>> tonight is karen and the kids are going to be on piers morgan show tonight on cnn. so i would encourage you all to take a look at that. we did the interview yesterday from charleston and you'll get to see what -- at the end of the interview, piers morgan leaned over to me and said, you want my suggestion? less rick, more karen. >> thank you for the punt, mr. santorum. and sound and fury came in last night at the cnn-sponsored debate. gingrich seems to be the target of a new dirty trick. e-mails are being sent to republican activists and they claim and cnn did not send them out. it's not clear how many people received them. from dirty tricks to political mischief by a political odd couple. you're looking at pictures from stephen colbert who is teaming up with herman cain for a rally at this hour in charleston. what a scene there. colbert is calling the event the rock me like a herman cain primary rally. even though he's out of the race, he's entering the race himself and says a vote for cain tomorrow is a good way for colbert supporters to show their support. it what may be the most brazen attack so far, shutting down the websites of the justice department and the fbi. also says it crippled the websites of universe stall music, the recording music association of america and the motion picture association of america. the attacks came after federal agents shut down the file site mega upload for online piracy charges. this morning, all of the sites except universal music were back up. a fast-moving wildfire has damaged at least 26 homes. the fire has spread across 3900 acres. about 10,000 people were evacuated and a major highway was closed after the fire started yesterday. vice president biden was speaking at an area and the fire was about 50% contained. too italy and dramatic scenes from the passengers of the capsized cruise liner being told to return to their cabins because everything is okay. >> soon after the ship tipped over, sending frantic passengers to lifeboats. at least 11 people were killed in that disaster last week. 21 still missing. the captain is under house arrest facing possible charges of manslaughter, abandoning ship, and shipwreck into general motors is once again king of the mountain in sales. gm sold more than nine million vehicles, the best performance since 2007 and the achievement comes two years after the bankruptcy. toyota was knocked off the spot because major disasters and is expected to place third behind volkswagen. for jazz and blues lovers around the world, sad news to report today. legendary singer etta james has died. she was 73. her manager says she died in a california hospital with complications of leukemia. she blew away fans with such hits as something's got a hold on me, the wild flower and "at last." she was inducked in the rock and roll hall of fame. now back to politics. at last night's cnn debate, newt gingrich fired back at the media over coverage of his ex-wife's accusations. he's pushing the blame on the press but could his move hurt him in the south carolina primary? howard kurtz puts a spin on that next. a 3-year-old boy who can teach all of us a lesson in life. liam has cancer but it hasn't stopped him from doing what he loves. that's painting. he has a tumor on his kidney and had a bone marrow help with the medical bills that they are auctioning off the artwork. painting helps him forget about all of the pain. for your bravery and all of your beautiful work, liam, you are today's rock star. when you have tough pain, do you want fast relief? try bayer advanced aspirin. it's not the bayer aspirin you know. it's different. first, it's been re-engineered with micro-particles. second, it enters the bloodstream fast, and rushes relief to the site of your tough pain. the best part? it's proven to relieve pain twice as fast as before. bayer advanced aspirin. test how fast it works for you. love it, or get your money back. in politics, sometimes it's the same candidate, newt gingrich turning an unseemlying allegation into last night's gop debate. maybe all the gop debates. in case you missed it, here's our own john king with a question based on new interviews with gingrich's second ex-wife, marianne. >> she says you asked her, sir, to enter into an open marriage. would you like to take some time to respond to that? >> no, but i will. i think the destructive, vicious nature of the media makes it harder to attract decent people to run for office and i am appall that you would begin a presidential debate with a topic like that. >> gingrich went on to call not the allegation which he didenie but a master stroke. >> as a political matter, i think gingrich saw a fast ball coming and smacked it right out of the park. >> howard kurtz says that everything after that answer was an afterthought. nice to see you, howard. i've been reading your tweets. you agree gingrich did himself good last night? >> gingrich won the debate in the opening moments. i must say that i thought it was a misstep for john king who is a fair and seasoned and balanced reporter to make that the first question of the debate because it enabled gingrich to take that big swing and they are more interested in reviving the allegations of personal and sexual impropriety in his past versus the serious problems facing the country. i think that everything that happened after that, even when mitt romney stumbled about his tax return. >> there's a question of timing. what do you make of it? you have the abc interview with marianne coming out just two days before the primary. >> well, first of all, what marianne gingrich had to say in this abc news interview with brian ross, he will be appearing with me on "reliable sources" to talk about the timing of the story was not new. she has talked about the open marriage allegation and the way in which her ex-husband told her she wanted a divorce. but she had never said it in front of a television camera. now, it feels to me and i bet it feels to a lot of voters in south carolina like a late hit for abc to put her on the air on nightline some 30 hours before the voting begins. you're giving a platform to a woman who whether she's in the right or wrong harbors bitter feelings towards her ex-husband and former speaker of the house. >> do you think they should have sat on it until after this crucial primary vote? >> i think the timing does not look good for those who believe the media is biased or out to hurt the republicans. i think they should have done it earlier or last week. when you drop a bombshell like that, so close to the voting, it does -- i think in an unintentional way this may create sympathy for newt gingrich who is already surging in the south carolina polls. he can run against the media. ex run against personal behavior. he's apologized and south forgiveness for his messy marital history and in a boomerang kind of way, this might actually help him. >> as far as debate questions go, you say that the open marriage exchange reminds you of another famous moment from 1988. let's listen. >> governor, if kitty dukakis was raped, would you favor a death penalty? >> no, i don't. i've opposed it all of my life. i don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent and i think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crimes. we've done so in my own state and it's one of the reasons why we've had the biggest drop in crime. >> well, we know how that election turned out. do you think politicians have learned anything from dukakis' emotional answer there? >> it's still painful to watch that. he just said your wife was raped and murdered and gives this legal-ese. he lost the debate in that moment. gingrich is good at deflecting the emotion. one of the things that newt did last night was shift the focus from his own admitted misconduct to the news media for dredging this up. that was played very well with the crowd which cheered him. it may play well in south carolina. he did not commit the dukakis mistake. let's put it that way. >> thank you, howard kurtz. brian ross will join him on "reliable sources" right here on cnn. the road to the republican nomination for president stops next in south carolina. watch cnn saturday night at 7:00 p.m. eastern with the south carolina primary results. and these are live pictures taking place in south carolina. we'll keep an eye on this and if it gets interesting we'll bring it to you. also coming up, an ex cop is fighting for his life. >> i was convicted of second-degree murder with deprafed indifference in 1997 and i was sentenced to 20 years to life. >> he says it was self-defense and eventually set free but a twist of fate sent him back to prison. is a twisted justice system to blame? 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[ kyle ] it's like we're connected. no we're not. yeah, we are. no...we're not. ♪ the allstate value plan. dollar for dollar, nobody protects you like allstate. a stunning end to a disturbing murder case we told you about two days after pleading guilty to a georgia girl and being sentenced to life in prison, ryan brunn apparently killed himself in his jail cell. he was unresponsive yesterday in jackson. officials are not saying how he died or if he was being monitored. his death is under investigation. in court he described how he enticed, molested and killed jorelys last month. a new york police officer is sitting in prison even after a judge said his trial was full of holes. he was convicted for killing a man in 1996 who he believed was about to strike his father in the head with a baseball bat. he spent 11 years in prison but what happened after that is bizarre. let's bring in deb freyerick. >> those pictures are of him out a couple of years ago. this was triggered by an argument between the police officer's father and 37-year-old charles campbell over a parking space and escalated fatally when campbell pulled out a baseball bat. >> i was convicted of second-degree murder with i am prafed indifference in 1997 and sentenced to 20 years to life. >> new york city police officer rich around served 11 years in prison before a judge tossed out his conviction and he was sent home. his friends and family celebrating his release. >> when you walked out -- >> it was surreal. i couldn't believe it. my ankles weren't shackled and i'm like, wow, this is real. >> a free man, he spent two years rebuilding his life. he got a job, an apartment, a wife, then just as suddenly in a twist of the criminal justice system, it was all taken away. >> i still cannot adjust being back here. it is difficult. it is difficult. >> deb, it really is a bizarre case. it seems to have cast a lot of doubt on the county, westchester county there in new york. so why was he sent back to prison? >> you know, what happened is, an appeals court judge, the one who overturned his conviction, slammed prosecutors saying they had a win at all cost mentality. the judge also said that the officer had been improperly charged. so when he let him out, he said, look, there's not going to be a trial. there can't be a second trial. but prosecutors appealed this decision. a higher court reinstated the guilty verdict. so not only was he sent back but the court made sure that the two years he had been out rebuilding his life, that those two years were tacked on to his sentence. when we reached out to the local police and county, they simply refused to respond to our interview requests. >> what about interview statements? were they changed or not introduced? >> that's a big part of this. the big question is whether police had forced witnesses to change their original stories. one witness who actually was closest to the shooting said he was repeatedly picked up by police until he changed the story. so even though at the beginning he said this was definitely self-defense, no question about it, at the trial he said that while the bat was up in the air, it was not swinging. well, the judge who basically set him free said, look, had the jury known that the man was questioned again and again and again to change his story, the verdict likely would have been different. >> amazing. deb freyerick, thank you. remember to watch "narco wars" sunday night. take a look at this. this may be al regular schoolroom, but it's not. a look at the scream room and the backlash and what schools are saying, next. well come back, everyone. a little kid likely with special needs locked in this room for misbehaving. the room is just 10 by 6 feet. no windows to the outside, just the one on the door. >> the kids call it the scream room because they hear screaming. >> i just seen them in the room with a girl holding the door and the girl is in there. >> does it seem sad when they have to go in that room? >> yeah, they are kicking the door. >> up until a week ago, some parents and students say that so-called scream room was used all the time in elementary school in middleton, connecticut. school administrators say it was used for time-out until the kids were under control. gene nocera is on the phone to talk to us about this. there was a board of education and pta meeting last week all about this. the situation certainly got heated. this just gives us a glimpse of how some parents are feeling. listen to this. >> this was the school that they told me that he could come to because they had the resources and they don't have the resources for my son. >> gene, did the parents ever give consent to use these scream rooms? some parents say they didn't even know that these rooms existed. >> well, first, thank you for inviting me to speak. we're looking into the allegations that sometimes were not notified. we take our students' safety very seriously. we're deeply concerned by the allegations and we're doing everything that we can to uncover what did and did not happen. it's clear that students through their i.p. plans, special education plans had contend if the time-out rooms were warranted. we are looking into allegations that perhaps some regular education students were placed in there and parents should have -- if that's the case in rare situations, the parents should have been notified within 24 hours of that occurrence. >> i want to ask you, was this really the only option even for those students who parents did say that it was okay for them to being placed in there and it's really the best option for these students? >> they should be designed for extreme cases where teachers and administrators want to remove the child from their regular classroom to get them in a more quiet, private area to deal with their concerns. the rooms that you use should be welcoming. they should be peaceful. they should be in a location that doesn't disrupt the rest of the school. so we're looking at the location. the rooms that you saw in the news script are no longer in operation. they have changed the location to a better location in the school for a small population of kids. we don't want you to think that we're talking about a large population of kids. not only to be used when the child is at risk of hurting themselves or others and need a quiet area to decompress. so -- >> let me -- >> that's the goal. >> sure. >> different things at different schools. some call it the quiet room. some call it the time-out area. some people call it a seclusion room. >> at the heart of all this, do these rooms actually help these kids in the end? and here's how the school officials explained it at the pta meeting last week. >> specific management techniques can be considered controversial practice. time-out are two such examples depending on the level and presenting behaviors and the staff may be in the room or immediately outside of the door. >> what do you say to parents who say that this behavior has made it worst in my child? >> we want parent input. clearly in the special education process we certainly don't want you using rooms that escalate the issue. we want children to feel safe and want them to know that there's a place that they can go that staff will help them in a quiet area that truly works. and if this wasn't working, then it should be used. >> we'll continue to watch it and see how it all plays out there in connecticut. thank you very much for speaking with us. >> okay. thank you for inviting me. have a great day. >> thank you. mitt romney stumbles over the tax question again while newt gingrich slams the media. rick santorum came out throwing punches at the other candidates. it's all fair game and it's next. first, newt gingrich and his wife callista have released their tax returns for 2010. they paid close to $1 million in income taxes. was their tax rate closer to 15%, 25%, or 32%? get that thinking cap on. tweet me. if you're first to tweet me, i'll give you a shout out right after the break. newt gingrich paid close to $1 million in taxes in 2010. was that closer to 15%, 25%, or 32% of his income? the answer? 32%. congratulations to a.t. from philadelphia. congratulations to all of you that got the right answer because a lot of you did. you've no doubt seen the fiery response to john king at the cnn debate. john asked newt about his ex-wife's claim to remain married and also have a mistress. the crowd loved it. joining me to talk fair game is robert zimmerman and lenny macalister here at the cnn center. lenny, i'm going to start with you because you're closer. you're right here. newt gingrich has been asked about this earlier in the day. he didn't get so angry earlier in the day but do you think he was playing with the crowd knowing that he had an audience there? >> he was definitely playing to the crowd. the conservative was always the liberal mainstream media. he had a couple hours to build up the rage at the exact same time as the debate in cnn, he played into it. he knocked a fast ball right into the ballpark and i believe he won the south carolina primary with that response last night and again if that's the case, one for santorum, one for romney, gingrich, game on in florida. >> all right. we're going to get more on that. go ahead, robert. >> let's put this in perspective. first of all, i have to throw a shout out to john king by asking a very appropriate question. newt gingrich was playing to the extreme right wing that defines the republican party today, especially in south carolina. after he gets done with infomercial therapy, he has to answer about character. if he wants family values and character to be the center of his campaign, telling us who we can marry, adopt, reproductive rights, he's got to do that himself and he failed to do that last night. >> mitt romney certainly knew the question would come up about his tax returns. he still seemed to stumble a bit in his answer. let's take a look. >> when you release yours, will you father your father's example? >> maybe. i don't know how many years i'll release. i'll take a look at what our documents are. and i'll release multiple years. i'll be happy to do that. >> lenny, why? why doesn't he just do it at this poin