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
immigration. we ll show you the old clip making new headlines. wolf blitzer is off. i m joe johns. you re in the situation room. we begin with breaking news. american students caught up in the bloody cairo protest are finally on their way out of a nightmare experience in egypt. let s go straight to cnn s senior international correspondent, ben wedeman in cairo. earlier today we heard the three american students would be released on saturday. now we re hearing it s already happened. why? what we understand is that yesterday the prosecutors ordered their release but it took for today to get released. they have been released and they are on their way to the airport. they were attending the american university in cairo and according to the egyptian police, they were involved in attacks on security forces during the demonstrations. of course, their lawyers and their parents deny that they could have done that sort of thing and clearly the fact that the egyptians who shadly s
flaring and deadly political upheaval. we re learning more about who these young men are and why their families are so frightened. i m wolf blitzer ayou re in th situation room. we re coming to you from washington s historic constitution hall, the scene of tonight s cnn republican presidential debate in which we ll focus on national security and foreign policy. in just under four hours, the candidates will walk on stage. it s been ten days since their last face-off an in that time, there have been some dramatic changes in the race. newt gingrich is now at the front of the pack according to our new poll. in this statistical dead heat with mitt romney. and while his new top tier status puts gingrich in the spotlight, romney is always getting a lot of attention for his first television campaign commercial. an ad that s misleading at best. democrats are calling it quote, dishonest. and deceitful. cnn s joe johns is working the story for us. what is this all about? this is a
investigation began into alleged sex crimes. in announcing the resignation of the ceo, he quoted a message from a mother who wrote saying, i m saddened by the prospect of people losing faith in this amaze organization. what you have done second mile has said it s begun it s own international investigation and has hired outside attorneys and that includes lynn abraham, a long-time district attorney in philadelphia. suzanne, we haven t heard directly from anyone at second mile. we have seen paper statements over the last week, but there s increasing pressure on this group to come out and address these allegations of what happened. again, they re not charged with anything, but this is the group where these alleged victims came from. do we suppose that this is just the beginning, mary? there s going to be a domino effect or the head of the organization is the only one to fall? reporter: it s really very difficult to say, because like with so many things in this story, the
u.s. service members who were killed in that korean war. they will hold these bilateral meetings like you just saw there taking place at the white house with the president. he will also attend a state dinner. jessica yellin was there in that room, as they spoke. i d like to see with a she thinks. jessica, if you re with us and you can hear me, let me know what you think the highlight was there of this appearance between the two presidents. well, the president i asked the president a question about both iran and about the economy and he refused, randi, to say how high up in the iranian government knowledge of this alleged iranian terror plot may have gone. there are a lot of questions about whether the supreme leader and the nation s president had knowledge. but the president did say that no matter how high up it went, the entire iranian government needs to be held accountable and that they have a very solid case and that they are gathering support for allied nations to ti