jon karl, thank you so much. and jon, as you know, two other republicans, tim pawlenty and mitch daniels will be on with christiane ayman tour sunday morning on "this week" as the presidential race heats up. >>> we turn now to major medical news. new heart findings that have caught even the experts by surprise tonight. doctors have long known that lowering bad cholesterol helps prevent heart attacks. but in addition to that, they thought that raising the level of good cholesterol would help, too. but a big study is shaking that up. and so dr. richard besser is here tonight. we don't want to confuse anyone. the drugs for bad cholesterol, you say we keep. it's the drugs for good cholesterol in question tonight? >> reporter: that's right. you know, of course, millions of americans are taking statins to keep their bad cholesterol in check. and that's a good thing. tonight, we're talking about whether taking a drug to increase your good cholesterol will work. in this study, doctors used a drug called niaspan. they gave

thank you, jon karl. as you'll be covering it for us. >>> and now we turn to the shooting in tucson, and a bizarre outburst in an arizona courtroom today. as tucson shooting suspect jared loughner, charged with shooting congresswoman gabby giffords and killing six others, was found not competent right now for any trial. he shouted out in the courtroom, "thank you for the freak show. she died in front of me." abc news legal analyst dan abrams is here. so, give me a sense. they found him not competent right now. what is the threshold for that decision? >> it means that he can't understand the proceedings against him. basically, for five weeks, they evaluated him. two medical professionals sat there, looked at all of his records, got records from his pediatrician. 18 hours of videotaped interviews with him, as well. a 53-page and 42-page report, both of them independently concluded he's not competent. >> but still, common sense, with all those professionals involved, he was able to get a gun, he was able to

freights businessmen and a key contact for the italian army in mogadishu jon karl. and the fourth man in the network is none other than the then president of somalia. in one thousand nine hundred five former president monti appoints. honorary consul scantly only makes full use of his devil magic status to set up the toxic waste scam ignores the fact that one thousand nine hundred eighty three international treaty for bids the export of dangerous waste materials from europe to the third world. scud leoni toward northern italian industrial complexes it went from door to door like a common salesman to any industry that needed to rid itself of toxic waste. its destruction is expensive and he offered to do the job on the cheap. among the industrialists gagliano he called on is this man a scrap metal merchant from the turin region who only agreed to be interviews on the condition of anonymity. said they were looking for people who had a ways to get rid of its. value yes the problem was they had to look for quite a few in order to fill their ship. chairman i'm not a comput

. >> reporter: and former vice president dick cheney telling jon karl -- >> there's every reason to believe there will be further attacks against the u.s. >> reporter: plus the official worldwide alert from the state department, telling overseas travelers about an enhanced potential for anti-american violence. there are no credible threats, no heightened alerts at the airports. wh so, what does that mean for us? should americans planning summer vacations change their travel plans? >> if you don't want to go on vacation, i suppose you could say, well, we have to worry about terrorism. but there is no rational reason to do anything different. >> reporter: in fact, three homeland security experts we talked with today tell us the immediate threat from al qaeda is no worse than its been in the ten years since 9/11. in fact, we could be safer, because they're scrambling for survival, not planning, allowing americans to travel as usual, stay individual lent, yet calm, while the military and intelligence services fight the terrorists. >> i think it comes down to four words. privately kill, publicly

jon karl joins us with more. >> i've got to tell you there is real republican angst about this current crop of republican presidential candidates. i've spoken to several influential party leaders who believe they have a golden opportunity to beat barack obama, but may be in the process of blowing it. and now tossing his tweet in the ring, newt gingrich. >> i'm announcing my candidacy for president of the united states. >> reporter: gingrich joins a republican field that seems tailor made for "saturday night live." >> this is a great time for this nation's greatest man, me. >> reporter: potential candidates include a billionaire developer with a reality show and hair that seems to defy gravity. the guy who ran godfather's pizza. two candidates who support decriminalizing drugs and prostitution. obama's former ambassador to china and the former governor, the president credits for inspiring his health care plan. and a tea party heroine. at the first debate, half of them stayed away missing this. >> how many of here would use heroin if it was legal? i bet nobody. i need the government to t

s news jon karl that obama will be buried at sea the folks over the b.b.c. also got the terrorist leader confused with the leader of the free world he created a special section for to cover the death of obama now on twitter and he sees norah o'donnell also got her obama names confused she tweeted that obama had been shot and killed her jim but jim had tweeted that osama was shot and killed. so those are just a few of the errors of the media made during the breaking news coverage and yes it's breaking news mistakes happen but this was a really bad time to make your ss and your be very all the recent budget cuts i think i mean that a lot of the t.v. networks decided that their copy of theirs were a job position that could be cut back and that's why the mainstream media is tonight's tool time when her purse screwing up the osama bin ladin story with really really down the sikhs. artist time for showing talents night's program last time we told you the mega search engine google is stepping in when it comes to patrolling for piracy are removing questionable sites

jon karl with more on that. jon, he's doing knit a brand-new way. >> reporter: newt gingrich will make it official today. i'm told he will announce he is running for president, via twitter. we are told this will be the first major presidential candidate to announce he is running via a tweet. he's been one of the most influential republicans in america for more than a generation. now, newt gingrich, wants to be president. >> courage to tell the truth. >> the obama administration is wrong. we need to return power from washington to the states. >> reporter: in a way, the campaign is already there. since leaving congress more than a decade ago, gingrich has built something of a conservative empire. a network of advocacy groups that's raised more than $32 million over the last 2 years. and he's taken a hard line against president obama. >> we need a commander in chief with the courage to tell the truth. not a spectator in chief, whose confused about whether his job is kicking a soccer ball or leading the united states

and jon karl has more on whether her bus tour this weekend is her first stop on her race to the white. jon? >> reporter: good morning, george. first of all, mitt romney is among those who will make it official he is running for president next week. and he already looks like the front-runner. but it is sarah palin that is about to go on that national bus tour. the campaign is on. mitt romney, michele bachmann, rick santorum, are all getting ready to officially jump in the race. but it is sarah palin who is about to grab the limelight, with a national bus tour. palin's team has been secretly prepping the bus for weeks. the tour begins sunday in washington, heads off to gettysburg, the liberty bell and other historic sites on the east coast. it looks like a campaign bus. could it be the beginning of a presidential campaign? a source close to palin tells abc news, that her bus tour does not mean she's about to launch a campaign. but there's been a lot to stir palin speculation. she's been secretly working on a documentary charting her political career that's scheduled to debut next month

just yesterday, we showed it in jon karl's piece. you came out against the way the president obama conducted the raid against osama bin laden. more than 90% of the american public support it. why are you against it? >> well, i was talking about the procedure. you know, i endorse the whole idea of going after him. i supported going into afghanistan. i thought we blew it then. we had him cornered. we let him get loose. and then, we went and invaded iraq. we've spent $1 trillion. we've lost 5,000 american lives. we've killed many, many innocent people. so, the process has been very bad. so, i have no qualms about getting him. i'm delighted he's gone. but the whole thing is, we could have done it differently. and besides -- >> how could we have done it differently? >> -- ignoring the pakistani government doesn't help us at all. it looks like we're trying to be more antagonistic against the pakistanis. they have helped us in the past catch many terrorists. and i don't see any reason we can't do that. i think the process is definitely diff

dick cheney in an exclusive interview with our jon karl gives credit to the president. but warns about spending too much time celebrating bin laden's death. >> i think the administration clearly deserves credit for the success of the operation. and from what i can tell, it looks to me like, you know, we all owe him the same sense of satisfaction that i'm sure they feel. >> reporter: are we safer now? >> i think so. there's every reason to believe there will be further attacks attempted against the united states. and for us to spend so much time patting ourselves on the back because we got bin laden, that we miss the next attack, would be a terrible tragedy. >> above all cheney credits the military and the intelligence community for their long-term commitment to getting bin laden. >>> saranavy s.e.a.l.s for tsing the navy s.e.a.l.s for the mission. speaking at a fund-raiser in colorado, palin questioned whether high-level pakistani officials helped bin laden remain undetected for years. >>> we'll have more later this half hour. also, stay with abc news for complete cover

. >> and jon karl for more on this right now. he's down in washington. let's decode that. he said that basically dollar for dollar, a spending cut for every new dollar you borrow. if the administration wants to borrow enough money to get through the end of next year, that means close to $2 trillion in spending cuts. >> reporter: this is incredible. the government is about to max out that credit card, george. the white house is warning of dire economic consequences if the debt limit isn't raised. and boehner is talking about cuts that we have never seen before. consider this, george. last month, the government was driven to the brink of shutdown in a battle over $38 billion in cuts. now, he's talking about $2 trillion in cuts or more. we're looking at about 50 times the battle we had last month. >> that's right. we haven't had an official statement from the white house yet. but they may be open to this, depending on the timeline for these cuts. >> reporter: yeah. that's right. boehner did not say how long he wants this to happen. but democrats on the hill are saying this is

it's going to be released later today, jon karl got it for us first and brings us what he found. >> reporter: check this out. a laundry-folding robot. don't get too excited. it costs $1.5 million to create and takes 25 minutes to fold a single towel. now, this, this is much more promising. researchers figured out to put shrimp on a treadmill. and to get more than $500,000 in the process. look at him go! and you may think farmville on facebook is a colossal waste of time. but what if you got a $300,000 grant to study how it helps to build personal relationships? these projects have one thing in common. you paid for them. they're taxpayer-funded grants given by the national science foundation, the subject of a scathing new report by senator tom coburn. >> what it says to me is they have too much money if they spend money on something like that. >> reporter: and then there's agency's arlington, virginia, headquarters, $19 million a year in rent. and they're looking to move into a new building for $26 million a year. and nsf says the move is necessary because its current 20-year lease is almost

jon karl has more. >> reporter: huckabee's decision takes a big-name republican out of the running. mike huckabee would have been a front-runner. but -- >> all the factors say go. but my heart says no. and that's the decision that i have made. >> reporter: huckabee won the iowa caucuses and came in second overall to john mccain in 2008 and was at or near the top of the polls this time around. his decision leaves a republican field crowded with candidates and problems. there's mitt romney. conservatives hate his massachusetts health care plan. almost as much as they hate obama's. newt gingrich, loads of personal and political baggage. and tim pawlenty, struggling to convince people he's not too boring. then the wild cards. but will they run? indiana governor mitch daniels could be a force. the harley-riding budget hawk has tea party appeal. he says he'll decide closer to memorial day. today, we'll get a hint about donald trump's intentions. >> you're fired. >> reporter: his popular reality show is slated for another season. today, we'll find out if he's out as star of the program, fr

president obama took office former vp cheney often criticized the new president, but as he told our jon karlnow for the president. >> reporter: what went through your mind when you heard the news? >> i think like most americans, i felt a great sense of satisfaction when i found out that we'd in fact captured and killed him. i think it's a very special tribute that we all owe to the bravery and courage of the men and women in the intelligence and military business who performed so well to finally get it done. it's taken a long time. they never gave up. they never backed off. they just kept plugging along until they got it right. >> reporter: does the president deserve credit, president obama deserve credit? >> i think the administration clearly deserves credit for the success of the operation. and from what i can tell, it looks to me like you know we all owe him same sense of satisfaction that i'm sure they feel. >> reporter: are we safer now? >> i think so. but it's a -- kind of situation where we need to preserve our sense of vigilance, if you will. it could be a big mistake to assume that

our jon karl is in sizzling washington with the latest on all that. good morning, jon. >> reporter: good morning, robin. it has all the makings of another reality tv show. the sarah palin guessing game. is she running for president? or just playing tourist? the itinerary looks like just another summer vacation. the lincoln memorial. the national archives. mt. vernon. at gettysburg, on a video posted on "the new york times" website, she was asked what a palin campaign would look like. >> ooh. it would definitely be unconventional and nontraditional, yes. knowing -- knowing us. >> what do you think the odds are you will run? >> i don't know. i honestly don't know. it's still, you know, a matter of looking at the field and considering much. >> reporter: the field suggests an opening for somebody. in the latest gallup poll, none of the above comes in first, ahead of all of them, including palin herself. her tour started over the weekend on a harley. and now, she's on a campaign-style bus. the only news organization that seems to know where she is going is