a businessman murdered in china. we'll take you inside that murder mystery grabbing headlines around the globe. >> first as we do every morning, we begin with a look at today's eye opener. your world in 90 seconds. >> "l.a. times" releasing new pictures showing soldiers posing with remains of suicide bombers. >> the pentagon braces for new outrage in afghanistan. >> statements from leon panetta that an investigation that could lead to disciplinary measures is under way. >> charlie, this election is going to be a referendum on the president's economic policy. >> the gop lines up behind mitt romney. >> the president doesn't understand what is unique and exceptional about america. >> as a new cbs news poll shows a dead heat for november. >> it might be more since mitt hides some points in the cayman islands. >> the secret service says the agents brought as many as 21 prostitutes back to their hotel. >> agents and military people went to a brothel. >> the president simply as he says wants it investigated. >> bill clinton says i am on it. >> in texas, a newborn there has been found alive after his mother was gunned down. >> everything was going fine until today. >> the woman plows her car into a supermarket full of shoppers. no one was killed. >> kim kardashian, mayor of glendale? the media celebrity says she's serious but can it really happen. >> there you have it. >> she says she's the ultimate cougar. >> i am. >> make love to betty white. >> and all that matters. >> jamie moyer made baseball history at 49. the oldest pitcher ever to win a major league ball game. >> i'm still able to live the dream. >> on "cbs this morning." >> in japan, a 76-year-old man has spent the last 20 years living naked on a remote island. now the man is famous for having the least successful match.com profile ever. welcome to "cbs this morning." the u.s. mission in afghanistan is facing another huge headache and the potential for anti-american violence. >> "the los angeles times" published a new set of photos apparently showing u.s. soldiers posing with the bodies of dead suicide attackers. u.s. commanders are already condemning those photos. >> david martin is at the pentagon this morning. david, what is the latest? >> reporter: the pentagon has launched another investigation into another set of photos showing u.s. troops posing with dead enemy bodies. this time the photos appeared in "the los angeles times" and show paratroopers from the 82nd airborne posing with dismembered remains of taliban suicide bombers. the photos, which were taken two years ago, were given to "the l.a. times" by a member of the unit who said they were indicative of poor discipline, which threatened the safety of the unit. the pentagon has issued a statement saying these images do by no means represent the values of professionalism that the vast majority of u.s. troops serving in afghanistan today and promising that anyone found responsible in those pictures will be held accountable by military justice. but the pentagon also said that defense secretary panetta was disappointed that "the los angeles times" had published the photos despite a request from the defense department not to put them in print because the pentagon says they would incite violence against u.s. troops in afghanistan. >> david martin, thank you. for the first time the two top republicans in congress are officially backing mitt romney's presidential campaign. speaker of the house john boehner and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell endorsed romney on tuesday, more than a year after the 2012 campaign began. >> after their announcements, speaker boehner sat down with us at the capitol for the first national interview since romney became the presumptive gop nominee. you endorsed mitt romney today. how much damage did the primary campaign do to the election that he faces? >> i don't think there was any real damage done. it got messy. just like the race four years ago between barack obama and hillary clinton. it went on until june of 2008. charlie, this election is a referendum on the president's economic policies. they have not helped the economy but made it worse. >> what's the debate going to be? what we have just been talking about? >> no. it's going to be over the president's economic policies. pure and simple. they have made matters worse. america should be doing a lot better today but when you look at his calls for higher taxes and refusal to deal with the debt, the regulatory regime here in washington out of control, they have scared every business person and investor in america. that's why you see record amounts of cash in these businesses in banks because they don't know what tomorrow is going to look like. >> no one doubts that you're not in touch not only with the constituents you have in ohio but generally you're that kind of guy. is mitt romney that kind of guy? he's had a very different lifestyle from you. >> we're all different. we have different personalities. >> can he be in touch? does he need to figure out a way to have the same kind of visceral appeal? >> he's done a good job in a republican primary under some very difficult circumstances. i think he's prepared for this general election and will appeal to more than half of america. after any primary there's always a little retooling. always adjustments in terms of now you have a different opponent. so i think you'll see some new things out of this campaign. >> like what? >> a real focus on what the election is going to be about. economics, economics, economics. >> he's pulled back from this the other day in a closed meeting. he talked about perhaps aboli abolishing hud and department of education and talked about eliminating the mortgage deduction for second homes. >> there was a lot of things said there, all right. we've got to make choices. we shouldn't criticize candidates because they're talking about the big choices that we have to make. when you have a $1.3 trillion budget deficit, you have to do something. >> the president would say to you, if you said that to him, and your friends, this is going to be a referendum on the ryan budget because the speaker has even said it's a vision of what we want to do. >> the president is going to try to make the election about anything other than his failed economic policies because he can't run on his record. and so they're going to pull out every boogie man they can. the fact is that we've got a serious problem. that's why republicans have a plan to put americans back to work. >> do you think the ryan plan is the way to do that because governor romney has made it at one with him. >> somebody in this town has to own up to the problems that we face and that budget doesn't. if the president doesn't like that budget, where's his budget? his budget failed on the floor of the house 0-414. not one democrat or one republican voted for the president's budget. why? because he wasn't serious about dealing with america's problems. >> the catholic bishops today said that the ryan budget fails to meet moral criteria and cuts programs that serve the poor and the vulnerable, which sounds like the president. >> i understand. listen, when you look at the budget choices that we have to make, it's time that congress and washington and the president quit kicking the can down the road and address our challenges. i don't believe that our budget will hurt the poor in any way. i don't think it will hurt the safety net in any way. but we can't continue to spend money that we do not have. >> why cannot two people who are friends come to some understanding on this grand bargain and make it happen because the american people want it to happen? >> i sat for months with the president. he wanted revenue. i said, mr. president, i'll put revenue on the table that we can achieve with fixing our tax code but i'll do that if you are willing to have fundamental reform of our entitlement programs and the fact is we had an agreement and then two days later the president decided he wanted $400 billion of more revenue, which was in effect $400 billion tax. >> at the same time the two of you came to an agreement in your mind that was acceptable. >> until he lost his courage. >> lost his courage? >> he lost his courage. >> he couldn't face what? >> why did he blow the deal up? >> what did he tell you? >> that he needed more revenue. needed more revenue. he lost his courage. >> will anything happen between now and the election? >> i would hope so. but i'm not optimistic. the president checked out last labor day. all he's done is campaign full time for the last six months. he's not been engaged in the legislative process at all. there has been no effort at trying to work with democrats and republicans to address this issue at all. it's shameful. >> he's able to change emphasis to the future or to the ryan plan or to governor romney -- >> the american people vote with their wallets. they have for the history of this country and it won't change. >> we'll have more of that interview in our next hour. speaker boehner talks about the rough relationship with the president only on "cbs this morning." the race between romney and president obama is now dead even according to a cbs news/"the new york times" poll released just this morning. 46% of registered voters say they will vote for the president. the same number say they'll vote for romney. meantime, more republican primary voters are now backing romney. 33% say they enthusiastically support him. that's up five points from january. with us from washington, our political director john dickerson. good morning. >> good morning, charlie. >> what's happening with these numbers? >> the republican party is slowly gathering behind mitt romney. still some reservations out there for people. that's to be expected after a bruising primary. in that primary was the hardcore of the conservative base that just couldn't get over mitt romney no matter -- they kept looking for other alternatives. there is a bit of that lingering out there. you do see the republican party coming behind mitt romney and he's basically reminding them we're all in this against president obama. >> so electability now becomes a big issue for the republicans and they're willing to support the guy that the primary process has chosen. will they be enthusiastic, these conservatives, who supported santorum and gingrich and others? >> right now they're not enthusiastic. that group of conservatives. they're not enthusiastic about mitt romney. they are very enthusiastic about beating the president and we saw last week in this flap about women and ann romney and her role and women's roles, that was a galvanizing moment for conservatives. so if there continue a number of those in which conservatives can see something they don't like about democrats or about this president, that will help mitt romney a great deal. >> what speaker boehner lays out is that this race, he hopes and republicans hope, will be a referendum on president obama. the president seems to insist that it will be a referendum on the ryan budget and what it would mean to the country. >> that's right. you were trying to say in your interview there with him, that's the choice. the president doesn't want this to be just a referendum. if you look at polls they have consistently shown that more people disapprove of the way the president has handled the economy. if it's a thumb's up or thumb's down on his handling of the economy, the president is in bad shape. what they hope to say is don't look at the past. look at the future, where things are headed. people are starting to think slightly that the economy is getting better. still lots of people think it's going in the wrong direction. the president hopes to say the future is brighter and it will be brighter with me than the other team. >> he'll spin to their advantage. john, speaker boehner was talking with charlie and said that president obama lost his courage when it came to the budget negotiations. how important will the budget and these negotiations or lack thereof be as we head into november? >> it depends how it is framed. if it's a conversation just about reducing the deficit, then republicans will do well. you have seen in polls that people trust governor romney on that question over president obama. so if it's about that, the president is in bad shape. if the conversation is about who is going to be more fair in the future in terms of dividing up the government and also if everybody has to sacrifice who will have the sort of fair distribution of sacrifice, then that's turf on which the president would like to fight the election and in which he's got a slightly better chance. the budget is a big conversation and they will both be fighting about what exactly it means to have a fight over the budget. >> one last question from me, john. this notion of the gender gap, how will the romney campaign go at trying to change those numbers, which are overwhelming? >> they will basically go right back to the economy. they'll say the president is trying to have all of these side fights about nonimportant issues but women, which is the group that mitt romney has difficulty with, you need to think about your economic conditions and think about the president and his handling of the economy. and they hope to just drive home that exact same message from the general election. what they'll need to do is make mitt romney more approachable. they are sort of redefining him now. that will also be part of it. >> john dickerson, thanks. u.s. investigators are in colombia asking witnesses exactly what happened. one u.s. senator says up to 20 women were involved with secret service agents and military aides in colombia to prepare for last weekend's presidential visit. norah o'donnell is sat the whit house with the latest. >> reporter: the secret service wants to polygraph a number of those agents and officers involved in this. part of the reason, a lot of those agents are telling different stories about exactly what happened but as one law enforcement official tells us, they're going to do this because "we want to get to use every possible tool to get to the bottom of this." this is the strip club. the play club where cbs news has learned president obama's security team was partying just 48 hours before the president arrived in colombia. the men 11 secret service and 10 military members met as many as 20 foreign women, some prostitutes and reportedly paid them $60 each to go to their hotel. the two highest ranking u.s. senators on the committee that oversee the secret service are receiving briefings on the investigation. they want to know whether national security was jeopardized. >> we don't know what kind of access these women had to highly classified information. >> connecticut senator joe lieberman said if the allegations are true, people should be punished. he's considering holding a hearing on the scandal. a top law enforcement official tells cbs news, no sensitive information was compromised, that these agents had not yet received a briefing on the president's trip and would not have had his schedule. the pentagon is also investigating. it is looking into the ten military members involved, which includes five members of the army's elite special forces. at the white house, the president spokesman would not answer questions on whether this is an isolated incident or a pattern of behave. is the president convinced this is not part of a broader cultural problem? >> again, there is an investigation ongoing that we should let take its course before we speculate about its conclusions. >> reporter: the investigation is growing too. there's that military investigation and investigators down in colombia. secret service has its own internal investigation and now the department of homeland security is launching their own investigation as well. >> norah o'donnell at the white house. thank you. yesterday we talked about the scandal with former secret service agent who is now running for the u.s. senate in maryland. we spoke with him because he had spoken to a number of the agents who were directly involved and we asked minimum what they had told him. after the interview, we learned that his brother was with the secret service detail in colombia. i spoke with him yesterday on the phone in the afternoon asking him about his brother's involvement. he said while he's helping the investigation, he is not a target of the investigation. in spring, texas, near houston, a nurse is now charged with murdering a mother whose 3-year-old baby was then kidnapped. the baby was found unharmed last night several hours after the shooting. his mother kala golden was killed after getting into an argument with a woman in a parked car. polic raided a nearby apartment complex before ultimately arresting the suspect. it is time to show you some of the morning's headlines from around the globe. "the new york times" reports that pay packages for top citigroup executives were rejected in a stock holder suit about 55% of stockholders voted against the payday including 15 million to citigroup's ceo. the vote is not binding but officials s at the banking gian are taking it seriously. "usa today" reports that $390 million in back taxes owed by troops. >> this national weather report sponsored by the makers of zyrtec. zyrtec, love the air. the death of a british businessman in china leads a top communist party leader in disgrace and his wife in prison. we'll look at this murder mystery offering a rare peek at modern china's dark side. the justice department is investigating 17 police departments accused of breaking the law. >> from time to time in our police work we find departments that are frankly broken from top to bottom. >> jon miller has the story behind the unprecedenteded federal crackdown. you're watching "cbs this morning." >> announceror >> this portion of "cbs this morning" sponsored by trifexis. get money saving offers at trifexis.com. 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