much more from and about the hawkeye caucuses later this hour. sears holdings is out with a partial list of the sears and k-mart stores it plans to close. earlier this week sears said it would close between 100 and 120 stores as a result of poor holiday sales. the firm has released a list of 79 that will be closed nationwide. sears said in a statement that it could not say how many jobs will be cut or when the stores will be closed. sears holdings has more than 4,000 stores in the u.s. and canada. a protest in syria turns deadly. hundreds of thoses of pro-democracy demonstrators jammed the streets and homes and other cities across the country as part of what the opposition called the crawl to freedom square. anti-government groups say at least 32 protesters have been killed. witnesses say this video shows a man who had his legs blown off being carried by friends in a ma das tus suburb. crackdown by president bashar al assad s forces continues despite the presence of arab
you think the white house is getting their point across? that is a countdown clock showing nine days that that is how much time the white house has to extend the payroll tax cut or your taxes are going to go up. americans can go to this site and actually share their stories of what will happen to them if they lose their $40 per paycheck. that s the average an american will lose. let me bring in dan lothian and, dan, this seems like a full-on pr campaign by the white house and they re keeping the pressure up and i don t know if people saw it on the screen. this is what happened if congress doesn t act. it crossed out the word congress and it specifically says, the house doesn t act. they ve been keeping the pressure now on house republicans all week and now it s another effort by this white house to drive that point home today where the president is holding an event here at the white house shortly after noon to show what s at stake. you ve been talking about how the white ho
extension that was passed by the senate. today neither side shows any signs of giving in. i told the president there s one big reason why we need to do a full year, and that s jobs. a one-year bill like the president requested and like the house produced is simply better for jobs and better for our economy. let s enact this bipartisan compromise, however, to eliminate uncertainty for american families and then get right to work on a one-year version. not wait until february. not walk away and hold off until the last minute. got more encouraging news about the job market. the number of people filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level since april of 2008. labor department says initial claims dropped to 364,000. that is down 4,000 from a week before. many economists say a level below 400,000 means enough job growth to lower the unemployment rate. a wave of explosions rocks baghdad. car bombs, six roadside bombs, and a mortar ro
question. is the only option left a military option? or is there anything between further economic sanctions and a military strike? and who would in effect conduct that? and all the agitation by the israelis and other parties in the region to iran in effect reaching that point? a worrying analysis. thanks to you, ambassador marc ginsberg. a look at the markets as we approach the end of a rather grim wednesday. mary joins us with the cnbc market wrap. a grim wednesday here on wall street. wall street hit by concerns about the soaring costs in italy, raising fears that country will need a bailout and could lead to other debt crises in other euro zone countries such as spain and portugal. right now the dow jones industrial average is down 394 points. the nasdaq composite is town 106. as it stands, financials and material stocks are the leading losers on wall street.
that s their rationale, then it doesn t fly. because the bill they voted down yesterday essentially said we can create hundreds of thousands of jobs rebuilding our infrastructure making america more competitive and the entire program will be paid for by a tax not only millionaires, but people making a million dollars a year or more. which in the united states is about a little over 300,000 people. now, there aren t a lot of small businesses across the country that are making that kind of money. in fact, less than 3% of small businesses make more than $250,000 a year. so what they ve said is we prefer to protect 300,000 people rather than put hundreds of thousands of people back to work and benefit 300 million americans who are hurting because of low growth. so we re going to keep on pushing. now, there are steps that we can take absent congressional action. and the refinancing proposal that we put forward in las vegas is an example of that. helping students with student loa