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
park. police said, tear the structure down, get out. they are refusing. and so our athena jones is live there at the site of the protesters. number one, athena, why did they built it? earlier, you said they built it because of the cold weather and they wanted some place to go in and keep warm. now this. what s going on where you are? reporter: well, that s right. i just wanted to update you. we saw, as you said, a few minutes ago, someone somersaulted off the edge of this structure on this giant inflatable cushion that the police have blown up, right next to the structure on the backside. a few minutes after that, another protester jumped on to the cushion, so there are now four people left atop this building, as you can see. now, they said they built it because it s getting colder and they want to be able to have daily meetings inside, their general assembly meetings, they call them, to make plans and to talk about what they stand for. this is a group, occupy d.c. proteste
and snail mail? about to get even slower. time to play reporter roulette. kate bolduan on capitol hill, democrats have taken another shot, extending the payroll tax cut before it expires at the end of the year. here s my if to you. if congress doesn t get it done, they can t compromise, your paycheck could be a lot lighter next year. what s the difference in this version of the plan today? reporter: in this version of the plan, this is now the kind of newest proposal to come forward, this coming from senate democrats, this keep what this proposal does is extend the payroll tax cut for employees and actually expand it so employees would be having to pay even less in the payroll tax. so it would go from 4.2% tax to 3.1% tax. a big change, though, is this proposal does not include it has dropped the payroll are tax cut employers. democrats say that was done in an effort to bring down the overall cost of the package. it s now about a third of what democrats had originally
our political ticker at the bottom of the hour about the retirement of barney frank. they had a revolution. they ve ousted a ruler and now they are about to do something that is probably the most important thing that they have done and that is get out and vote. egyptians are hitting the polls today. they are out voting. it is the first in a series of elections for parliament and president. they are all under way. even in the midst of egypt s second major uprising of the year. the goal of both is the same an end to military rule which replaced the regime of long-time president hosni mubarak in february. turnout is surprisingly strong. voting for parliament will take stages. the presidential elections are set for june. pakistan says no more business as usual with the u.s. after a weekend air strike that nato calls tragic and unintended. nato helicopters from afghanistan opened fire on pakistani forces at the border killing 24 and wounding several others. afghan officials
we ll give you the very latest here in just a moment. also, line baggage fees. some could be a thing of the past. are you kidding me? yes. congress is doing folks something that could actually help you out this time. a new bill that could save us all some money. also, i know. you don t want to go out to the mall right now. it s too crowded. you ve got a computer, don t you? well, cyber monday is right around the corner. we ll tell you what you need to know and where you need to be to get those deals online. let s start right now with that other big deal. you nba fans, if there are still some of you left. the nba could have a season. let me bring in hln sports joe carter. good friend of our show here. tell us, first of all, people wonder when they might see a game, first of all. looks like december 25th, christmas day, a triple header, national block busting game there. the tentative agreement was reached early this morning around 3:00 a.m. eastern time. gives you any id