more now from barry petersen. >> reporter: by the tens of thousands, demonstrators took to the streets in some 20 cities only to face bullets in what witnesses called the bloodiest day in the five-week uprising against a regime that seems ever more desperate. some said the security forces fired right at protesters, shooting not to warn but to kill. adults and even children were caught in the crossfire. as the injured were taken to this hospital in dara, the doctors said there were 15 dead he left behind. president bashar al-assad is trying to stem the anger. yesterday he repealed the harsh 48-year-old emergency decree that kept him and his father before him in absolute power. people were not impressed. as the posters of assad were ripped down, crowds chanted "the people want the fall of the government." organizers are being helped by the changes sweeping across the rest of the middle east and tonight they are drawing strength from the fact that the whole country seems in turmoil. barry petersen, cbs news, london. >> couric: in the battle for libya, the outlook for the rebels is improvi

barry petersen in london for us. thank you. >>> five possible republican presidential candidates are staking out their positions for campaign 2012. at a dinner sponsored by a conservative group last night in new hampshire, all five blamed president obama for high gasoline prices, and the struggling economy. they included former massachusetts governor mitt romney. governor minnesota governor tim pawlenty. minnesota congresswoman michele bachmann. former senator rick santorum and businessman herman king. >>> well, the nfl player lockout is on again. players returned to workout facilities on friday morning, after owners shut them out almost two months ago. but by friday night they were once again sent packing. after a federal appeals court issued a temporary stay. players and owners are battling over a new collective bargaining agreement. >>> a bill gaining momentum in the texas legislature is taking aim at those invasive airport pat-down searches. the proposed law was prompted by former miss usa suzy castillo who claim

barry petersen has the cold, hard facts. >> reporter: evening in austin, texas, where night life is aboutd-a-half bats emerge from under the congress avenue bridge. bats that many of us fear. >> when i was little i was told they would go in your hair. >> reporter: but in truth bats are sadly misunderstood. bat fact one. forget the attack myth says austin's own batman mer lynn tuttle who founded bat conservation international. >> i have spent hundreds of hours in caves surrounded by literally millions of bats at a time. in my whole life i have never been attacked by a bat and never been harmed by a bat. >> reporter: not once. >> not once. >> this is a bat named abel. >> reporter: bat fact 2. they are not dirty. >> they're extremely clean. >> reporter: diane rehabs wounded bats in her home. >> they groom themselves like cats do. they have these little hairs on their feet that they actually use kind of as like a brush or a comb. >> reporter: from ancient story tellers to hollywood myth makers, bats gets a bad rap. >> lived on human blood. took the form of a vampire bat. >> reporter: but bats

>> barry petersen for us this morning. thanks. >>> we want to go to washington to senior white house correspondent, bill plante. good morning. the white house is speaking out on this, being very direct on a statement calling the violence, and i'm quoting here, completely deplorable. and as we just heard from barry, the uk outraged at this. there are no plans at this point it seems for more than this statement. has that changed overnight? are we hearing more from the white house? >> erica, no, and here's why. it's a question of geography. excuse me. but syria sits on a border with israel and jordan on one side and iraq on the other. there's huge concern here about destabilizing syria and what would happen if that were to take place. that's one reason you're not hearing calls from other arab nations to intervene in syria, the way we heard them when the uprising start in libya. the only thing the u.s. has done is to move to consider further sanctions. there eve been sanctions on syria since 2004. the white house is now talkin