security correspondent david martin is with us in the studio. david, can you add anything? >> as she said, the soldier is in custody so sooner or later presumably they will find out his motive. but the motive seems almost beside the point. the number one mission for u.s. troops in afghanistan is to protect afghan civilians. for an american soldier just to open fire on afghan civilians just undercuts the mission of the u.s. troops in afghanistan. >> schieffer: david, thank you. you'll be back later and we'll be joined by our white house correspondent norah o'donnell who will have more on all this. let's turn now to the campaign annuity gingrich who is with us this morning in birmingham. mr. speaker, good morning. what would you do this morning.... >> good morning. >> schieffer:... if you were president? >> i think you have to reassure the afghan people that there will be transparency, that justice will be done. we're the opposite from al qaeda and the taliban. they kill civilians deliberately. we protect civilians when a tragedy like this occurs we have an absolute obligatio

mandy clark and david martin have details. while whit johnson reports on what this could mean on a strained mission in afghanistan. >> is it time for us to leave afghanistan, mr. speaker. >> i think it is. >> jeff: pensions, republican employees are slashed in one new england town, tony guida tells us rhode island may have been first but it won't be last. >> and remembering-- remembrance in japan one area later. bill whitaker is there as the country reflects on the earthquake and tsunami. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news." >> jeff: good evening, i'm jeff glor t was awful news from afghanistan coming at such a critical time. and tonight the fallout is just beginning. a stunning and so far inexplicable mass killing by an american soldier inside a small afghan village. that soldier acting alone, u.s. officials say, opened fire early today just outside his base in kandahar province. mandy clark begins our coverage in kabul. >> reporter: the shooting rampage took place here in the village of balandi after a

david martin finds the man who was punished for trying to reform the air force mortuary. a rare look inside one of the world's world's most isolated countries. seth doane in burma with the democracy and cracy movement. and "on the road" with steve hartman with a typical american teenager who built a nuclear reactor. >> when i hold something that's radioactive it's kind of an indescriba indescribable feeling. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening, we often cover history around here and history was made today-- a world record jackpot. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" >> pelley: good evening, we often cover history around here and history was made today-- a world record jackpot. at least $640 million in the megamillions lottery. the odds of getting all six numbers right are long: one in 176 million. today in new york state three million tickets were sold every hour and the same type of thing is happening in 41 other states. have a look at the lines in new york and in california this eve

david martin was among the first to report on the pentagon's ray gun.h-tech weapon does that does not kill. it seemed ideal for controlling mobs, but it's never been used and we asked david to find out why. >> reporter: call it ray gun 2.0, a new and improved version of the weapon we first told you about four years ago. that flat-dish antenna fired very high frequency radio waves that stopped a person in his tracks without killing or even injuring him. it caused a burning sensation that made you instantly jump out of the way. the pentagon has been demonstrating how it can control an angry crowd menacing a u.s. checkpoint without having to resort to deadly force. we tried a number of ways to beat it. oh! the ray gun always won. ahh! oh! officially called the active denial system, it's been tested on humans, 11,000 times. bring it on! ( laughter ) >> reporter: once on then assistant secretary of the air force sue peyton. ( screaming ) ( laughter ) who touted it as the solution to the accidental killing of iraqi civilians by american troops. >> huge break

breath when he was taken into taken into custody or found later in his locker room. >> pelley: david martin with breaking news at the pentagon. david, thank you very much. the president hopes the tragedy does not reflect on the 91,000 americans who are working to rebuild afghanistan. mr. obama said today that he intends to stick with his plan to withdraw most u.s. forces from afghanistan by 2014. afghanistan is suddenly an issue in the race for the republican presidential nomination. there are primaries tonight in mississippi and in alabama. a major test of strength in the south. voting voting continues right now, but we've been talking to voters as they left the polls today. in alabama in alabama, 82% told us they yre very worried about the economy. in mississippi, a third told us that they made up their mind on a candidate in just the last few days. we have campaign 2012 correspondents with the candidates tonight. first, we'll go to wyatt andrews in liberty missouri with the romney campaign. wyatt. >> scott, afghanistan was an issue today during the romney campaign, now campaign, now in m

david martin tells us the internet is affecting our attention span. if you can't put your smartphone down, scan the code for more information. >> how long could you sit and look at this lake, reflect on it? according to researchers 10 years ago you could pay attention to it for about 12 minutes. today you would lose focus after five minutes. you see, our attention spans have been diminishing. >> i would argue that it's been diminishing for about 100 years. >> reporter: nicholas car. >> i think in the last 10 years our attention span has shrunk more quickly than any time in history. >> reporter: he is the author of the shall lows, what the internet is doing to our plains. >> you see evidence that we are constantly shifting our focus. the average teenager takes in -- sends or receives about 3,000 text messages a month. if you look at how people at work behave when they are in front of a computer, studies show that they glance at their e-mail inbox 30 to 40 times an hour. >> which isn't always a good thing. he has been highly critical of the internet's e

david martin cbs news virginia. heavier the foghorns tonight? is back. the father is no world into the bay the committee will affect marl as eyewitnesses continue on the cd. the waste thing hist from the city weather center good evening de we had a highs from 62 and half moon bay to 68 and a whole lot of places like santa rosa and mountain view and morgan hill and san is a raft a former farm development of a along eumaeus the short term measures are still up there in the '50s for the most parts and we do of a nonexistent win at this hour to usher out that of a lot of moisture close to the surface due to the recent rains so overnight with partly cloudy conditions areas of fog number stumbling into ford is across the board he like to look ahead and still playing weekends watching future cast. your thursday begins mostly cloudy for the commuter and then we start to see some partial clearing the for more clouds: may well we're looking arraigned before a cancels' earlier baseball games as the day wears on hidden is scattered showers but the main friends in th

david martin is breaking this story at the pentagon tonight. david? >> reporter: scott, this new in enformation is at odds with the initial version that he simply turned himself in. according to this new information when it was discovered he was missing from the base, a search party, complete with helicopters was sent looking for him and found him crawling through an orchard as if he were trying to sneak back on to the base un undetected. when he was taken into custody he invoked his right to remain silent silent and demanded a lawyer. now as you said, the u.s. command in kabul has announced there is probable cause to continue holding him while charges... while lawyers prepare charges against him. that is expected to take two weeks or less. when charges are brought, his name will be publicly released. it may seem like an open-and-shut case, but this could drag on for months if not years. army major nidal hassan killed 13 people in front of multiple witnesses when he opened fire at fort hood texas in november 2009. he was captured immediately but his c

david martin reports. >> if you think the iraq war is over, you haven't met casey owens.adside bomb had torn off both his legs. we caught up with him again in 2009 undergoing a pressurized oxygen treatment in an effort to cure his blinding headaches. he seemed ready to get on with his life. when he walked out of that clinic. >> free at last. >>> one of his prosthetic legs was giving him trouble. when we found him again in denver, he was using a wheelchair. we asked him, were you free? >> no. i really don't think i'll ever be free. i don't think the burden of war is ever gone. >> he had made it out of the icu, but he still suffered from traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. when he tried to get back to a normal life by going to college, it didn't work. >> i had been out of school for ten years. a little too much for me. >> the traumatic brain injury and the ptsd, do you think that inhibited what you were able to do in school? >> definitely. it's focusing, dealing with the crowds and school. just being alone a lot. >> he moved to aspen where he had fallen in lov

fox's david martin reports. >> reporter: how long could you sit and just look at this lake?n it. according to researchers 10 years ago you could pay attention to it for about 12 minutes. today you'd lose focus after five minutes. you see, our attention spans have been diminishing. >> it's argued that it's been diminishing steadily for about 100 years of. >> reporter: author nicholas carr. >> i think in the last 10 years our attention span has probably shrunk more quickly than any time in history. >> reporter: carr is the author of the pulitzer prize finalist the shallows, what the internet is doing to our rains. >> you see evidence we're constant -- our brains. >> you see evidence we're constantly shifting our focus, so the average teenager, for instance, sends or receives about 3,000 text messages or more a month. if you look at how people at work behave when they're in front of a computer, studies show they glance at their e- mail inbox something like 30 or 40 times an hour. >> reporter: which isn't always a good thing says carr. he's been highly credit calf the internet's

david martin, cbs news, quantico, virginia. >>> coming up after your local news on "cbs this morning,re on surveillance video showing trayvon martin's shooter. we'll get reaction from the attorney for martin's parents. new york mayor michael bloomberg weighs in on the presidential race and cutting the deficit. that's the "cbs morning news" for this thursday. i'm betty nguyen. ,,,, >> an overnight altercation in the east bay, what may have led to a fatal shooting of a father in oakland.

david martin has the latest on the risks. clarissa ward reports on allegations of torture at the hands of the dictator. future hall of famer peyton manning is a man without a team. but corr but correspondent james brown says not for long. with a new ipad unveiled today, john b john blackstone on whether your p.c. is going to way of the typewriter. and do you believe in angels? harry reasoner met one and two decades later byron pitts found her still earning her wings. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening, the pentagon is drawing up plans for military action in syria, although the defense secretary said today that would be a last resort. for almost a year syria's dictator, bashar al-assad, has been killing his own people, tr trying to crush a popular uprising. more than 7,000 civilians have died. his army buried the city of homs in artillery fire. homs, a city of more than a million people and a center of the resistance, fell last thursday. today assad let a u.n.

. >> pelley: reports from chip reid and david martin. and byron pitts on how a poster child for america's obesity epidemic became a model for turning it around. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening. this is a special western eddies, good evening. as the critical test tonight for the republican presidential candidates battling it out in primaries in the deep south. the polls are closed now, and in alabama and mississippi based on our exit polls in alabama first, cbs news estimates that rick santorum has a slight edge but in mississippi exit polls indicate it is a close three way race, santorum, mitt romney and newt gingrich, a key voting group there, of conservatives are split almost evenly among santorum, romney and gingrich, we have campaign 2012 correspondents with the candidates tonight and first we will go to wyatt andrews in liberty, missouri with the romney campaign, wyatt. >> scott, mitt romney is running very strongly in both miss ssippi and in alabama and it is bec

. >> and david martin, with a wounded veteran of iraq who fights on at home. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening. they came after midnight when most folks were sleeping. by the time the sun rose today, survivors could see what had terrified them in the night. from a helicopter over harrisburg, illinois, you can follow the path that one tornado took, buildings blown apart on their foundations, winds as high as 170 miles an hour did this. and harrisburg was not alone. 27 tornadoes have been reported. at least nine people are dead, more than 150 injured. the resort town of branson, missouri, is hit hard. the storm system moved east. tornado watches and warnings were posted from mississippi to ohio. we have two correspondents in the disaster area. first, dean reynolds in harrisburg, illinois. dean. >> reporter: scott, just have a look at this behind me here. this used to be a strip mall here in harrisburg, and as you can see, it has been completely, utterly pulverized. the governor of the state decl

one man there tried to stop it, but he paid a price and david martin has his story. >> reporter: it isream and solemn sight: flag-draped caskets coming home from iraq and afghanistan. but unseen is an even grimmer fact. many of the bodies inside those caskets have been blown to pieces. as chief mortician at dover air force base in delaware, bill zwicharowski prepared those remains for remains for return to their families. >> it's a hard job. in addition to the stress, the daily stress, we here in a zero-defect mission and we can't make a mistake. >> reporter: but there was a mistake in april, 2009. soldier'uary lost part of a soldier's ankle. the commander, colonel robert edmondson ordered an internal investigation. >> i explained what i thought was wrong and then i asked the questi question, you know, "are you going to notify the family? and if not, why not?" and i think th and i think that was a question that really hit a nerve. >> reporter: swicharowski hit another nerve when he called for an outside investigation of the way the mortuary was run. from them on, he was branded a troub

david martin is following that story. an anna werner on high-level resignations at the komen for the cure breast cancer charity. and "on the road" with steve hartman. the shots seen round the world. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening, it was an extraordinary moment at the white house today. the president made his first public comments about trayvon martin, the unarmed florida teenager who was shot to death by a neighborhood watch volunteer. president obama spoke not only as the president but as an african american parent. he said "when i think about this boy, i think about my own kids." >> i think all of just to do some soul searching to figure out how does something like this happ happen. and that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened as well as the specifics of the incident. but my main message is to the parents of trayvon martin. if i had a son, he'd look like trayvon. >> pelley: it was a sunday night a month ago in sanford, f

david martin has learned more about the u.s. soldier being held in the massacre of 16 civilians in afghanistan. anna werner on a planned parenthood dispute that may leave women without health services. and from jim axelrod, their advice to college grads who can't find a job? grow one. they did. >> inspire our whole generation to take a difference course. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening. no country has ever been isolated in the way that iran is about to be. we learned today that iran will be electronically severed from world commerce. it's possible because the world's financial transactions go through a central computer hub in belgium, a hub that's called swift. disconnecting iran from swift is the most severe step yet to try to cripple iran's economy and force the country to end its nuclear program. and if that doesn't work, israel can continues planning for the military option. we have two reports tonight. first, anthony mason on this latest economic sanction

david martin reports on the murders in afghanistan. brian rooney tells the troubled tale of the krystal cathedral. steve hartman watches the ultimate spring cleaner at work and more, but first here are the headlines for this sunday morning the 18th of march, 2012. puerto rico holds its republican primary today. romney campaigned there yesterday and then went to illinois which holds its delegate rich primary on tuesday. the arab spring arrived in syria a year ago today, and 12 months and thousands of deaths later, the uprising continues despite a brutal government crackdown. explosions in damascus killed 27 people yesterday. this morning, a car bombing was reported in the city of allepo. also this morning an american teacher was shot dead in yemen by two gunmen on a motor psyche. it's unclear why he was targeted or who the killers might be. the retired ohio auto worker who was convicted of war crimes as a guard at a nazi death camp during world war 2 has died in a nursing home in germany. he was 91. nasa yesterday released video of the

our garden expert, david martin joins us to dish a little dirt about what's going on out there rightwhere should we begin? and welcome, good to see you. >> happy spring. what we need to start is if you have anything that needs to be cut or cleaned up, start there. ornamental grasses, that are tired looks, cut them off, clean them out. get the leaves out of your garden. if you have weeds that have started to come up, but they haven't quite set their seed, we want to get some preen down in  there, a weed presentative. you put it down and it keeps the seeds from germinating in your garden. if seeds have already started to sprout, then it's not going to stop those from coming up. but it will stop seeds from germinating in the garden. >> with this kind of weather with everything blooming around, daffodils up, can we start planting things now? >> yes. and with the rain that's going to be coming in this weekend, if you can get some things in the ground now, you won't have to worry about watering to start with. we have a couple of different things to look at the if you didn't have the oppor

israel has destroyed nuclear facilities in syria and iraq, but iran is very different and we asked david martin show-to-show us. >> reporter: iran can't build a nuclear weapon without the massive complexes of centrifuges that enrich uranium to bomb-grade level. one enrichment plant called fordow is buried 250 feet beneath a mountain where not even america's most powerful conventional weapon-- a 30,000 pound bunker buster-- can reach it. general james cartwright recently retired from the number-two job in the u.s. military said so just the other day during a panel discussion. >> deep enough underground that there really aren't weapons to go down to penetrate that kind of activity. >> reporter: but that does not mean fordow is safe from attack. it entrances could be sealed off and that large rectangular building provides ventilation inside the mountain. but admiral william fallon, retired head of the u.s. central command which would conduct a strike says it's much more complicated. >> there are a lot of targets. this is not a one-time shot. it will take a fair amount of work. >> reporter: israel

david martin is at the pentagon breaking this story tonight. david? >> reporter: scott, as you just said, we have identified the alleg aalleged shooter as sf sergeant robert bales. he is 38 years old from ohio but was stationed at joint base lewis-mcchord in the state of washington. his name has still not been officially released, in part because of fear for his family's safety. but his wife and two daughters have already moved out of their home and on to the base at lewis-mcchord. investigators have established that on the night of the murders, sergeant bales had been drinking with two other soldiers. how much we don't know. but his subsequent actions seem methodical and deliberate. he armed himself and put on his night vision goggles. he walked off the base in full view of afghan guards, hiked a mile to mile to the first village where he killed 11, then back to a second village where he killed five five more. returning to the base, he crawled through an orchard as if he were trying to evade detection but was spotted by a search search party. only th

. >> pelley: to add to the tension, our david martin tells us that iranian planes and small boats closely shadow it had u.s. aircraft carrier "abraham lincoln" as it sailed through the straits of hormuz on monday. in the battle for the republican presidential nomination, more than half of the states have now voted. in the latest contests, rick santorum won the alabama primary last night and he took mississippi as well, beating mitt romney and newt gingrich in both contests in the deep south. romney finished first in the caucuses in hawaii last night. so far, romney has won 15 states, rick santorum 10, and newt gingrich two. greg smith resigned today as an executive director of goldman sachs, but not before taking an extraordinary parting shot. writing in the "new york times," smith said that the giant investment bank has "lost its integrity. more concerned about making money than helping clients. it makes me ill" smith wrote "how callously people talk about ripping their clients off. i have seen five different managing directors refer to their own clients as muppets." the chairman of gold

here's david martin with what investigators know about him and the shootings so far. >> reporter: with blood still on the floor, a distraught afghan woman described in horrific detail what happened when a u.s. army sergeant went on a cold-blooded killing spree. "he dragged the boys by their hair and shot them in her mouth she says he went door to door in two villages, showing no mercy. "is this two-year-old a taliban fighter" this woman asks. the sergeant tried to burn some of the bodies then walked back to his base and turned himself in. 38 years old and a veteran of three tours in iraq, he was assigned to a special operations unit training local villagers to fend for themselves. according to seth jones who served as an advisor to the training teams until last year, the sergeant might even have known some of his victims. >> it's a very hands-on effort that needs interacting with villagers literally 24 hours a day seven days a week. >> reporter: this soldier likely knew these people? >> it's possible. in most cases a soldier would be extremely well acquainted with villagers. >> reporte

today for the first time the obama here's david martin. >> reporter: with the syrian army's assault on the opposition gather gathering steam, president obama has directed the pentagon to begin preliminary planning for what had once been all but ruled out, military intervention. jo joint chiefs chairman general martin dempsey told the senate arms ser arms services committee the military has provided the white house an estimate of what it would would take. >> what are the potential missions, what is the enemy order of battle, what are the enemy's capabilities or potential enemies. what are the troops we have available and how much time. >> reporter: defense officials say to protect civilians from the syrian army would require tens of thousands of troops occupying parts of syria and a sustained air campaign that would dwarf last year's operation in libya. >> they have approximately five times more sophisticated air defense systems than existed in libya covering one-fifth of the terrain. >> reporter: to hear dempsey and defense secretary panetta tell it, everything about syria is m is many

so how many ounces of this is there in one hundred ten thousand contracts and is this unusual david martin very unusual maxence go back up if you allow me but you know just christian is the one that during the testimony about manipulation the silver market testified before the see if you see the paper to physical ratios roughly one hundred one and we usually hear out jeff out to the silver summit here in spokane every year and he get an interesting presentation last october a said you know really it's not one hundred one it's four hundred one any put up a chart i actually have that for our members on the members part of the mortgage report but anyway boyd forward yes the smash down it was roughly one hundred ten thousand contracts five thousand pounds per contract so you're looking at about five hundred fifty million ounces of fine silver which is roughly three quarters of the amount of silver mine in a year and all that took place during one trading stay session on the c.m.e. and yet the authorities just look the other way what's so striking to me is the amount of people that get so upset

. >> national security correspondent david martin is at the pentagon with more. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. later this morning in the military prison at ft. leavenworth, kansas, robert bales is expected to be handed a charge sheet accusing him of 17 counts of murder and 6 counts of attempted murder and aggravated assault. bales' attorney says his client has no memory of the march 11th rampage in which bales walked off a outpost in kandahar province, shot and killed 17 people, including children, and then returned to the base. the evidence of what happened is there for all to see. whether prosecutors can turn it into a conviction that would merit the death penalty will likely take years to determine. prepared by the army's criminal investigation division, the charges first have to be signed out by bales' commanding officer in afghanistan. then transmitted to ft. leavenworth for bales to sign. after that it will be presented to his attorney, john henry browne, who seems to be building a defense around the mental and physical toll around bales' four com

. >> pelley: reports from chip reid and david martin. it's primary night in alabama and mississippi. correspondents andrews, nancy cordes and jan crawford on what could be a g.o.p. game changer. and byron pitts on how a poster child for america's obesity epidemic became a model for turning it around. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening. if you're one of the millions of americans invested in the stock market maybe through your 401(k) plan, chances are your nest egg is worth more tonight than when you left for work this morning.

david martin has the latest on the risks.ssa ward reports on allegations of torture at the hands of the dictator. future hall of famer peyton manning is a man without a team. but corr but correspondent james brown says not for long. with a new ipad unveiled today, john b john blackstone on whether your p.c. is going to way of the typewriter. and do you believe in angels? harry reasoner met one and two decades later byron pitts found her still earning her wings. captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening, the pentagon is drawing up plans for military action in syria, although the defense secretary said today that would be a last resort. for almost a year syria's dictator, bashar al-assad, has been killing his own peop

david martin finds the man who was punished for trying to reform the air force mortuary. a rare look inside one of the world's most isolated countries seth done new england burma with the democracy movement. and "on the road" with steve hartman with a typical american teen ager who built a nuclear reactor. >> when i hold something that's radioactive it's kind of an indescribable captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening, we often cover history around here and history was made today-- a world record jackpot. at least $640 million in the megamillions lottery. nue odds of getting all six

and david martin gets hit by the military's high tech ray gun. it can stop a mob.why won't they use in the afghanistan? captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news" with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening. late today we heard for the first time the details from inside the cockpit of that harrowing mental breakdown suffered by a jetblue captain. the copilot says the