retreat after a bloody ambush in el bray ga that goes on as we speak. as the u.s. agrees to extend its role in coalition air strikes for another day on this "american morning." and good morning to you. welcome to "american morning" on this monday. it is the 4th of april. good to see you this morning. >> good morning to both of you. we're hearing and going to be speaking to ben weedman moments from now, heavy action in libya, a lot more fighting we want to tell you about. >> but first, southwest airlines canceling another 100 flights today, as inspections continue on its fleet of bogey boeing 737 300s. small subsurface cracks have been found in three more planes. the inspections were prompted by a midair scare friday on a flight from phoenix to sacramento when a five-foot section of the roof ripped open at 35,000 feet. the plane made an emergency landing at a military base in yuma, arizona, and passengers relived those terrifying moments in the sky. >> like an explosion, at least, but all of a sudden there's a big sun roof in the middle of the plane, big old hole, see daylight running through it. >> all of a sudden the oxygen masks dropped and everyone was just trying to get the mask on and it was scary. >> ntsb investigators found evidence of structural fatigue and widespread cracking in the plane's fuselage, despite the fact it underwent a major inspection just last year. southwest canceled hundreds of flights over the weekend because of the emergency inspections. let's go to libya where the u.s. has agreed to a nato request and will continue participating in coalition air strikes against libya for another day. let me give you a sense of this right now. the red areas are those which are in opposition control. the green are in government control. there's tripoli, the government headquarters, this is benghazi, the opposition headquarters. there's been heavy fighting in al brega and misrata. let me show you what's going on in al brega. reports coming in right now, intensifying fighting between moammar gadhafi's troops and the oil town of al brega. the fighting was intensifying here with rebel leaders saying they have got to get new armorments. in misrata, let me show you where that is, that's over here, misrata, it's been -- let me show you that. pro-government forces shelled a medical clinic yesterday killing one person and wounding 15 others. hundreds of people injured in misrata have been picked up by a hospital ship. you can see it here. they're going to be taken to turkey for treatment. misrata's port remains under rebel control. now finally, i want it to show you british diplomats on the ground in libya meeting with opposition leaders but no decision has been made by nato yet about possibly arming them. i told you that we've got fighting in this brega area. let's go there right now, ben wedeman standing there right now. what's going on in brega? >> yeah. in brega, the town itself, seems to still be under the control of gadhafi's forces. we were able to get to the outskirts of that town and things were relatively quiet and then we heard some loud explosions. it was an artillery barrage, hit the ground, run into our car, drive about two or three miles up the road to get out of the range of the artillery and within minutes, more artillery rounds came in. one landed about 200 yards from our car. we went to a third location, a few miles up the road, and more artillery came in. we were au now in our fourth location. not only us, are pulling back, also the rebel fighters who tend to be very sort of quick whenever there's any sort of explosion nearby, they rush back in a panic as well. it appears that gadhafi's forces still very much in control, very much able to continue to fire artillery at the opposition forces. we did hear an airplane overhead about an hour ago, but no sign whatsoever of any coalition airstrikes in this area, despite the fact it is a very clear and sunny day with barely a cloud in the sky. >> i want to show our viewers here, you can see the town of sirte where gadhafi was born, government controlled. then to the east of that, bin jaw jawad, government controlled, ras lanuf, government controlled, brega where you are, under government control with fighting we're seeing here. after that to ajdabiya and then the rebel controlled headquarters if you will of benghazi. are we to read into this the government is making significant advancements east of the country, the area they didn't control in the beginning of this fight? >> well, it appears they don't plan on moving -- they don't appear to be moving any further east of brega. brega, of course, as well as ras lanuf, are the sites of some very important oil refineries. beyond that, if they move too much along the road, they'll become exposed to possible coalition air strikes. certainly they have been able to push the rebels back all the way to here, with relatively -- with ease. because they're so disorganized, they're so undisciplined, that as soon as they run into any kind of resistance or fire power from the gadhafi forces, these opposition troops just run away. >> all right. ben, thanks very much. we'll stay on top of this with you. to point out what we're talking about, you'll notice that most of the population in libya is along the coastline like this, much of this area here is desert, but this region over here around ras lanuf is where most of the oil fields are and most of the oil pipelines head to ras lanuf and this area, which is why ben is making the point the government isn't, perhaps, looking to move up to here into this occupied region, the part that's occupied by the rebels. we'll stay on top of this for you. kiran? >> efforts to plug a leak at japan's damaged nuclear reactor fail again this morning. and now japan says it has no choice but to dump more than 11,000 tons of radioactive water into the pacific on purpose. they're doing this to prevent water with higher levels of radiation from getting out. the utility companies says in a second effort to plug the leak in the reactor, did not work over the weekend. here's a new look at where the water is gushing out. tokyo electric may wrap all six of the plant's reactors in some sort of giant tarp to try to keep the radiation from spreading and installing a sit fence along a damaged seawall surrounding the plant to stop radioactive material from seeping out. the japanese and u.s. militaries are right now launching a much more intense search for the missing. 25,000 troops are out searching for bodies. right now more than 12,000 people are confirmed dead, but there are nearly 16,000 people still missing. almost a month now since an earthquake and tsunami leveleded the coast. the japanese red cross has collected more than a billion dollars in -- designed to go to those in desperate need of relief, but the government says that none of it has reached the victims yet. this prompted the chief cabinet secretary to call for the process to be accelerated. a lot of frustrated survivors are already saying japan's government is paying too much attention to the nuclear crisis and not enough attention to the humanitarian disaster. deadly demonstrations in afghanistan after a fundamentalist pastor in florida burned the koran. one person was killed yesterday, more than a dozen others injured in kandahar. so far, 20 people have died in the last few days in the violent demonstrations. some nato and u.s. officials are taking a stand on the burning of the muslim holy book, including the top military leader in afghanistan. >> the action of an individual in the united states who burned a holy koran, that action was hateful, it was intolerant and it was extremely disrespectful. and again, we condemn it in the strongest manner possible. >> afghan president hamid karzai wants to make it official asking, quote, that the u.s. senate and house of representatives and the u.s. president condemn this action in very clear words to the public. some extreme weather over the weekend, dangerous storms, in fact, right now moving through the midwest. high winds, tearing the roof off of a school in oklahoma. about 70 miles northeast of tulsa. not a school day, thank goodness. no kids were around and no one was hurt. you can see from that demolition how strong this wind was. the cafeteria and a couple chas rooms were damaged and are not going to be able to have classes because of it. people will be on the lookout for tornadoes across the region this morning. last year's deepwater horizon explosion killed 11 people, caused what's been called the worst u.s. oil spill in history, so why is the company celebrating the surprising safety claims from this company coming up. president obama prepares to announce -- actually he just did. he launched his presidential bid on his website. his potential republican challengers, though, are still silent on the sidelines. why aren't they jumping in yet. jim acosta will be jumping about a single gop who has officially tossed his hat in the race. they want to hear from a guy who allegedly hosted three-day drug fueled porn parties what they got was a bore fest. the reviews are in and the changes he's making to it are making it more interesting. ten minutes after the hour. hey susie, why don't you use this ? 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♪ a little less than a year after the bp oil spill in the gulf the company wants to start drilling again. a report by "the new york times" saying bp is asking to continue work at ten existing deepwater production and development wells in july. in exchange, the company would agree to stricter safety standards and supervision. last year's explosion caused more than 200 million gallons of oil to spill into the gulf waters. meantime owners of the deepwater horizon rig that exploded and killed ten workers said 2010 was their best year in safety performance. in fact, the company's top executives are being awarded big bonuses for it. an s.e.c. filing says strans ocean's ceo got a $374,000 bonus in 2010, raising his base salary to $1.1 million. just in to cnn, president obama has officially launched his 2012 re-election campaign. he released a video that democratic sources say will be e-mailed or sent by text messages to his supporters. we're told the president could file papers with the federal election commission a bit later this week. what you're looking at it is video from the ad he launched on the web. the question is, all we've been hearing about is all these different republicans who want to run for 2012. who is going to step up on the republican side and take the president on? we know who the likely front runners are. up until now, however, the frontrunners have been laying low. jim acosta live in washington, the 2012 election, now officially i guess under way, that we have the democratic candidate. no surprises there. the reality is, this kind of does up the ante for the republicans. what's going on on the republican side? >> it absolutely does, ali. president obama's campaign for re-election sent out the e-mail today saying they are filing their election papers today. they put out that web video as you mentioned a few moments ago. all this is going to ramp up the pressure and much is made of the fact that no major gop candidate has jumped into the race. the political experts will tell you, we talked to a few, many of these potential campaigns on the republican side are already ramping up and plotting strategy, including ways to deal with their own liabilities. the last thing that you want at this point is to get started on the wrong foot. >> oh, boy. what a guy. >> reporter: there are right ways and wrong ways to deal with candidate liabilities. take the state health care plan signed into law by mitt romney when he was governor of massachusetts back in 2006. it wasn't much of an issue during romney's first run for the white house in 2008. but now, many republicans see romney care as the model for obama care. >> there's no doubt that it's going to be a challenge. every single candidate in this race has something in their record that they're going to have to explain to a republican electorate. >> do you think he understands that? >> i do absolutely. >> reporter: because romney understands it his former spokesman believes the ex-governor can overcome it in his widely expected campaign encore. >> any candidate that goes into a prospective presidential campaign thinking their he not going to have any problems as far as they're not going to have to explain their record, their record is going to fit perfectly with every voter in that state's electorate, i think that is, obviously, a fool's fol following. >> is that how you deal with it? >> if you have a vulnerability you think is going to be a weakness on your side, get it out, deal with it and move on from there. i'm puzzled they have waited so long to get into this race. >> reporter: while former dnc chairman terry mcauliffe said speed is important, so is credibility noting newt gingrich's stumbles with the christian broadcasting network on the subject of his personal life. >> there's no question at times in my life, partially driven by how passionately i felt about this country, that i worked far too hard and that things happened in my life that were not appropriate. >> if you want the worst case scenario the way newt gingrich put it out, blaming the problems in his marriage, working hard for his country. that became a laughing stock. >> reporter: and that's where message discipline comes in. you knew that lesson better than bill clinton. in 1992, then candidate clinton tried to make the election about tomorrow. not his private past. >> candidate clinton or governor clinton say i want to make this election about you and your life and not me and my problems. they want to take the election away from you and make it about me, i'm not going to let them do that. >> reporter: in the end, winning is the best disinfectant. the candidates that capture the contests in iowa, new hampshire and south carolina might be able to put their baggage away for a while, at least until the next general election and ali, make no mistake, all of these potential republican candidates this morning are watching. >> sure. >> what the president is doing on this website with this web video and saying okay, guys, how do we get this thing going? >> no surprises, but it does kick it off. jim, good to see you. thanks very much. jim said winning. >> yeah. >> nicely into -- >> file this under not winning. charlie sheen fans booing and blasting charlie sheen's stand-up comedy in detroit. listen. >> boo! >> some fans who paid as much as 125 bucks for their ticket, they yelled refund. others simply left. turns out you have to do more than just show up to please a crowd. >> why is this not surprising? >> i know. he may have pulled off a little comeback in chicago. a nice ovation as he got off the bus before show number two. a full review from our careen winter this morning. >> what do people want in. >> i don't know. >> 125 bucks. >> you got it all for free already. >> why would you pay to see him. >> he spilled it all for free. >> this was supposed to be a comedy show. >> right. >> i don't know. it's not surprising. >> didn't work out too well. >> maybe he'll tweak it. spiderman has had many revisions. >> coming up next on "american morning," be on the lookout for spam. your e-mail address may have been exposed in a massive security breach. we're minding your business, carmen will be here with more details. at any bank, tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 anywhere in the world... tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 without having to pay to access your own money. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 it'd be like every atm in the world was your atm. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 the schwab bank high yield investor checking® account. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 zero atm fees. a great interest rate. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 no minimums. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 and it's fdic-insured. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 the schwab bank high yield investor checking® account. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 the biggest thing in checking since checks. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 open an account at 1-800-4schwab or schwab.com. you think i have allergies? 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[ male announcer ] get zyrtec®'s proven allergy relief and love the air®. you want to be on the lookout this morning from e-mails from a number of companies you trust that could be asking for personal information. i got a bunch of e-mails from companies saying their e-mail addresses have been breached and watch out for this exact thing. this is a big deal. i've had more warnings this weekend than i've ever had. >> this is a very big deal. i do business with a lot of folks affected by this. you plight get fun y e-mails. an extensive security breach on friday at the nation's largest marketing security, epsilon. that's more than 2500 clients. here's what information has been compromised. this is a statement from epsilon. the information that was obtained was limited to e-mail addresses and/or customer names only. here have some of the companies that have been affected. citigroup, jp morgan chase, capital one, walgreens, best buy, as well, tivo, home shopping network and kroger. here's what happens. your e-mail contact information is used for phishing. this is when you get e-mails from companies looking for personal information. such as social security numbers, birth dates. do not respond if you get e-mails like this and do not click on these links. especially for the banks. banks will never send you an e-mail asking for your personal information. if you have a question go directly to the company's website and contact customer service there. >> or call them specifically. >> yes. >> don't deal with it -- >> specifically and directly. >> you'll hear some of the companies trying to downplay it saying only your e-mail address and your name. there was no secure information. your credit card number, not your social security number, but for fischers they just want your name and e-mail. >> that's all they need. if all you have to do is click the virus is in your computer, it strips all that information and