it is 5:00 a.m. in the east. we'll start with the top stories. the sound and the fury. he was screaming, they're going to take us down and ranting about the middle east and a bomb. new tape this morning of a jet blue pilot and what's being called a mental breakdown at 30,000 feet. you're going to hear from the hero copilot and the passengers who literally grabbed him by his neck to save the flight. and the more you hear, the more you realize just how close they came to disaster. the supreme court, set for a critical final day of arguments in the historic health care debate. today's session focusing on whether parts of the president's plan can even remain law if the individual mandate at the heart of the overhaul is deemed unconstitutional. an emotional plea for justice. the parents of trayvon martin speaking to lawmakers on capitol hill, as supporters continue to insist the florida teenager was killed because he was black. newt gingrich is scaling back. the former house speaker cutting campaign appearances and laying off staff, leaving many observers wondering if the end of his presidential campaign is indeed near. and laker legend magic johnson ready to bleed dodger blue? a group led by magic has agreed to buy the bankrupt l.a. dodgers for a cool $2 billion. it's the biggest price tag ever for a sports franchise. up first, those terrifying moments on a jet blue flight. we're seeing new tape this morning of a man's mental breakdown at 30,000 feet. not just any man, the pilot. >> unbelievable sound. listen in. >> i feel like it! >> just incredible. we're also starting to hear from the air traffic control recordings as the copilot guided everyone to safety. >> we've definitely got an emergency, and we're going to need authorities and medical assistance. >> we're standing by for you. can we have the airport police standing by? you want them to enter from the right or the left? >> probably the front. >> flight requests medical and security as soon as able. >> we've got medical and security standing by. >> simply incredible. alina cho is here with what happened and what one person did on board that probably saved a lot of lives. >> it is incredible. if you think about it, this is on the heels of what happened with the american airlines flight attendant a couple of weeks back with the rant about 9/11 and fears about the plane going down. i think it's a safe bet -- >> mental breakdown, right? >> that's right. to have it happen twice in a couple of weeks is pretty extraordinary. i think it's a pretty safe bet that, ever since 9/11, airline passengers know there may come a time when they have to take matters into their own hands. that's exactly what happened on board flight 191 from jfk to las vegas on tuesday. >> oh, my god! i am so distraught. we've got israel. we've got iraq. we've got israel. we've got iraq. we've got to get down! >> you have to listen very carefully, but if you can, you can hear in that video, he's distraught, mentioning israel and then iraq, and then saying we've got to get down. that man was the captain of the plane. unbelievable. witnesses say he left the cockpit, then came back and started banging on the door. he was locked out at that point. that is when two flight attendants and some passengers, six or seven large men, we're told, jumped in and restrained him. get this, it turns out that many of the people on board that flight, they were headed to a convention in vegas, a security convention. good thing. >> wow. >> the plane was diverted ultimately to amarillo, texas. that's where it made an emergency landing. here are pictures of the pilot being wheeled off the plane, restrained with his hands behind his back, and in some sort of yellow chair. that was before he was taken away in an ambulance to a medical facility. >> i saw about two or three guys right next to him jump up and another like four guys rush right past me toward the front of the plane. >> he started to curse at me and try to tell me, hey, you better pray, iraq and iran. so i say, you know what, i'm going to show you what iraq and iran is, and i took him if a choke hold. >> apparently, there are a lot of heroes in this case, but there's one person who's being credited with really quick thinking. >> i was so surprised by this. but i guess, when you think about the turn of events, it all sort of makes sense, right? it really was the copilot who first noticed something was wrong. in an interview with our piers morgan last night, one of the passengers said it was the copilot who was the hero. it appears the copilot was the first person to spot there was something wrong with the pilot, odd behavior. he was somehow apparently able to trick him into leaving the cockpit and then locked him out. >> the copilot of the flight, he really, i think, is the hero here because he had the sense to recognize that something was going horribly wrong, and he was able to persuade the captain out of the cockpit. that was really the first step in allowing this to play out the way that it did. thankfully, we're here to be able to talk about it. >> that's right. 153 passengers and 6 crew members. meanwhile, federal investigators say this is not terror related. they are, of course, looking into the pilot's background, flight history, medical records, training to see if there was any clue at all about his behavior they may have overlooked. we should mention, in order to fly on a commercial airliner, you have to have what's called a first class medical certificate. if you are under 40 years old, that needs to be renewed once a year. if you are over 40 years old, 40 or over, it needs to be renewed every six months. that includes a physical examination by an faa medical examiner. and if there is the need, they do ask for additional psychological training. but a lot of the passengers on board this flight said that captain seemed really calm, and then all of a sudden he snapped. obviously, there are going to be a lot of questions going forward. we're going to be watching this story very closely. >> i can't wait to see the tapes, if we ever get to see the tapes of what happened inside the cockpit before he got locked out. >> that's what everyone wants to know. >> what was being said before he got locked out. alina, thank you for that. >> you bet. the third and final day of the historic health care debate unfolds before the supreme court. this happens five hours from now. based on what we heard yesterday, the centerpiece of president obama's affordable care act could be on life support. the individual mandate appears now to be in trouble. it requires nearly every american to buy health insurance or pay a tax penalty. listen to a skeptical justice antonin scalia. >> how do you define the market that broadly, health care? it may well be that everybody needs health care sooner or later, but not everybody needs a heart transplant, not everybody needs a liver transplant. >> that's correct, justice scalia, but you never know when -- >> you define the market, everybody has to buy food sooner or later. you define the market as food, and therefore everybody's in the market and you can make people buy broccoli. >> kate bolduan is in washington. i know we said we're not going to get any answers until june, but we're definitely getting a clearer picture here. >> reporter: definitely getting a look into the window of the justices. oral arguments are not the final word. the justices can induce surprises, but oral arguments are important because they give us a little clue of the line of questioning that the justices take on and where they're maybe leaning and where they're kind of leading the attorneys that are in front of them. i just want to take a second to listen a little more to sound from the more conservative justices because it does give a clue of just how skeptical they are that they may think this health care law goes simply too far. listen here. >> what you're saying is the federal government has a duty to tell the individual citizen that it must act, and that is different from what we have in previous cases. that changes the relationship of the federal government to the individual in a very fundamental way. >> once we say that there is a market and congress can require people to participate in it, as some would say, it seems to me we can't say there are limitations on what congress can do under its commerce power. all bets are off. >> reporter: those are just some of the tough questions they were throwing at the solicitor general, the top lawyer for the obama administration, in front of the high court. but moving on to today, it's becoming a very critical final day. two issues are going to be debated, the issue of severability and the issue involving the medicaid program under this law. severability, we like to think of it as the domino effect. if the individual mandate is found unconstitutional, can any of the law survive? do some provisions also need to fall? or does the entire law need to fall? critical questions that will be debated today, this morning, and then this afternoon the justices are going to be taking a look at whether the expanded medicaid program under the health care law unfairly steps on state powers by requiring that states pay more of a share in the expanded cost of the expanded eligibility program under this law. so two critical questions again today. yesterday, of course, was the big centerpiece, but today will also be critical as well, zoraida. >> kate bolduan, live in washington for us. ten minutes past 5:00. newt gingrich's bid for the presidency, is it nearing the end of days? the former house speaker is cutting back appearances, laying off a third of his staff, and the layoffs include his campaign manager. all of that fueling the speculation he may be pretty close to p ddropping out. if you ask the majority of republican voters what they think, they think that's precisely what newt gingrich should do. take a look at the new cnn/orc poll. 6 out of 10 think he should end his campaign. nearly 500 firefighters called into battle. a fast moving and deadly wildfire near denver, colorado. that wildfire has destroyed close to 2,000 structures, including the home where the remains of an elderly couple were found. another woman who lives in the area is missing. strong winds have died down, but the fire is still not under control. at one point officials recommended evacuating 6,500 homes as a precaution. >> there's always one more thing that you can go back for. i'd load the car and look the plume of smoke, bigger, bigger, bigger, and at some point you just have to draw the line and say, you know what, it's time to get out. >> let's go down to rob marciano. he's live at the weather center in atlanta. rob, will the firefighters in colorado still have to battle the gusty winds? yesterday when we talked to you, you said they were dying down a bit. >> they were lower than the day before, low enough to get air support in there. they don't have a lot. one seat single tanker air in there, one heavy tanker, and a couple of choppers. that's about it. they do have about 400 firefighters on scene. winds are pretty light. they'll get a better handle on it again this morning. as the afternoon wears along, we're looking for gusty winds. again, most of those winds will be, once again, north of colorado in through wyoming and montana and western parts of the dakotas, where winds could gust 30 to 40 miles an hour. could see gusts 20 to 25 in the fire zone, and that will give them a little more of a headache. zero containment there. as you mentioned, 4,500 acres burned so far. down to the south, thunderstorms, and some of these could be severe rolling across i-35 just south of san antonio. and a little white on the map across the northeast. it was a chilly day to start yesterday morning. temperatures got to 50 degrees across parts of i-95. once again on the chilly side. temperatures rebound with a return flow of heat and humidity this afternoon from the south. guys, back out to you. >> rob marciano, thank you for that. still ahead on "early start," everybody off the bus. are you ready? fire forcing dr-- look at that. fire forcing a pretty hasty exit for greyhound passengers in california. plus catching up with the castros. pope benedict xvi meeting with the current and former leader on his visit to cuba. and a man with a big problem. take a look at your screen. honestly, it is a remarkable story. this is the tallest man in america, and a simple thing like shopping for shoes is like nothing you'll imagine. we're going to take you into that life in a moment. quickly s. 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[ male announcer ] yes, you could business pro. yes, you could. go national. go like a pro. yes, you could. greetings from the people here sure are friendly but some have had a hard time understanding my accent. so to make sure people get every word of the geico savings message i've been practicing how to talk like a true chicagoan. switching to geico could save you hundreds of dollars on car insurance... da bears. haha... you people sure do talk funny. geico®. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. it's now 16 minutes past 5:00 on the east coast. time to check the stories making top billing with christine romans. >> thank you. a new report says the lead detective in the trayvon martin shooting wanted to file manslaughter charges against george zimmerman, but his recommendation to file charges was rejected by the state attorney general's office. florida prosecutors believed there simply wasn't enough evidence to convict zimmerman. pope benedict meets with former leader fidel castro this morning in cuba. yesterday he met with raul castro, the current president. the pope is making his first visit to the island nation. later he's going to celebrate mass in havana's revolution plaza. passengers on a greyhound bus in california escaped a fiery finish to their ride. the bus was blocks away from the finish in stockton when the driver saw flames coming out of the back of the bus. ae le he alerted the driver. everyone got out safely thankfully. and the tallest man in america needs a new pair of shoes. igor of minnesota, look how tall he is. he stands 7'8". he thinks he wears a size 26, but he's not sure. he says no one's made a shoe that fits him for the last six or seven pairs. he contacted reebok, but they said it would cost $15,000 to make him a custom pair. he has started a website, and he's raised almost $25,000. call shaq. there's got to be somebody out there with very big feet who feels this guy's pain. >> i interviewed shaq once, and i told him to take off his shoe so i could see what everyone is talking about. it was the size of my arm. >> only one pair of shoes. i feel terrible for that guy. one pair. it is unfair. 18 minutes past the hour. here's an early read on the local news making national headlines. >> want to start with "the new york times" because there was this story that came out a while back of a real smart kid who used his smarts for bad and evil, helping other kids cheat on the s.a.t.s and the a.c.t.s, and he wasn't the only one doing it. because of a rash of this kind of cheating, guess what's about to happen? if you want to sign up for the s.a.t.s and the a.c.t., you need to upload a photo or mail in a photo when you get your admission ticket. that's what they call it. your photo is going to be on the admission ticket, and officials who let you in for the test are going to check your photo against your face and your photo i.d., and it's going to be a lot tougher for someone to hire a gun and take the test for you. all of this announced in the aftermath of cheating chaos. if you think you're immune, this is going to happen nationwide, folks. kids, hit the books. l.a. times now. dennis rodman could face jail time over child and spousal support. the nba hall of famer faces a 20-day jail stint for contempt of court unless he comes up with nearly $1 million in child and spousal support. he owes this to his ex-wife. m rodman's lawyer says he's broke, sick with alcoholism and can't make payments. he made just under $27 million in his nba career. he's known for lavish spending and dating madonna. >> and wearing a wedding dress. >> he was also on "celebrity apprentice." >> i hope he gets better. i never like hearing someone has an addiction problem. >> but that's a lot of money. still ahead, new details for you, pretty surprising, in fact, in the trayvon martin case, as well as new photographs of the victim and of the shooter. it may just change the narrative in this case for some people. we're going to take you live to sanford in just a moment. christine interviewed the coo about oil prices. how high will they go? you're watching "early start." n. 100% natural ingredients like roasted peanuts... ♪ ...creamy peanut butter, and a rich dark chocolate flavor. plus, 10 grams of great tasting protein in every bar. so it's energy straight from nature to you. new nature valley protein bars. find them in the granola bar aisle. your doctor will say get smart about your weight. that's why there's new glucerna hunger smart shakes. they have carb steady, with carbs that digest slowly to help minimize blood sugar spikes. 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[ male announcer ] we can't hide how proud we are to have nine 2012 iihs top safety picks. so we're celebrating with our "safety in numbers" event. that's the power of german engineering. right now lease the 2012 passat for $219 a month. 23 minutes past the hour. we are minding your business. the markets rally losing some steam. the dow, nasdaq, and s&p 500 all in the red. remember markets are up stronger. so far this year. >> let's talk about oil, shall we? the light sweet crude, nice breakfast talk. about $106 a barrel in overseas trading. that's down about 75 cents. still pretty expensive, though. $106. christine romans interviewing the ceo of fedex. who would care more, other than a company of drivers, about the cost of gas? >> imagine if you're running something like fedex where your business is basically dependent on the price of oil. i was talking to the ceo of fedex at the nati