Literally growing more violent by the hour. how the u.s. is reacting as the crackdown on the rebels intensifis. this is serious, serious stuff. martha: back home to politics, the final four battling it out but romney get the what he needed last night to gain the frontrunner status? karl rove will join us in a few minutes. we ll get a take what happened last night. we must not allow iran to have a nuclear weapon. if they do the world changes america will be at risk and some day nuclear weaponry will be used. if i m president that will not happen. if we reelect barack obama, it will happen. [applause] vegetable nutrition? [ gong ] strawberry banana! [ male announcer ] for a smoothie with real fruit plus veggie nutrition new v8 v-fusion smoothie. could ve had a v8.
Some more in the immediate future. martha: the president will address this and talk to the nation a little bit later this morning. stuart, thank you very much. stuart varney, fox business network. bill: he will be in orlando later today. here impact on people living in the city. current average price of gasoline in orlando, people drive suv about $30 a day, spend $24.99 on gas a week. seems cheap, doesn t it. 3.61 from what they paid to fill up last year. if prices stay this way, people will pay $187.72 more over the next year to fill up. so that is where you see the context for the increase. martha: so hopefully gas prices at one orlando station are not a preview of what to come for the rest of the country. look at this. fuel prices hitting $5.89 a gallon? drivers saying they have simply had enough. what do you think of these gas prices? crazy. there is like $3 nearby.
That is a tough story out of arizona. martha: also this morning we ve got some new reaction coming in now from the white house as anti-american riots in afghanistan continue to spin out of control. the u.s. embassy there is now in lockdown. the violent protests sparked by unintentional burning of korans at a u.s.-run military base there. wendell goler has latest on the story from the white house. good morning, wendell. reporter: good morning, martha. president obama apologized to afghan president hamid karzai for the burning of those korans. this is contained in a letter sent to karzai earlier today. the folks here say the letter was a follow-up to a phone conversation the two men had a few days ago that continued the discussion on a range of issues. also included, quote, a our regret and poll business over the incident in which religious materials were unintentionally mishandled at bagram airbase. the letter was delivered by u.s. ambassador ryan crock they are afternoon. it was uncl
Brakes but he could not get any traction. it was typical sort of rough landing. then the pilot announced they had gone off the end of the runway. that everything was fine. they were shutting the engines down for safety but there was no damage and to remain calm. martha: i guess to remain calm they did. they had to stay there for 20 minutes before they could start the process of getting off the plane. thankfully the pilot did a good job. there were no reports of any injuries. the idea that somehow earmarks during the time that i was in congress were this thing that drove up spending in washington, d.c., what happened is there was abuse. when abuse happened, i said we should stop the ear mashing process. i didn t follow all of that but i can tell you this, i would put a ban on earmarks. i think opens the door to excessive spending, spending on projects that don t need to be done.
Corrections in what happened here tonight. martha: doug mckelway joins us live from charlottesville, virginia. describe the mood in that courtroom when the verdict was read. reporter: pretty remarkable scene martha. no sense of joy, no sense of victory on the part of anybody there, no sense of retribution. the one sense you really could detect in that courtroom was this pervading sense of sorrow, and the sense that two families, utterly devastated by the crimes committed by george huguely v. commonwealth attorney david chapman but it put it best as he stepped out into the driving rain storm. here it is: what we do in court is a very rough aapproximation of justice in any given case. we hope that they feel some solace from the outcome that s been achieved here today. reporter: after the sentencing, recommendation