch the nomination. but when you look at the numbers, it still suggests that romney is in the lead. now, many folks in the santorum camp believe that if gingrich were to drop out santorum would get those votes. if you look at the research and depending on whose you look at, a survey of likely voters in alabama and mississippi showed that of those tea party voters they are split between santorum and gingrich. gingrich's camp on the other hand says that were he to drop out, then romney, not santorum, would get voters that would normally align themselves with gingrich. for them, social issues are most important. >> at this point, you know, clearly it's not working for mitt romney in the south. he is really struggling. do you think he is going to change his campaign strategy at all. >> reporter: you know, mitt romney has the delegate map

here is duarte geraldino for wjz. >> reporter: rick santorum pulled off a sweep tuesday. >> we did it again. >> reporter: he told supporters with they will keep his momentum going. >> next week we will come back hire and expect a huge win. >> reporter: he won alabama and mississippi with the help of conservative voters and women. he says the results will reshape the republican field. >> it will help the conservatives. >> reporter: they continue to split the conservative vote. despite lutzing the former speaker says he has no plans to drop out and this race is far from over. >> one of the things tonight proved is that the elite media's effort to convince the nation that mitt romney is inevitable just collapsed. >> alabama and mississippi allocate their delegates proportionately so gingrich, santorum and romney all added to their totals but romney still holds a significant lead. romney lost both states yesterday, partly because he wasn't able to rally the conservative base. the former massachusetts governor is already looking ahead to saturday's caucuses and rallied supporters in missou

. >> duarte geraldino has the latest. we know what happened after the americans burned one of those korans over in the middle east. somehow this going to affect relations? can't be good. >> reporter: it's not good at all. in fact, many of the analysts are saying that this incident may undercut the u.s.' credibility. the goal for the u.s. governor is to hand overpower by 2014. but in order to do that, they have to reduce troop levels at the same time making sure that they strengthen the afghan army and their government structure. there's a lot of instruction involved for that to happen. if the regular afghans don't trust the u.s. government, it's going to be very difficult for them to take instruction from u.s. troops. >> was he targeting any particular family. that's the big unknown. we don't have a particular motive at this point. it's close to the military base so it was a short walk. that's between saturday and sunday morning. quite a few were children. in this incident, they say it may embolden outrage because it was

. >> duarte geraldino joins us from washington, d.c. >> the u.s. stated goal is to have the afghan people control their country by 2014. in order to do that, u.s. troops have promised to train those troops as well as shore up the police. but it all rests on the afghan people being able to trust u.s. troops. this latest incident makes it very difficult for afghans to trust american troops to believe that they have their best intentions in mind. so right now, u.s. politicians are scrambling to assure the afghan people that they can do this job and that they have the best interests in mind. >> how about the president's response? we know he called hamid karzai last night but what can he do other than just say we're sorry? >> it's a very difficult situation. the president continues to insist this was just an individual he may have been a soldier but wasn't acting under any military authorizations. but it's very difficult situation because we had the situation where some u.s. soldiers were accidentally burning korans, where there were four u.s. soldiers

duarte geraldino is in washington with details on all of this. good morning. >> good morning, betty. mitt romney's performance exposes an achilles heel in his campaign. rick santorum is trying to capitalize on that weakness. and gingrich is trying to show that he is still a viable contender. rick santorum pulled off a southern sweep tuesday. >> we did it again. >> he told supporters in louisiana they'll keep his momentum going. >> next week, we'll come back here and we expect a huge win. >> santorum won mississippi and alabama tuesday night with the help of conservative voters and women. the former pennsylvania senator says the results will reshape the republican field. >> santorum and newt gingrich continue to split the conservative vote. despite losing, the former speaker said he has no plans to drop out and this race is far from over. >> one of the things tonight proved is that the elite media's effort to convince the nation that mitt romney is inevitable just collapsed. >> alabama and mississippi allocate their delegates proportionally. gingr

duarte geraldino is in washington with more on this. good morning. >>> good morning, betty. military officials say that american soldier is in pretrial confinement as the united states tries to strengthen its relationship with afghanistan. secretary of defense leon panetta is in kabul to meet with afghan president hamid karzai. the meeting is less than a week after an american soldier is accused of going on a shooting spree in kandahar province killing 16 civilians. secretary panetta arrived in afghanistan yesterday. he met with coalition forces and afghan leaders. the trip was scheduled for before sundays shooting but incident and the killing of six americans in retaliation of burning a koran was -- it has dominated discussions. >> we will continue to face challenge. we must stay committed to achieving the mission that we are all unified in achieving. >> president obama says the plan is still to hand over security to afghanistan to local troops by the end of 2014. >> our forces are making very real progress. dismantle al qaeda, breaking the taliban's momentum and training a

duarte geraldino has the story. >> emergency crews used flashlights to search for anyone trapped after a possible tornado tore through cumberland county, tennessee. >>> the storm hit just before dark on wednesday and damaged more than 50 homes. >> we got a track home to go down an old highway over here. clear it out. we'll get ambulance in to the people that was injured. >> more than 27 tornadoes ripped across the midwest and south wednesday. a twister with winds up to 170 harrisburg, illinois. >> it was like a growling. it was the loudest growling that i've ever heard. it sent a chill up my spine. >> the tornado leveled neighborhoods and left a path of destruction 200 yards wide. >> cabinet fell over on top of me and approximate picked me and the cabinet both up and took us about 50 feet through the air. >> president obama directly called illinois governor pat quinn to get an update on his home state. the white house is monitoring the situation in communities under states of emergency, including harrisburg and branson, missouri. crews are fixing up some of the music theaters badly dam

as duarte geraldino reports, the candidates are preparing for a long primary season. >> reporter: rick santorum won in the south yesterday. he told louisiana supporters they will keep his momentum going. >> next week, we'll come back here and we expect a huge win. >> reporter: santorum won mississippi and alabama tuesday night with the help of very conservative voters and women. the former pennsylvania senator says the results will reshape the republican field. >> this is a two-man race. the conservative will win. >> reporter: santorum and newt gingrich continue to split the conservative vote. despite losing, the former speaker says he has no plans to drop out and this race is far from over. >> one of the things tonight proved is that the elite media's effort to convince the nation that mitt romney is inevitable just collapsed. >> reporter: alabama and mississippi al allocate their delegates proportionally. mitt romney wasn't able to rally the conservative base so he lost last night. the former massachusetts governor is already look ahead to saturday's caucuses. he rallied supporters i

>> duarte geraldino, thank you. >>> as reported, the soldier was based at joint base lewis-mcchord in washington. home to 100,000 military and civilian personnel. it's had a share of controversies. in 2010, the newspaper stars and stripes called it the most troubled base in the military. four lewis mcchord soldiers were convicted of killing three afghan civilians in 2010. one, calvin gibbs, received a life sentence. another soldier based there, benjamin colton barnes killed a park ranger at mount rainier national park. he possibly suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. in the past five years, about 300 patients at the base had their ptsd diagnosis reversed by a forensic psychiatry team. the seattle times reported that this month. the army is reviewing whether those doctors were influenced by how much a ptsd diagnosis can cost in terms of pension and other benefits. >>> republican presidential candidate newt gingrich said on face the nation yesterday it's time for the u.s. to leave afghanistan. >> i think we need to reconsider the whole region. we nied to need to understand that

duarte geraldino, wjz eyewitness news. >> and he also padded his delegate lead overnight.ne delegates of nine and the northern marian islands. >>> a white powder scare inside a building in washington, d.c. hazmat crews swept a building this afternoon, looking for dangerous substances. but nothing was found. this comes one day after police arrested 39-year-old christopher pearlson for allegedly sending out 100 envelopes with white powder. those went to many senators, including maryland senator barbara mikulski. >> very quiet. very subdued. he didn't talk to anybody. he said hi. and that was about it. they kept to themselves. >> reporter: carlson lives in vancouver, washington, where the letters were sent from. none of the letters contain any toxic substances. carlson is said to be arraigned in federal court on monday. >>> tonight, police are looking for a driver who they say intentionally hit a police officer with his car. the man was driving his silver chevy silverado, when he purposely accelerated and swerved to strike a boy. it happened in the 3400 block of wal ford driv