disappearance. in 2001 a judge declared patz dead and held a convicted child molester responsible. susan candiotti is responsible right now in new york. she'll be joining us in about two minutes from now. john edwards' fraud trial begins tomorrow in north carolina. the former presidential candidate is accused of breaking campaign finance laws by allegedly using nearly $1 million to cover up a sexual affair with filmmaker rielle hunter. he denies any wrongdoing. still unclear whether george zimmerman will be released from jail. he has to come up with 10% of the $150,000 bond. zimmerman is facing second-degree murder charges in the death of 17-year-old trayvon martin. chuck colson, a major figure from the watergate scandal, has died. colson was the first of richard nixon's aides to be convicted, and sent to prison for seven months. he had been the president's special counsel. but was also known as nixon's hatchet man. after leaving prison in the mid-1970s, colson founded an outreach group providing spiritual support for prisoners. colson was 80 years old. we're following developments in the search for 6-year-old etan patz. today's search has been suspended for operational reasons. investigators aren't explaining what that means, but they say they will be back tomorrow. investigators are also following up on an important development, the discovery of a suspicious stain they found on a basement wall. national correspondent susan candiotti is at the scene in new york. susan, what more have you been able to learn from the investigators there? >> reporter: not much. it's been pretty intriguing to try to figure out what's going on. about an hour and a half ago, as we were standing here, all of a sudden you see that white van behind me that says new york city police department on it, crime scene unit, they pulled that up. in an apparent attempt, we're left to wonder, to possibly block our view to see what's going on beyond that. so we went up closer with our camera and tried to see what was going on. and what we saw is this. we've got some video that we took of that earlier, hopefully to show you now. and we could tell that it seems like they were loading something into an unmarked van. we tried to find out what was going on. they said they had no comment. only that they are suspending their operations for the day. and they will be back here tomorrow. but fred, it does make you wonder. >> all right, susan. tell us more now about the fbi, and what their findings were in terms of the stain on the basement wall. >> reporter: yes, we learned from sources that this actually happened on saturday. they were using a chemical called luminol, and they spray it around to see whether they can see anything of interest. this is commonly used by homicide investigators at crime scenes all over the place. and it did detect something unusual. it picked up a stain. now, this is an indicator that it might possibly be a bloodstain. in order to find out more, the fbi technicians brought in chain saws to cut out a section of the cement wall that contained that stain. we don't know how big that stain was. and now they're sending it for additional analysis to the fbi's main crime lab in quantico, virginia. they'll do more testing to see whether indeed this is blood, and if so, whether it belongs to etan, or somebody else that might be connected to this case, fred. >> susan candiotti, thanks so much in new york. a colombian taxi driver is perhaps the most sought-after person in the u.s. secret service scandal. the "huffington post" reports that the cabby drove a prostitute home from this hotel in colombia after a night of partying. he later led the media to her house. six u.s. secret service members have stepped down and 12 are under investigation. they allegedly brought back several prostitutes to their hotel ahead of president obama's visit to colombia. lisa siylvester is live out of washington. does the scandal go beyond the u.s. secret service and u.s. military? >> reporter: yeah, fred, that is the question. does the scandal go beyond. the ranking member of the committee, senator chuck grassley, is questioning how wide this problem goes, who knew about it, was the white house involved in any way. and senator joe lieberman was asked about it this morning. and here's what he had to say. >> one of my colleagues in the senate, senator grassley, has asked for an investigation of white house personnel who were in cartagena. my own advice to the white house if they ask me for it would be, i know we're in the middle of a campaign. everything looks partisan. but don't get defensive about this. the best thing the white house can do is to conduct its own internal investigation. >> now, the head of the secret service, and the acting inspector general of the agency, they are conducting a thorough review. that investigation, as you mentioned, it is focusing on 12 secret service agents, 6 of whom have resigned as well as 11 members of the u.s. military, fred. >> and so lisa, paul ra reed, chief of the miami office, is the person who actually brought the charge and took things under control after she heard of the accusatio accusations. some members of the homeland security committee have also suggested if there were more female agents, something like this could have been prevented? >> reporter: you know, by the way, she is getting major kudos for her role in really stepping in and taking charge. but democratic senator carolyn maloney and republican senator susan collins have both made that very point, that all of this might have been avoided if there were more women within the agency. >> i can't help but wonder if there had been more women as part of that detail, if this ever would have happened. >> and one thing i asked him is, how many women are on the force. it's only 11% of the agents are women. and we agree on this, if there were more agents on the ground, maybe we would not have had this. >> we're going to be keeping a close eye. you know, if there are going to be more agents who might step down. right now we're up to six. on wednesday the judiciary committee will hold a hearing. they're also looking at this and it's opened up its own investigation. fred? >> lisa sylvester, coming to us from washington. thank you so much. today people all around the world are celebrating earth day. >> i'll never buy another bag. i go, thank you very much. we have in a little over two years -- >> d.c. mayor vincent gray there, a big rally is happening right now, in fact, on the national mall, even though it is very rainy, as you can see. organizers are calling for people to do 1 billion acts of green across the globe. today's event features ooh countdown to that goal. and includes performances from kicking daisies, dave mason and the group cheap trick. and i'll be talking to members of cheap trick in a few minutes. stay tuned for that at 4:30 eastern time. as you can see, very stormy there in the nation's capital. jacqui jeras in the weather center. something tells me there's more coming to other cities on the east coast. >> unfortunately, yes. we saw smoky the bear there. >> yeah, we did. that was cute. >> i don't think he's going to have to work too hard today. >> getting a little help from the rain. >> we really needed it. we just had all those brush fires off long island about a week and a half or so ago. so this rain is actually welcome. unfortunately the timing just isn't all that great, with a lot of weekend activities for a lot of folks. the storm itself, way down here. near the coast of north carolina. and so we've got a long ride up the coast. so this is going to be a steady rain for a whole lot of people. unfortunately meaning an ugly weekend and a real rough go of it in terms of travel. flooding especially in urban areas, be aware of that. we'll put our map into motion and it will show you the a kusm lating rainfall could reach up two to four inches in the next 48 hours. so we will be concerned on the east slopes of the higher elevations as well. believe it or not, in the interior we're going to be talking about a little bit of snow potentially. it's snow, for the most part it's not going to hit the big cities. these are where the warnings are in effect. >> 8 to 14 inches? >> 8 to 14 inches. we'll get enhancement coming in off the lakes. over to erie, pennsylvania, and up into the appalachians here, that's where we'll see the heaviest accumulation. pittsburgh, maybe a couple of inches. the tiny amount is going to be coming in overnight with that snow and continuing for the day tomorrow. even though the big cities are just seeing rain, look at all the delays we have already. and that's likely going to linger all through your monday as well. >> wow. i hope they didn't pack away those parkas. pull them right back out. thanks so much, jacqui. we'll check back with you. the florida republican weighs in and reveals a personal side of himself. and something making dolphins, hundreds of them, wash ashore on beaches in south america. it's a mystery. and scientists are stumped. need any help? uh, nope. just, uh, checking out my ad. nice. but, you know, with every door direct mail from the postal service, you'll find the customers that matter most: the ones in your neighborhood. print it yourself, or we'll help you find a local partner. and postage is under 15 cents. i wish i would have known that cause i really don't think i chose the best location. it's not so bad. i mean you got a deal... right? [ bird cries ] go online to reach every home, every address, every time with every door direct mail. how math and science kind of makes the world work. in high school, i had a physics teacher by the name of mr. davies. he made physics more than theoretical, he made it real for me. we built a guitar, we did things with electronics and mother boards. that's where the interest in engineering came from. so now, as an engineer, i have a career that speaks to that passion. thank you, mr. davies. now that the race for president appears to be down to two candidates, the campaign appears to be getting a fresh start. in the latest cnn poll of polls, president obama has a narrow lead in what is a statistical dead heat without the distraction of other potential challen challengers, the two candidates are taking aim at each other. joining me to talk about the come pain, political writer, shera. good to see you. >> good to see you, too. >> what is mitt romney's biggest challenge defining barack obama, or defining himself? >> i think his biggest challenge is defining barack obama. mitt romney has suffered somewhat from this long primary. it wasn't as long as it could have been, but it was still pretty long and pretty negative. a lot of attack ads in key battleground states like florida and ohio. what he really needs to do is focus on obama. i think that's what the campaign is doing right now, making the argument that the president has not been a strong steward of the economy the last couple of months. he needs to define obama before obama defines him. >> it seems mitt romney is having a difficult time trying to convey he's just a regular guy. that is something that he's concentrating on. however, every moment kind of -- other moments kind of arise where it distinguishes he's anything but the regular guy. >> mitt romney is not the average american. i think everyone can agree on that. but you're right that he's not very comfortable with this. i'm sure he has advisers, at least in the past, whispering in his ear, you need to act more like a regular joe, fly southwest, but he's a successful businessman and hard time being comfortable with that. we see that when he's debating other candidates. he's not very comfortable yet, at least 100% though with his success. he'll do much better on the campaign trail once he crosses that hurdle. >> do you think he's afraid to use that to his advantage, that it has brought him personal wealth as a businessman? >> i think he's not afraid to do it, just to the degree to which he wants to use that record, especially when the economy is still in pretty bad shape. granted, we've seen measured improvement over the last few months. but yet, mitt romney doesn't want to brag a lot that he's a wealthy guy right now, that the unemployment rate is just over 8%. he doesn't want to brag about it. but he doesn't want to come across -- >> everyone knows that he is. is he kind of shooting himself in the foot trying to distance himself from that reality? >> i think the more he tries to look like a regular guy, you know, joe six-pack, or go into the family diner, the more he does that, the more unnatural it looks on him. but that's what you do on the campaign trail, you go to local bars, you go to diners, this is part of campaigning. he just needs to look a little more comfortable in that situation. he doesn't need to be joe six-pack, but needs to learn to talk the joe six-pack a little better. >> it's been an interesting week for the obama administration. congressional hearings on gsa spending, that seem to be out of control, the u.s. secret service employees who have gotten themselves in a mess of their own. so take a listen now to republican senator jeff sessions about his criticism of t >> the president needs to assert discipline, management directions throughout the executive branch, and make sure they're held responsible. >> how does the white house move forward? >> that's a great question. i think we're going to see over the next couple days, we'll see what happens, especially in the secret service scandal and with the continued hearings about the gsa scandal as well. just how much more fallout. at some point if it does reach critical mass, you might see the president or one of his advisers go on and take on this issue and really take it on. i don't think we're there yet. we have not reached critical mass yet on these issues. these are departments. i think a lot of voters understand the president isn't directly responsible for what some people were doing at a conference in las vegas last fall. i think it's close enough, it's guilt by association. we're not there yet, but if it continues to unravel, if the scandals continue, we might get there. >> a cnn poll indicating condi rice is a favorite among voters. what about the second name on that list? rick santorum, you see that relationship kind of being reinvigorated in any way? >> you know, i wouldn't put money on that right now. rick santorum hasn't even come out and endorsed mitt romney just yet. i think there's still a little bit of contempt there. i don't think santorum has quite gotten over this primary yet. >> what are the other potentials? >> it could happen. i wouldn't rule it out completely. but i think there are many more candidates who are on that short list before rick santorum. marco rubio, he said he basically endorsed jeb bush. but it seems to me jeb bush really doesn't want to do it. right now i think it's 50/50 marco rubio. he has so much going for him as a vp contender. >> thanks so much. appreciate that. >> thanks for having me. a name you often hear mentioned as a potential gop vice presidential pick, senator marco rubio, her pick. but today the florida republican actually endorsed somebody else for the vp slot. jeb bush. he said the former florida governor would make a fantastic vice president. rubio also revealed a side of himself that you don't hear a lot about. >> well, you know, i am a hip-hop fan, especially the '90s hip-hop. some of the newer stuff has changed. one of the things i've discovered is i'm a fan of nikki menage, who is one of the hip-hop artists today. but she's not only a rapper, she also sings in her album. and pit bull, that's an interesting name, but he's actually very talented. he was just involved in the sound track for "men in black." >> randomly, i do happen to know that. tell me your first political memory. >> probably the '80 convention when kennedy challenged carter. and the reagan convention as well. the '80s is kind of the time i became aware. my father was a huge reagan fan. >> and you also had somewhat of a role in the dole campaign. >> i did. so did you. you were covering them here in, i think they were staying in baja harbor. i was one of the guys that worked on the ground for the team. i drove the media van. i think we drove you around one time when you were covering it here. i landed a job running the dole campaign in south florida. that was a great experience. >> really climbing the political ladder there. he was about to hit the campaign trail again, this time in support of mitt romney. the two will make a joint appearance tomorrow in pennsylvania. dolphins are dying in south america. hundreds of them washing ashore on one stretch of beach in peru. the mystery, the investigation, are humans in any way to blame. i'll talk to a marine biologist next. just wanted to check and make sure that we were on schedule. the first technology of its kind... mom and dad, i have great news. is now providing answers families need. siemens. answers. another news happening overseas today, united nations cease-fire monitors are on the ground in syria. this is amateur video shot today. u.n. monitors touring towns hammered by more than a year of shelling and street fighting. the u.n. security council voting yesterday to boost the unarmed military mission from 30 to 300 monitors. more than 100 people are hurt today after two passenger trains crashed into each other in the dutch capital of amsterdam. emergency officials say they still don't know why the trains collided. and it is election day in france. today is the first round, when the field of candidates is reduced to two. president nicolas sarkozy will likely face socialist francois solan in two weeks. in bahrain, they stopped a formula i race today. the course was blocked by burning trash and tires. groups demonstrating against the government called the race a publicity stunt. they did manage to cancel the race last year. nearly 900 dolphins are dead, and that's just the number that has washed up on shore. i'm talking about peru. and one stretch of northern beach, about 130 miles long. since january, dead dolphins have been washing ashore there. and scientists can't agree on the reasons why. we want to talk to sue rocka, a marine biologist with the whale and dolphin conservation society. sue, good to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> what does your gut tell you about a dolphin kill this sizeable? >> well, we haif generally one o come up, there are all sorts of natural phenomena that can cause that. but when you have something this large, my gut tells me there is something traumatic that happened, at a snapshot, that would kill this many animals. there was a range of age classes, adults, pregnant females, calves, the young. so it definitely -- something happened for sure. >> so when you talk about examining the thing that may have happened, what are marine biologists going to be looking at? are they going to be examining the carcasses of these animals to see if there's something viral, disease, or something else that's environmental in oceans in which these mammals have traveled? >> well, yes, you would need to look at all of that. you need to do necropsienecropsh are autopsies, but on animals. you want to look at the organs. i know they've been find iing m ora hem oragic lesions. and blood in the kidney, which is consistent with an acoustic trauma. they've been finding that the -- that some of the acoustic bones in these animals' heads have been fractured. but that's just a small percentage. there's over 600 -- well, 900 now confirmed animals. but when some researchers -- there's a lead researcher down in peru, dr. yapin yanos who has kind of expanded that stretch of beach, and he's claiming up to 3,000 individuals. so he's gone out and looked at them, and found these traumas of th