as hillary clinton describes minute by minute the courageous s.e.a.l. team mission and what one moment had her holding her breath. sequel search. director of "hunger games" saying he won't come back. cnn new hearing from him this morning. we're catching fire via box office bust. clooney, spielberg and dog from "the artist" a white house correspondents dinner to remember. this morning the clock is ticking and the tension is building in the trayvon martin case. a few hours from now the parents of the unarmed teenager will hold a news conference with civil rights activist al sharpton. also this hour, we expect comments from u.s. attorney general eric holder. the feds have been investigating whether the fatal shooting could be prosecuted as a hate crime. angela corey says she'll release new information within three days all of this unfolding as the shooter, george zimmerman, remains in hiding and out of touch with his own attorneys. they say his disappearance forced hem force ed them to resign from his case. let's head to george howell. what are we looking for in angela corey's announcement, the special prosecutor? >> reporter: good morning, carol. at this point it could be a decision in this case. it could just be an update on the facts of the case. no one can really say with certainty at this point what that announcement will be. it will happen here within the next several days. a big announcement from the state attorney's office. we know that came just a few hours after we learned that george zimmerman's defense team will no longer represent him. we know from that press conference that they had just the other day that he contacted a fox news host about this case. we also know that they lost contact with him on sunday. that's the last time they talked with him. he also reached out to the state prosecutor on his own without a defense team and without legal representation. we know that the state attorney's office decided not to talk to him without representation. so at this point his attorneys are out of contact with him. not representing him. they did make it very clear even this morning on teearly start tt they believe he acted in self-defense on february 26th. take a listen. >> we believe that there's information and evidence in possession of the prosecutor, investigators, police department, department of law enforcement, that if publicly known might change some of the course of public opinion. we're not at liberty to disclose it. we don't have possession of it. what little we know might disclose a confidence as to where we learned about it and we're not going to go there. >> reporter: george zimmerman has made himself public in a way by creating a website. the real george zimmerman.com. his attorneys did not know about that specific website initially. they later learned that it is legitimate. again, that's something that also caught them off guard. >> george howell reporting live from sanford, florida. thank you. george zimmerman may not be talking to his own lawyers but he's a big part of the conversation in the conservative media. in ten minutes we'll talk to howard kurtz talking about george zimmerman as a new rallying point for the right. a big scare off the coast of indonesia today after two massive earthquakes trigger tsunami alerts. the 8.6 and 8.2 quakes sent people scrambling. no immediate reports of damage or casualties in banda aceh, an area devastated by a quake in 2004 but the big question today is another tsunami possible? a man who knows this, rob marciano. >> they did get a tsunami locally along the coast. the tsunami come in fast and furious. the tsunami watch as of ten minutes ago for the rest of the indian ocean has been officially canceled. 8.6 magnitude quake that was very close to where the 9.0 magnitude quake happened in 2004. it was just off the fault line and likely more of a strike slip fault. that is good news. you saw shaking and damage across the north but no injuries or fatalities. there are pieces of video coming off the internet that look real. we'll try to get confirmation of this tsunami coming onshore with serious force. enough to scare people and have them running for the hills. tourists in places like phuket and other places in thailand and sri lanka are allowed to go back to beaches and enjoy their vacation. >> i hope it remains there are no serious injuries. thank you, rob. to the world of politics now. consider this addition by subtraction. republican front runner mitt romney inches closer to the nomination with rick santorum's decision to quit the race. >> i know a lot of folks will write and maybe those at the white house game over but this game is long, long, long way from over. >> santorum's departure may not be a game changer. he was already a very distant second behind romney but it may be romney's last obstacle. in the gop horse race republican confidence is weaker for the two remaining challengers. newt gingrich and ron paul. together their numbers barely pass santorum's. paul steinhauser is in washington to talk about what's next for mitt romney. of course romney's focus is on obama and november. and the gloves are off. i do find it actually we're going to play this sound bite from romney surrogate chris christie. >> we're turning into an entitlement society. that will not just bankrupt us financially, it will bankrupt us morally. when the american people no longer believe that this is a place where only their willingness to work hard and to act with honor and integrity and ingenuity determines their success in life, then we'll have a bunch of people sitting on a couch waiting for the next government check. >> so it's interesting. president obama is going to be holding a little news conference and sit down with millionaires and their secretaries to push the buffett rule. and mitt romney is going to go to connecticut and he's going to visit a business owned by a woman and i don't think that's an accident, do you? >> not at all. the general election now getting under way in earnest with the primaries basically coming to a conclusion. you have two candidates, president obama and mitt romney who are as far apart on issues and philosophy as you can get when it comes to the role of government, when it comes to regulation of big business in wall street. you name the issue, these two candidates are about as far apart as we've seen in presidential election in a long time. you just played that sound from chris christie. he's a leading surrogate for mitt romney. a possible running mate choice for mitt romney. what does the president say when it comes to republican fi philosop philosophy? take a listen from a republican fund-raiser in florida. >> they want to spend trillions of dollars more in tax breaks for the very wealthiest of americans even if it means adding to the deficit, even if it means gutting things like education or clean energy or medicare. philosophy is simple. if we just let those who have done best keep on doing what they do, and everybody else is struggling to get by, somehow that's going to grow the economy. they're wrong. >> what you see the president doing and seeing chris christie and mitt romney doing, trying to paint the other person and get an early jump. romney today in connecticut and yesterday in delaware and pennsylvania reaching out to women voters. we've seen the polls. that big gender gap. pronounced. take a listen to mitt romney and his pitch to women voters. >> the real war on women has been the job losses as a result of the obama economy and if we're going to get women back to work and help women with the real issues women care about, good jobs, good wages, a bright future for themselves and for their families and for their kids, we're going to have to elect a president who understands how the economy works and i do. >> we always talk about independent voters are crucial. they are. i tell you, female voters, women vote is going to be a big, big deal in the november election. >> as it should be. >> exactly. >> paul steinhauser live in washington. thank you. happening now, fire warnings are up in new york, new jersey and pennsylvania. brush fires have already burned 2,600 acres. high winds are pushing flames across dry conditions. the region has been reeling from a dry spell after a lack of snow and spring showers. new outrage in that wasteful spending scandal. the agency which is supposed to safeguard how your tax dollars are being spent has canceled an upcoming conference after embarrassing videos of a lavish gathering in 2010. we're also learning today gsa employee who was responsible for that event has later given a $9,000 bonus. the university of arkansas fires bobby petrino days after his motorcycle accident exposed an inappropriate relationship with a female employee. 25-year-old jessica dorrell was riding with petrino when his motorcycle left the roadway and crashed. the school says that petrino knowingly misled administrators. charles manson comes up for parole again today. his state appointed attorney will ask that manson be placed in a mental hospital. he's been denied parole 11 times. a korean air passenger jet makes a safe landing after the airline got a bomb threat at the call center. two jet fighters intercepted the plane with 147 people on board and escorted it to a military base in british columbia. later today school officials at uc davis will release a long awaited report on this incident. you remember that? a task force has been investigating why university police officers used pepper spray on these peaceful student protesters last november as they sat huddled in a line. 11 protesters were treated for the effects of the spray. we'll keep you posted. "titanic" memorial cruise is back on course this morning. a passenger reportedly developed heart problems, which forced the ship to turn back toward ireland where the sick passenger was air lifted. the cruise is dealing with rough weather and 20-foot waves. many passengers are sea sick and a floor show had to be canceled. secretary of state hillary clinton is revealing new and riveting details of what exactly it was like in the white house situation room during the raid on osama bin laden's compound. the atmosphere so tense clinton says no one could breathe for 35 minutes. listen. >> when we gathered that sunday, it was a pretty intense, tense, stressful time. the people who were actually doing it on the ground were thousands of miles away. we did have good communications so in the white house there's a large situation room in the h e whole protected secret area in the basement. we were in the smaller room when the attack began. we were able to have some communication so we were in real time aware of what was happening. i'm not sure anybody breathed for 35 or 37 minutes and for me the worst part was when one of the helicopters -- if you remember looking at drawings of what the compound looked like, there was a yard and there was a wall and as the helicopter went in, the tail got stuck and it was not flyable. that had been planned for but it was still somewhat worrisome that this had occurred. >> cnn foreign affairs correspondent jill dougherty is at the state department this morning. you listened to hillary clinton's comments. tell us what else she said. it was riveting. >> that is the word, carol. we all remember that picture of secretary clinton kind of in the middle of the bunch of men and she has her hand up to her mouth. you can tell that there was a lot of drama. let me set the scene of where this all came from. she was giving a speech last night in annapolis at the naval academy talking about foreign policy and then at the end of her prepared remarks, one of the young future officers asked her a question about osama bin laden and that's where she went into this really long explanation of what she saw, what she felt during this operation. let's listen to what she said. >> we got the word that they thought they had build bin laden but think about what they had to do. it was imperative that we take the body. the decision had to be made to blow up the disabled helicopter, which didn't completely work because of the way it was positioned. the s.e.a.l.s had to take the women and children out of the house to get them away from the site of where the disabled helicopter was. you didn't want any collateral damage. all of this is happening. body is going out. women and children are coming in. the reserve helicopter is on its way but it's not there yet. there was a lot of breath holding and then finally all of the helicopters were up and out and on their way back to afghanistan. >> so you have to remember of course secretary clinton used to be a senator from new york and that was where of course 9/11 much of it happened so she had this personal memory that was quite strong. carol? >> i'm just surprised she went into all that detail. she talked about this spontaneous eruption of relief when the mission was finally called a success. >> she remembered in fact recalling the people especially the young people who gathered outside the gates of the white house after osama bin laden was killed and she actually said something interesting. she believe they could think about the future in a way they couldn't think about it before. that is true. although terrorism continues, there's no question, the sentimental person involved in that is now gone. >> jill dougherty live at the state department. coming up on "newsroom," you get a college acceptance e-mail only to find out it was a mistake. that actually happened to hundreds of applicants. what went wrong is coming up. george zimmerman won't talk to his lawyers but apparently he has no problem talking to the media. what's more weird? we'll tell you when we come back. a controversial north korea rocket launch could be hours away. a live report from pyongyang coming up. you're watching "newsroom." 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[ male announcer ] yes, you could business pro. yes, you could. go national. go like a pro. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 there are atm fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 account service fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and the most dreaded fees of all, hidden fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab, you won't pay fees on top of fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 no monthly account service fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 no hidden fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and we rebate every atm fee. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 so talk to chuck tdd# 1-800-345-2550 because when it comes to talking, there is no fee. george zimmerman is probably the most controversial and mysterious person in the country right now. a lot of people calling for his arrest. his former legal advisers were just hoping for a call from him period. zimmerman's lawyers says their client called sean hannity of fox news. >> we learned he called sean hannity of fox news directly and not through us and we believe he spoke directly with sean off the record and he's not even willing to tell us what our client told him. >> sean hannity felt compelled to respond. >> i was contacted by an individual that we in fact believe was george zimmerman. he reached out to me. we spoke on the phone about his case. i agreed not to report on the contents of that conversation. >> howard kurtz from daily beast and cnn's reliable sources is with us now. hi, howie. >> good morning. >> first of all, you have been around a long time. as you watch this news conference held by these lawyers, what went through your mind? >> this is the most bizarre spectacle i have ever seen. these guys feel compelled to hold a news conference to drop a case because they can't get their client to return phone calls, respond to e-mails, respond to text messages but he's calling up hannity? i mean, you couldn't write this in a hollywood movie. >> do you think the lawyers were using the media or are they really concerned for their client? >> well, you know, i'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they are trying to represent or were trying to represent george zimmerman. they both said that they still believe that he was not guilty of murder. but, you know, lawyers have a responsibility to represent their clients well and if your client refuses to communicate with you, it's kind of hard to do that. >> most attorneys would not advise their clients to call the media. reporters aren't obligation to report what was said to them in confidence by a person accused of a crime, right? >> i don't think sean hannity did anything wrong here. every television show on the planet including some at cnn is trying to book george zimmerman and hannity receives a call from a guy that says he's george zimmerman who wants to talk to him off the record. if i got that call, i would have said yes. establish a rapport. it does tell something about zimmerman that he's a fox news fan. probably a hannity fan. he felt compelled to want to tell his side or establish some kind of contact with sean hannity while he's blowing off his lawyers. >> it is interesting, you know, when you watch fox and when you watch msnbc, there are clear lines drawn, maybe it's no surprise that george zimmerman chose to call fox. >> i have almost never seen anything like the ideological split here. for the first week or two, fox news played down this case. as more evidence came out that zimmerman had told the police that trayvon martin had attacked him. he was acting in self-defense. fox jumped on this. made many, many segments that are taking sympathetic toward zimmerman side whereas msnbc is calling f calling for zimmerman's arrest in the camp of trayvon martin. not surprising that if he's going to call some network, george zimmerman would call fox. >> the martin family is going to an event hosted by al sharpton appearing together later this afternoon. it's been a strange, strange split. i just want to play you a bit of what rush limbaugh had to say. it's not just fox news. it's sort of like -- i don't want to call it a conservative movement. i'll leave that to you, howie. let's hear what limbaugh had to say about george zimmerman and trayvon martin. >> the trayvon martin situation caused happiness somewhere in the civil rights community because it gave them a shot in the arm. it launched them. it allowed them to get in gear and start leveling the charges that they always love to make about the country. >> so this -- it's become very political, hasn't it? >> political and polarized. i will disagree to this extent. i don't think anybody is happy about killing of an unarmed teenager. it is true people on the liberal side are using this case to take a stand against what they see as anti-black prejudice and they see as lax gun control laws and things like that and people on the other side certainly being much more sympathetic to george zimmerman. i'm compelled to add, carol, we still don't know what happened. when zimmerman is not talking to his own lawyers but off the record to sean hannity, it will be a while before we find out more about what happened on that tragic night. >> howard kurtz, thank you for joining us this morning. >> thank you, carol. good to talk to you. rick santorum supporters are feeling lonely today now that their candidate is out of the race. they are wondering who to back. a bear roams in an l.a. suburb sending residents scrambling. we'll tell you the outcome. ♪ [ bird screeching ] ♪ [ elevator bel