think about that. that will save you some money at the pump. and that is why we are helping companies like this one right here and plants like this one right here to make more cars and trucks that use less oil. when i ran for office, i went to detroit and gave a speech to automakers where i promised that i was going to raise fuel standards on our cars so that they'd go further on a gallon of gas. i said we should do the same thing on trucks. i have to tell you when i said it, i didn't get a lot of applause in the room because there was a time when automakers were resisting higher fuel standards, because change isn't easy. but you know what? after three decades of not doing anything, we got together with the oil companies, we got together with the unions, we got together with folks who usually do not see eye to eye and we negotiated new fuel economy standards that are going to make sure our cars average nearly 55 miles per hour by the middle of the next decade. that's nearly double what they get today. [ applause ] nearly double. now, because of these new standards for cars and trucks, they're going to -- they're all going to be able to go further and use less fuel every year. and that means pretty soon you'll be able to fill up your car every two weeks instead of every week. and over time, that saves you -- a typical family, about $8,000 a year. you like that, don't you? $8,000, that's no joke. we can reduce our oil consumption by more than 12 billion barrels. and thanks to the super truck program that we've started with companies like this one, trucks will be able to save more than $15,000 in fuel costs every year. think about that, $15,000. looks like somebody might have fainted up here. do we have some ems -- folks do this all the time in my meetings. you always got to eat before you stand for a long time. that's a little tip. but they'll be okay. just make sure -- give them a little room. everybody all right? okay. so these trucks can save $15,000 every year. i want people to think about what that means for businesses, what it means for consumers. it is real progress and it's happening because of american workers and american know-how. it's happening because of you. it's happening because of you. we're also making it easier for big companies, some of your customers, like u.p.s. and fedex, to make the shift to fuel-efficient cars and trucks. we call it the national clean fleets partnership. and since we announced it last year, the number of companies that are taking part in it has tripled. that means more customers for your trucks. [ applause ] creating more customers for your trucks. and i am proud to say that the federal government is leading by example. one thing the federal government has a lot of is cars and trucks. we've got a lot of cars and we've got a lot of trucks. >> we're listening to president obama, campaign-style obama there, talking about the need for fuel-efficiency vehicles. i'm suzanne malveaux. want to get you up to speed. peyton manning turned indianapolis into a football city. well, now, the team -- the colts letting the star quarterback go. manning was out for the entire 2011 season after undergoing neck surgery. team owner jim irsay and manning made the announcement at an emotional news conference just last hour. >> i haven't thought yet about where i'll play, but i have thought a lot about where i've been. and i've truly been blessed. i've been blessed to play here. i've been blessed to be in the nfl. it's on to the next contest and the fierce competition for the republican presidential nomination. mitt romney didn't manage a knockout punch but he sounded confident about the look ahead. >> tonight, we're doing some counting. we're counting up the delegates for the convention and it looks good. and we're counting down the days until november. and that looks even better. >> romney leads in delegates with 404. rick santorum won three states. he's got 165. newt gingrich has 106 after winning georgia. ron paul has 66. ohio congressman dennis kucinich loses his bid for reelection. he was defeated by fellow house democrat marcy captor. both ended up in the same district after a tough redistricting battle. this is the guy we came to know as joe the plumber. he challenged then candidate obama's tax plan. an opposition group says at least 25 people were killed today in street fighting across syria. most of them in the city of homs. at the same time, we're hearing that aid workers from the syrian red crescent finally managed to enter neighborhoods and homes where the fighting is the worst. they brought in one doctor, some food and some blankets. the u.s. defense secretary does not want to get involved in syria right now. that's despite pressure from some senior senate republicans to end this conflict militarily. senator john mccain today demanded to know from leon panetta how many more syrians and civilians have to die before u.s. forces intervene. >> how many more have to die? 10,000 more, 20,000 more, how many more? >> i think the question, as you stated yourself, senator, is the effort to try to build an international consensus as to what action we do take. that makes the most sense. what doesn't make sense is to take unilateral action at this point. as secretary of defense, before i recommend that we put our sons and daughters in uniform, in harm's way, i've got to make very sure that we know what the mission is. attention, tech junkies. your wait is almost over. in this hour, apple is expected to unveil the new ipad. alison kosik is at the new york stock exchange. i've got the dinosaur version here. you tell me what's going to be different from what i have here and what we're going to see later this afternoon. >> reporter: oh, yeah. so the pressure is certainly on apple to come up with something snazzy this time around. but remember, the ipad 2, which replaced the original one, only had small incremental changes. but expectations are higher this time. and apple feeds this frenzy by being notoriously tight-lipped. but the word on the street is this new ipad is going to have 4g connectivity, it's going to be faster than the current 3g network. word is it's going to have siri and its screen resolution is said to be double the current ipad and it's said to have a better camera and longer battery life. it sounds like it could put my ipad 2 -- it could become a doorstop like yours, suzanne. do you have the original one? >> yeah. kind of an expensive doorstop. but, yeah -- so you would get the new one, yes? do you think? >> reporter: would i get the new one? i'm really happy with this one. >> that's okay. talk a little bit about the culture of the company. it was less than a year ago since steve jobs died. how is apple doing without his input, his guidance, even? >> reporter: you know what? all you have to do is look at the numbers. judging from the stock price, right now it's going for -- apple shares are going for $534 a share. apple is doing pretty darn good. look at how apple's done over the past three months. apple shares up 36%. they topped $500 a few weeks ago. almost on a daily basis, apple shares really hit record highs. it's a sign of confidence in the company. but apple's been dealing with a big p.r. nightmare. allegations abou unsafe working conditions on chinese suppliers including foxconn. apple is taking it seriously, apparently. but as far as the business goes, no major effect -- people are still hungry for their gadgets. the ipad still has almost 60% share of the tablet market. it doesn't seem to be affecting apple's bottom line in any way right now. >> the late steve jobs' imprint is on everything apple. we look forward to seeing what's next here as they unveil this. thanks again, alison. here's a rundown of the stories we're covering this hour. first, a new theory about the sinking of the "titanic." the moon, right, may have been partly to blame? we're not kidding. sounds crazy but some physics professors are making a pretty strong case about it. also, only this -- only see this on cnn. nasa gave us exclusive access inside shuttle "endeavour." we're live from the kennedy space station. they fled the fighting in syria, thousands of families, where they found refuge and the horrifying stories they are now telling us. 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>> reporter: in lebanon they're not really ready or prepared for it at the moment. and the refugees feel safe in that community. the townspeople say they would love to help but they are running out of space. i was in tripoli today at an organization there that was helping with the medical needs, the humanitarian needs of refugees coming in from syria. they say they don't have enough money. people are coming with medical conditions, medical injuries, injuries to heads and such like. they don't have the money to treat them. this is because the government here is not really set up to reach out and help all the syrian refugees. so right now, there's a massive shortfall in what's needed to help the people that are here, let alone if more people were to cross over the border, which is a very real fear, if assad's forces move onto other towns. >> nic, what do we know about the aid, the shipments that are now reportedly allowed into homs? is that making a difference? is it actually getting to the people who need it? >> reporter: we don't really have a very good assessment so far of what difference it's making. the syrian government has made it incredibly difficult until today for humanitarian supplies to get into that neighborhood of b -- the u.n.'s chief humanitarian representative, valerie amos, was there and she went into the town. supplies have been handed out to some of the people who have fled into neighboring villages. but we don't have a good analysis of how much is needed how much more is required in the future and what good it's doing because there aren't independent witnesses there that can tell us. >> nic, excellent reporting. obviously a lot of need. those people there inside of syria, aid that is desperately trying to get to those people as that fighting in that country is continuing. brace yourself. i want you to see this. sun sending mighty powerful energy this way. we'll tell you what to expect from a solar flare. for their clients' futures. helping millions of americans retire on their terms. when they want. where they want. doing what they want. ameriprise. the strength of a leader in retirement planning. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you one-to-one. together for your future. ♪ in here, the landscaping business grows with snow. to keep big winter jobs on track, at&t provided a mobile solution that lets everyone from field workers to accounting, initiate, bill, and track work in real time. you can't live under a dome in minnesota, that's why there's guys like me. [ male announcer ] it's a network of possibilities -- helping you do what you do... even better. ♪ we like this question. are you the kind of person who actually saves your pennies? do you pick them off the sidewalk, fill your piggybank with them? or maybe the penny's past its prime, are you more likely to volume it up than put it in your penny loafer? more importantly, when the price of a gallon of gasoline goes down a fraction of a penny, does your family feel it? what's a penny worth to you? post your comments on my facebook page or send your tweets to me on twitter. the sun gave us a hard smack yesterday. a massive flare that shot out of the solar storm, the strongest solar flare this year. want to bring in jacqui jeras. this is all about what's happening on the surface of the sun. explain, what is this, actually? >> but it affects us, eventually. we've already felt some impacts from this. but the big impact is going to come tomorrow. two different things we're talking about. we have solar flares and then what comes after it is what we call the -- roll the video and i'll explain the difference. don't get too grossed out. a solar flare is like the sun shooting out hot, stinky breath at you. what follows after, which doesn't happen every single time, is a coronal mass ejection. kind of like hocking a loogy. this is coming at the earth at about 4 million miles per hour. all these little particles get caught up in the earth's atmosphere and heads towards the poles. why do we care about that? it affects our gpss and our satellite systems. we've already had outages and blackouts of high-frequency radio. they get interference to their communications. they've already been rerouting some of the planes. we can get outages to the power grids, the gps and satellite interruptions. but the one bonus is we get beautiful aurora borealis displays. that's tomorrow night. we've been in this active phase, this spot is where that ejection has been taking place. we could see more active flares like this in the next one to two weeks. that's kind of a problem. >> yeah, i love the analogies you used. >> i know, not very lady-like. >> i want to focus here, this is right up your alley here. this is about another heavenly body getting blamed now for actually helping turn a historic ocean crossing into the "titanic" disaster. watch this. >> is there anyone there? >> yes. go ahead. >> iceberg, straight ahead! >> that was a big moment, you know the chain of events, sinking the "titanic" and more than 1,500 people passing with that. nobody's disputing the ship hit an iceberg. but there is new research now that says that the moon might be to blame for creating more dangerous route for the "titanic." so, i don't know, are you buying this? >> well, it makes sense. if you think about it, it's actually logical. the basic premise is that the alignment and the position that the moon was in at the time -- it was a super moon. remember us talking about that? that's when the moon is as close to the earth as it ever gets when it's in its full phase. we know the moon affects the tides. when the moon is at its greatest, that activity would be more. so more agitation going on in the oceans, which would then in turn cause more icebergs to break off. so they're saying it was a very active period and there were more icebergs than normal so they would have more to navigate around. >> so it's possible, then, right? >> makes sense to me. a little bit. >> it sounded good, the way you explained it. you convinced me. thanks, jacqui. here's a rundown of the stories we're working on. next, mitt romney, won six of the ten super tuesday states, barely pulled off ohio. we8 look at what it means for him. we'll get an exclusive tour of the inside of space shuttle "endeavour." it is the last to retire from the space program. and later, caffeine that comes in a spray, getting a warning now from the fda. why it could be dangerous. ohh, . i'm not having a heart attack, it's my head. this is made for pain. [ male announcer ] bayer advanced aspirin enters the bloodstream fast, and rushes extra strength relief to the sight of your pain. feel better? yeah...thanks for the tip! extra strength relief to the oh dear...our pain. oh dear! ohh dear... i'm not sure exactly what happened here last night. i was out helping people save money on their car insurance. 2 more! you're doing it! aren't they doing great?! hiiiiiii!! come sweat with me! keep going richard. keep sweating!! geico. fifteen minutes could save you sweat! sweat! fifteen percent or more on car insurance. mitt romney's campaign now saying it is almost impossible for his rivals to catch him in the race for the delegates. romney won six of the ten super tuesday states. but he just squeaked by in ohio, despite outspending rick santorum. wolf blitzer is joining us live. you were up very late early in the morning, i know. do we think that this was ultimately a win for romney? when you see what happened over the ten states. >> it was certainly a win. it was decisive. does it mean he's absolutely, positively going to