the law even though as you point it he so adamantly wants to repeal. >> it is. the other thing that the cruz people are sort of pushing back on and something that i kind of understand about is that a lot of republicans who oppose obamacare take it because they effectively don't have any choice because it's the law of the land. >> it's a fair point but of course it's tough when you're the face of repealing obamacare. dana bash, thank you so much. and anderson starts now. good evening, thanks for joining us tonight. new information we are just getting in about the crash of an airliner flown by millions of people every day all around the world. the information that could shed light on the crash today of german wings 9525. as you probably know it went down in the frefrnl alps on a flight from barcelona to dus l dusseldorf germany. the plane descending 27,000 people fooet in nearly 8 minutes

and apparently flying straight into the ground. tonight, there is new focus on a key safety feature on airbuses that can sometimes under rare conditions put them into a descent that can hard to stop. airbus the european aviation safety agency, the equivalent of america's faa issued a warning about it nearly 4 months ago. rene marsh has been working her sources on this. she joins us momentarily, but first, how this tragedy unfolded. >> reporter: 10:01 a.m. local time german wings 9525 takes off from barcelona after a 26 minute delay. flies over the mediterranean and starts to climb. around 10:27, hits cruising altitude after 38,000 feet. just about three minutes later, right around the time 599525 is back overland in france something goes wrong. loses altitude quickly, a span of about 8 minutes, drops nearly 27,000 feet to 11,400 feet.

it's now deep into the french alps. >> you just don't descend. as a pilot, you have to request the descent, have to request to change altitudes. since we know they didn't do that because air traffic control did not know, had not communicated with them that they were talking to air traffic control, they could have told them about any problem they had on board. so whatever caused any problem was unable to communicate or have no time to communicate. >> as the plane goes further into the mountains, it continues to lose altitude at 10:53. crashes in the french alps. 150 people were on board. 144 passengers including two infants and six crew members. the crash site is extremely remote. those first on the scene describe the plane as obliterated. the largest pieces of wreckage no largebigger than a small car.

i'm concerned with the suffering that's being brought to so many people german chancellor angela merkel says. we'll do everything to get the help they need in these difficult hours. nearly half of those on board were german including 16 students from the same high school. a vigil started earlier in the day by fellow students. grows as night falls, the hope of any classmates survived fading. the crash site one of two black boxes is found. hundreds continue to work on both the recovery effort and to try and figure out exactly what happened to flight 9525. well more on that piece of air but safety technology can sometimes turn dangerous. it uses a pair of sensors to figure out if the plane knows it's pointing too high for the plane to keep flying then steps in automatically to force the nose back down. the problem occurs when something goes wrong with those sensors. the result obviously, could be terrifying. the aviation correspondent rene

marsh joins us now with more. you're learning about the safety alert regarding the type of plane. what's the latest? >> reporter: anderson just for context, we know these directives are relatively common. many are oftentimes issued for an aircraft. so that alone isn't a red flag but in the absence of knowing exactly what went wrong on board this airbus a 320, we look at possible problems we've seen in the past. this is the actual dock. . this is the air working its directive and issued by the european aviation safety association. administration. so we know their concern according to this document stems from an a-321, that is the same family as the a-320. just slightly larger. the problem was that there were two, what's called an angle of attack probes on the airplane. essentially, what these two

probes do is measure the angle of the plane to the horizon. if those two pieces of equipment are not functioning properly you could have the situation where the pilot is getting the wrong indications inside of the cockpit and based on that wrong information, the pilot is then entering his or her commands but again, that's based on wrong information. and you have a situation where this plane could go out of control. so that is something that is being looked at. that was brought up in the press conference today. and the ceo of the airline did make reference that all the software updates and the maintenance has been completed on this particular aircraft. >> what about the history of this kind of a plane? >> well we know this specific aircraft is about 24 years old. so it is an older aircraft

that's being said, it's not something that when you look at it you say, look this plane should not have been flying. yes, it's an older aircraft. it had many hours on it but still, many aircraft out there are still flying at this age. we don't believe at this point that age will be an issue. we understand it underwent a maintenance tech just yesterday and underwent a larger maintenance check in 2013. so it really just makes this mystery even deeper because you know it had been looked at by these engineers the day before anderson. >> thank you for joining us rene. now our panel. richard quest. cnn aviation analyst, les abin. former ntsb chair, and analyst david soucie former investigative and author of malaysia airlines 360, why it disappeared and why it's a matter of time before it happens again. richard, at this point, what makes sense to you?

>> very little. the nature of the plane, it was in cruise the safest part of the flight. it was flying in extremely sophisticated airspace. the control. and it was a first class airline, first world airline. german wings owned by lufthansa and to rene's point, remained under the tactic which is the industry's standard. >> there is no difference between german wings and lufthansa wings and other planes. >> german wings has been a child of lufthansa going backwards and forward for years. it's now a crucially important part of lufthansa. so no, it's lufthansa group through and through. >> les, to you, does anything make sense? what possible explanation is there for this? >> there's a lot of disturbing things to me. the lack of communication richard and i were talking about prior to when we got on air. you know what i would like to know is what the communication was like all the way up to the

point where we had our last contact with the aircraft. that's not being talked about at this point in time probably because that information isn't quite available for the public. but that being said something caused this airplane to come out, to leave cruise altitude. and i have a feeling, my gut says the crew was compelled because of an energy situation. what that emergency situation was, i don't know. it wasn't fast enough to do an emergency descent, which you would find in explosive depressurization. >> that's the thing. this was an 8 minute descent. not exactly plummeting or anything like that. >> this is a descent rate that may be a little bit steeper than normal but not really a whole lot. i've done this rate of descent on a normal approach or a normal descent rate into hee hethrow. we know nothing about it. the attack we don't know if

that was a factor. that's a scary factor but we don't know. >> let's not put too much emphasis. >> not at this point in time. >> debra, if it was some sort of mechanical issue, one of the biggest questions if it was a problem specific to this aircraft or to this fleet, to the a-320 fleet in general. >> that's right. and investigators are going to be looking very closely at that. one of the reasons why they really want to get those reporters as fast as possible is because they're trying to figure out if there's an air worthiness issue not just for this specific airplane but for the fleet f. there are larger implications if there are inspections that need to take place or any additional information operators need to have. >> david, when you look at the debris field, the lack of fire the lack of smoke, i don't know if that's the pictures are old, but does it tell you anything? >> well it does tell me that it was a singular point of primary

impact. it appears to be two scattered points. meaning the aircraft did kind of skim or break apart just before it hit its main scatter point. but at this point, this type of accident what's happening in this realm is that the aircraft not only explodes as it hits the ground but it kicks back. there's a kickback effect. and those debris pieces that are coming back are intersecting and colliding with the aircraft that's going forward. this all happens within less than a second but all happens together. that's why you see these horribly shattered pieces of aircraft debris, the good side of this is the fact the passengers on board would have had no idea no clue what was coming other than they were descending descending. may not have known whether to prepare for impact or not. but the only good side of this is that it happened in less than a second. certainly not ability to recognize what was actually happening to them on board. >> david, you're saying not only, so the plane, as it impacts the ground breaks

apart. but also those pieces that as it moves forward, the pieces that have broken off then bounce back and hit the aircraft? >> right. it's kind of a splashback effect if you can imagine something hitting solid. it kicking back from that. almost makes a reverse push backwards. most of the investigations i've done in this type of terrain, most of the debris field is backwards from the direction it was going in the first place. so those pieces that hit the ground come back at the rest of the remaining part of the aircraft. had an intersection and actually had these collisions massive collisions as they're bouncing back the back of the aircraft still coming forward. so this happens so instantaneously and people ask me why are there so many little tiny pieces? because it's literally bouncing back and colliding with itself. and that's what creates this massive debris field and explosion. >> david, in terms of a debris field like this on a mountain slope, it's got to be incredibly difficult to work this kind of a

crash site. >> it's very similar to an air crash. i worked up in castor wyoming, and it was snowing then. we had snow. we had debris. we had everything on the ground. we couldn't actually find the accident. we found a spot where we suspected it had hit. i was dropped off in a helicopter because there was no place to land. search and rescue in snow cats. they don't have that advantage here. they can't take snow cats or snowmobiles up to the area because it's already difficult to get to. that night in kasper because of that rain and investigating, we were able to find it during the snow but the helicopters couldn't go back and get us. the search and rescue team and i stayed the night there to make sure we saw what we could, but there was no way to get out of there. and so that's one of the things i'm glad about. they stopped this quickly. >> we're going to have to -- >> pull the investigators right away. >> we're going to have more on this. take a quick break, continue the conversation and check in with

nic robertson, a staging area in the alps and what may have been going on in the cockpit. more theories as the crash investigation gets under way. there's nothing more romantic than a spontaneous moment. so why pause to take a pill? and why stop what you're doing to find a bathroom? with cialis for daily use, you don't have to plan around either. it's the only daily tablet approved to treat erectile dysfunction so you can be ready anytime the moment is right. plus cialis treats the frustrating urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently, day or night. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain

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breaking news in flight 9525. the airbus that went down today, can sometimes make them descend suddenly and nothing they can do to stop it unless they shut off flight control computers. a lufthansa flight and european authorities issued a bullet in to address it. it's too early to say. recovery operations under way tomorrow. nic robertson is at a staging area now. what's the latest nic? >>. >> reporter: the crash site is above us in the mountains. about 7 miles this way and of

those, hamper efforts and the fact the whole side is so steep there, the wreckage side is over several hundred meters. that's a concern. access is really only by helicopter. we've seen those helicopters sitting on the ground here throughout the day and the question when daybreaks in the morning, how low is the clouds and will the helicopters be able to fly and get access to the site? the rain has been coming over some of the high mountain passes here. particularly strong also that. falling rain or snow again at the crash site. that also worry, anderson. >> obviously, concern for families is have they been able to cover any of their loved ones. have teams been able to recover any of the passengers? >> reporter: yeah. from what we understand so far, helicopters have only been able to fly over the site. although we do understand one black box has been recovered and taken away. but as far as landing to try to

get to some of the victims, that hasn't happened. the french air accident investigation team is expected here soon. that's a 7 member team. they will have a member or a couple of members of airbus investigation team with them. that's the bea. the french airbus investigation team is leaving the search here and expected to be joined by the bfu, a three member team. that's the german air accident investigation team. but it is the french who will be leading the team but of course so much concern to bring the victims off the mountainside and hasn't started yet, anderson. >> nic robertson, appreciate the update. one possible theory at the top of the program, others as well. as always at this stage, more theories than hard facts. the white house was quick today to discount the possibility of terrorism. not everyone is. that said, even ruling out a deliberate act leaves other possibilities. tom foreman has been sploring them. he joins us now. tom?

>> we've talked to pilots, accident investigators, and they have said the passengers on board this plane or during the descent may have not noticed really unusual because the descent wasn't that fast. and that sort of does away with one of the first theories we've been hearing so much about here. the idea maybe this was simply a catastrophic failure in the air, like a wing or tail fell off of this plane. if that happened it would probably come down much faster. it would be spread over a bigger area than the debris field you've been showing for some time now. that theory is not getting a lot of credence right now. here's another theory. is it possible that they in fact came in under control? if you look at the pattern of flight here all of these experts we've talked to today said this looks like a deliberate act. like there was a decision to either set the auto pilot to come down gradually like this or the plane was being brought in gradually, potentially while the pilots dealt with some problem they knew they had and just ran

out of geography here. had no more time in space and hit the mountains. if that's the case if they had enough control to do this on purpose, then why all these experts ask, did they not try to turn and make it to some of the other airports which were not really that far away. they would have at least had a shot at. so anderson those are some of the real questions that are out there right now. >> is it possible they didn't know they had a serious problem? >> you know that sounds like a crazy idea and yet, everyone we've talked to today said yes. it's absolutely possible. there's a phenomenon called control flight into terrain. and what that means is that the pilots are in control of a plane and for some reason, they don't realize what they're doing. maybe there's a problem with instrumentation that gives them the wrong sense of their air speed or the attitude of the planes pointing up or down, the altitude of the plane. maybe they become so fixated on a given problem they lose what's called situational awareness.

and they don't know that they're flying into the mountains until it's too late to do anything about it. anderson? >> terrifying thought, that. tom, thank you. i talk to a french mountain guide who actually saw the crash site in the alps. he was try out there. and hopes for flight barcelona, flight 9525 originated and some of the families on board waiting for word. the promise of the cloud is that every organization has unlimited access to information, no matter where they are. the microsoft cloud gives our team the power to instantly deliver critical information to people, whenever they need it. here at accuweather we get up to 10 billion data requests every day. the cloud allows us to scale up so we can handle that volume. we can help keep people safe and to us that feels really good.

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tonight, breaking news. crash of german wings 9525 in the french alps. airbus a-320, 150 people believed to be known survivors. we learned european safety officials flagged a potential problem with the key safety feature on airbuses. the glitch that can sometimes under very rare conditions put them into a descent that can be hard to stop. to give a better idea of what the crash site we spoke with a local mountain guide.

what do you actually see when you got to the site of the crash? >> >> brkhow far was the debris spread out? out. [ speaking foreign language ] >> so it looks like it completely disappeared, you were saying. because from the images we're seeing, we didn't see any large pieces at all. what is the area like where the plane crashed?

how difficult is it to get to that site? [ speaking foreign language ] >> jean-louis, thank you very much for talking with us. gathering in two cities barcelona and dusseldorf its destination. both airports tonight, obviously, a heartbreaking scene. carle pennhall joining us now. a lot of things going on. you've been trying to get answers. what are you learning? >> absolutely anderson. we've been tlierying to push lufthansa on a few things.

came to a press conference and said this plane was in great working order. it was passed yesterday. but only by phone saying we have heard that maybe the plane was grounded yesterday, and then finally said yes, there was a routine maintenance check and that was clear but also grounded. that very same plane for several hours yesterday because there was a problem with the door around the nose landing gear. what that problem was, well the company still hasn't specified except to say that it was not a safety issue. but that's exactly what it was. fast forward then to this morning. and that plane, again, it was late taking off by about 26 minutes. and again at the press conference this afternoon, we've pushed the lufthansa vice president, why did your plane take off late? she said i didn't know. it has taken us now more than 13 hours to get that simple answer from lufthansa.

only a few moments ago, the spokesman in germany said he believes that the reason that their plane left laette was not a technical issue. they believe it was a flight control issue, that it was the control tower that told lufthansa to start that plane up a little later than was scheduled but the sense right now that lufthansa, having to push them really hard just to get some simple anlsswers, anderson. >> the families of the loved ones of the victims, just a horrific time for them. a horrific wait for them. they may be moved to france those now in barcelona? >> reporter: yeah absolutely. i mean, it is a tragedy that transcends nations and transcends generations because there are a number of nationalities on board. lufthansa, again, working through to tell us exactly who was on board. we know there were germans, spaniards on board, australians, columbians possibly argentineans on board.

we haven't got the final list. as for age, we know two babies on board. we know two opera singers on board. we know it was 16 german schoolkids there who had been on an exchange program with a spanish school not far here from barcelona, but what lufthansa is now telling us, around 150 family members and friends gathered here at barcelona in the course of today and lufthansa studying the possibility of whether it's practical to take them to france during the day so they can be closer to the recovery operations. right now, those 150 family and friends spending the night close to the airport. they have support from medics and psychologists as well to help them through what lufthansa is calling this very dark day. anderson? >> dark indeed. karl pennhaul. now, richard quest. debra herz man, president of the national safety council and former ntsb chair. david soucie former faa

investigate investigative and inspector. an 8 minute descent from 27,000 feet over the course of 8 minutes. you would think they would have time to communicate, but do we know much about where there was communication? >> the nature of this descent suggests that basically the plane was told to descend. it continued to do that until it hit the ground. the fact that there was no may day from the cockpit or warning or emergency call from the cockpit but also crucially, the ground was calling the plane constantly. this is very controlled airspace airspace. you suddenly start leaving your altitude without telling people what you're doing, you get people asking and that happened again and again and again. the fact they didn't respond to that suggests that something quite obviously dramatic was happening, whether they were conscious, whether they were able to at that particular point. >> debra, you heard a witness a

moment ago who actually climbed the scene, talk about the lack of large pieces of the aircraft. presumably makes it harder to reconstruct what happened. >> absolutely. but the black boxes are going to be the biggest single piece of evidence to support what the investigators are doing. once they have the black boxes, that will really provide them the road map of what clues are the most important to them. if they're looking at engines or control surfaces or certain parts to the aircraft that they have to try to locate. the black box data helps them pinpoint that. they're not looking for a needle in a hay stack. they can get very specific very quickly. >> david, how plausible is it both pilots were conscious and yet so consumed with some on board situation or emergency, they either didn't realize they were flying into the alps and as richard talking about, weren't able to respond to any incoming calls? >> you know it's highly unlikely because of the fact that it was 8 minutes going on

there. so to be responding to an emergency in 8 minutes and especially in the controlled manner it's highly unlikely that that was the case. and especially again, because the air traffic controllers were calling them as well trying to make contact with them. we don't have all that information yet as to what that communication was back and forth completely but that indicates to me there was some kind of incapacitation either by the pilots or some kind of failure in the communications system or perhaps there was a nefarious act of some kind going on, prevented from making that. but i don't think this would go on that long. >> richard, during the break, you were talking about the angling of attack. what does that mean? >> this is the issue that 320, identified. in certain situations the plane automatically thinks it's going to stall and then therefore begins its own descent. >> this is what rene marsh was talking about at the top of the

broadcast. >> the plane starts to do it itself and you can't stop it. >> it does it because the sensors believe the plane has stalled? >> correct. the plane believes that the sensors, the angle of attack indicators have stalled and the plane is about to fall out of the sky, completelyiery erroneously, therefore the protection starts the automatic descent. there's been several incidents of this where descents have begun, pilots have not been able to stop it. now identified the situation and come up with a workaround. you basically switch some of the computers and confuse the plane and take back control. is this one of those situations? we don't know. you know there is a descent. it seems to be but what we don't have in this situation is the callout. may day. we're going down. the descent. we're trying to -- >> it seems a controlled descent. over the course of 8 minutes, it's not as if this is a plane

plunging out of the sky. >> this didn't plunge out of the sky. this was a float into the ground. >> terrifying. everybody stay with us. we'll continue this after the break. also, we learn more as karl penhaul mentioned. the flight and two opera singers on their way home after performing in barcelona. i talk to a friend and colleague of one of the singers. look! this is the new asian inspired broth bowl from panera bread. that noise! panera broth bowls should be slurped with gusto!

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in germany. breaking news recovery efforts set to resume at daylight where german wings 9525 went down. airline officials believe there are no survivors. 144 passengers, six crew members on board the a-320. recovered one of the data recorders but the cause of disaster still very much unknown tonight. back with richard quest, debra hersman, and david soucie. i mean obviously, at this point nobody is suggesting foul play. there's no indication of that. all the bags, but all the bags that were in the cargo area

they would have been rescreened going through barcelona. no matter where other passengers went. >> it's more complex than that. it's depends where they're going to the point of origin the destination is. any bags that were going to end up in the united states or screen multiple times. so, you know you're talking, remember german wings is point to point. it has a certain amount of spoken connectivity. the core principle of german wings set up by lufthansa is that it's not a hub operation. it takes people from one city to the other. that's the idea of german wings. >> where else do thauzey normally fly? >> it had to identify the problem. lufthansa is too expensive. costs are too high. they introduce german wings and said, german wings flies from manchester to dusseldorf.

barcelona. but not to the hubs. the hubs will still be for lufthansa, the main airline. it's a cost-cutting mechanism to try to reduce costs for the airline. >> and a number of flights have now by german wings have been cancelled out of dusseldorf. the crew members felt unfit to fly. not necessarily about their aircraft but just based on their reaction to this crash. >> yes. and we don't know the full reason why these cancellations have taken place, but the later reports suggest that they're distressed by what happens. entirely understandable. >> debra, government officials are quick to rule out terrorism whenever they can. at this point, how can they be so sure? >> you know, i think there's always early indications that you might see. the reports. people taking credit for things. or events that go wrong. i say it's very challenging to

rule anything out at this stage without examining, fully examining the evidence and looking at the recorders but there are a lot of sources of intelligence and i think the government officials are going to rely on those to put out the best information possible. >> david, earlier, you said that you don't believe passengers on board the plane would have known perhaps anything was wrong. wouldn't they have seen though i mean realized the plane was heading down in an area where it wasn't supposed to be heading down? >> certainly they would have noticed it's descending and been in the middle of the flight. they would have known something is wrong going forward but there wouldn't have been any traumatic i know we're going to crash thing. at this point, they look down at the sides. maybe for the last few seconds as they enter that canyon. they would have realized that something is going to go terribly wrong. but i think that during that descent, they may not have had any questions about it other than why are we descending but the point of impact my point is

there was no suffering, no painfulness. it was within seconds, within a second probably. that is when this occurred. i don't think there would have been pain and suffering at least. >> david, other crashers twa flight 800, they basically reconstructed the entire aircraft. in a situation like this where you have such small pieces will the black boxes be enough? do they actually need to go through that whole process in a crash like this? >> well in a crash like this the black boxes will have to be enough because that's pretty much all you're going to get out of it. even small components such as the flight management computer the flight controls those type of little devices, even the eprompt chips we've talked about before on mh 17 and other accidents, those tiny little chips are fragmented. there's not going to be any evidence really unless there's pure luck that secured something like that. but typically in this kind of an consent accident, you wouldn't do a reconstruction. >> thank you for being with us

david susie, debra hersman and richard quest. we learn more about the passengers on board of the doom flight. two opera singers, who were performing at barcelona. we speak to a friend and colleague of one of those singers next. ♪ anyone have occasional constipation diarrhea, gas, bloating? yes! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these occasional digestive issues... with 3 types of good bacteria. live the regular life. phillips'

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are believed to have perished on flight 9525. victims include 16 high school state of the unions returning from an exchange program in spain. in their town and across germany germany, obviously, the heartbreak is immeasurable. dusseldorf was the final destination of the flight. frederik pleitgen is there with the latest. fred? >> reporter: hi anderson. certainly, i would say germany at this point is a country that's in shock and also somewhat in disbelief. one of the things that we have to keep in mind is that this is a country that absolutely prides itself on its engingenuity, and that extended into aviation. people would not have had a second thought on the german flight. but in the early stages it's about the victims.

as you said especially those 16 high school students who were on the flight the town they were from was only an hour and a half away from where i am right now here in dusseldorf. a place called haltern. a small place. 37,000 people live there. they nominated the mayor of the town to speak there because speak at the school didn't want much of the media attention. he said it was an absolutely devastating time for that town. the hardest that he'd ever witnessed and of course everybody there in an absolute state of shock. you could see how people were laying down flowers in front of the school lighting candles and people breaking out into tears again and again. that's certainly something that happened in a lot of places in germany today and especially here around the dusseldorf area. we've been talking about the two op ray opera singers killed and the two infants. >> terrible. thank you, frederik pleitgen for reporting. people on the board include two

claimed opera singers, wrapped up a series of performances in barcelona. they were on their way home. briac, has been affiliated since 1996. he performed on stages all over the world. louis fernando piedra is colleague and friend. joins me tonight. i'm so sorry for your loss. >> it has been a little bit difficult for all of us here in the opera house in dusseldorf and main problem, going to tell you, as grown-ups, we know sometimes it's going to happen to all of us but the sadness in which it happens is can describe it only as staggering. >> what kind of guy was olic? tell us abtsout him. >> very sensitive person.

and it's very easy going professional and very nice and caring friend. and he yulsed to take all situations at work and all personal situations with a certain calm that's actually ir irradiated a little calm for everyone around him. that's the way he was. very easy going and very sensitive to him. >> and professionally, i understand he performed in more than 30 operas. he traveled the world for work. as a singer as an opera singer what was he like? >> that's right. los angeles, chicago, you name it. everywhere where there was the big opera house, he was there.

and he's been singing through his career very big roles that are really demanding. mag nif co. we're talking about high caliber things. people sometimes ask us where do we actually have microphones? the point is that on the 2,000, 3,000 people. i remember there was a scene in which he interacted with me as he was singing, and i was always in the production kind of amazed and how he was able to project his voice like laser beams above. it was surprising. >> luis again, i'm so sorry for

your loss and i appreciate you spending time with us to tell us about him. thank you. >> thanks to you. we'll of course continue to follow the airliner crash. up next if there's one thing we know about newly announced presidential candidate ted cruz is he. and then, atheists. i have a cold with terrible chest congestion. i better take something. theraflu severe cold doesn't treat chest congestion. really? new alka-seltzer plus day powder rushes relief to your worst cold symptoms plus chest congestion. [breath of relief] oh, what a relief it is.

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a lot more happening tonight. amara walker has a "360" bulletin. >> republican presidential candidate ted cruz made it his mission to get rid of obamacare but he will sign up for it. his wife lost job at goldman sachs and taking unpaid leave. here's what he said to dana bash today. >> get insurance presumably through the senate. be like the millions of overs. >> you'll be getting obamacare, effectively. >> it is one of the good things about obamacare is the statute provided that members of congress would be on the exchanges without subsidies, just like millions of americans. >> the white house said 9800

american troops will stay in afghanistan through the end of the year instead of a planned drawdown. afghan president ashrab asked for time to be adjusted. dismissing a report that the israeli government spied on nuclear talks and gave them information. the report in the wall street journal said israelis eavesdropped and leaked selective intelligence to try to rally opposition to the deal. angelina jolie had surgery to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes. her grandmother, mother and aunt all died of cancer and she has a gene mutation that puts her at a higher risk. take a look at this. in louisiana, two elephants keeping a tuck from overturning on a highway. the sheriff's deputy got a call about a stranded 18 wheeler and shocked to find the elephant doing this. the elephants were transferred to a circus in texas.

those are some hard working elephants and we thought we had a tough day at work. >> i hope they're doing okay. amara, thank you so much. that does it for this broadcast. see you again at 11 p.m. eastern for another edition. the cnn special report "atheists: inside the world of non-believers" hosted by kyra phillips starts now. >> there is no one creator. >> americans losing faith every day. >> can i get a darwin? >> darwin. >> i was a bible thumping christian until i was about 12. >> they say there is no god. >> if santa claus lands on my roof i will believe in santa claus. >> and the stigma is stifling. >> we completely stopped leaving the house. >> paralyzing pastors. >> it's