we'll wait and stay in close touch with you, deb feyerick and your crew. as soon as you learn any more, we'll pop you back p up live and talk to you in new haven. for now, deb, thank you so much for the update. >>> moving on, it is a rare look at a war that's gone on for a decade now. u.s. marines have released their it personal footage of a fire fight in afghanistan, and it's one they did not see coming and one they were determined not to lose. we want to go to pent begagon a bring in barbara starr. barbara, tell me about this. >> brooke, you're about to see gripping footage, to say the least. this was a 3 1/2-hour fire fight in southern afghanistan. these are the men of first battalion sixth marine regiment. >> gets you out of nowhere. i'm in a sleeping bag still. you hear the flair going off, then fire just started going f off. >> just to the northwest of us across the helmand river they have a ridgeline up there. there's cavs in the ridge line that they've crawl into and they engage us from there. >> by the time, like, a couple of hours we were like --

next on reporter roulette, deb feyerick in new haven, connecticut. how long has the jury had this, deb? >> caller: i'll tell you, they are getting the jury instructions from the judge. as a matter of fact, they have to take a long break for lunch because this penalty phase it is so confusing the judge had the wrong verdict sheet. so they had to take a little break but they'll be get willti this any moment. they're very eager. this is what it all comes down to. for the last six weeks the lawyers for joshua komisarjevsky were trying to open a window into who this map did, why he could have done why he did, a victim of repeated child abuse. they say he's a man with no self worth. the adults in his life never got him the mental health he needed, that he was a follower, not a leader, that what p happened in the house on july 23, 2007, when dr. petit, his wife and two children inside the wife ended p up strangled to death, the two daughters died of smoke inhalation after the house was set on fire, they're trying to portray this as a man who should be at lea

deb feyerick joins us with more on this horrific story. deb, good morning to you.was the way the embers were discarded, number one and there was not, from what i understand, a working fire detector. >> there wasn't. the house waseneder reconstruction. that may have been one of the reasons they didn't have that. an alarm system. it doesn't appear that was activated. seven people in that house. only two, the mother and her boyfriend, made it up alive. they'd stayed up late wrapping christmas presents. thought they were doing the right thing by cleaning out the fireplace and putting the ashes outside. as fire raced through the victorian home just before dawn christmas morning, neighbors frantically called 911. >> what's the emergency? >> a huge fire at the house next door. the whole house is on fire. >> what is the address, ma'am. >> 2241 shippan avenue. it's the house next door. three kids and a woman. >> reporter: trapped inside the stamford, connecticut home, two grandparents and their three granddaughters. >> a major, major fire with people in the house. >> we hav

i'm deb feyerick. live in times square on this "american morning." >>> good morning, everyone. it is friday, december 30th. you're probably all getting ready for new year's eve either to go out or stay in. >> personally, i like to stay in and watch the cnn new year eve's special. welcome to "american morning," i'm alina chao along with deb feyerick. we befwin this morning with counting down to the iowa caucuses. mitt romney hunkering down in the hawkeye state after a brief visit to new hampshire. he'll spend new year's eve, caucus night and the morning after the caucuses right in des moines. that's in an attempt to hold off ron paul and rick santorum. santorum surging right now. the former pennsylvania senator leap frogging newt gingrich into the top three in the latest cnn/"time" orc poll. he's sounding more and more confident. >> this isn't my first rodeo. i've been through big campaigns in the state of pennsylvania. most of the media says that mitt romney is a guy that can beat president obama, but

deb feyerick, appreciate the report. >>> we're learning more about the christmas day massacre in texas the gunman dressed as santa behind an apparent murder/suicide. wiped out an entire family. >>> what killed heavy d? the hip-hop ledge en's death. i'm phil mickelson, pro golfer. if you have painful, swollen joints, i've been in your shoes. one day i'm on top of the world... the next i'm saying... i have this thing called psoriatic arthritis. i had some intense pain. it progressively got worse. my rheumatologist told me about enbrel. i'm surprised how quickly my symptoms have been managed. [ male announcer ] because enbrel suppresses your immune system, it may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculis, lymphoma, other cancers, and nervous system and blood disorders have occurred. before starting enbrel, your doctor should test you for tuberculosis and discuss whether you've been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. don't start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. tell your doctor if you're prone

deb feyerick, appreciate the report. >>> we're learning more about the christmas day massacre in texas and the gunman dressed as santa behind an apparent murder/suicide. the wife died and the entire family. >>> what killed heavy d? doctors uncover the cause of the hip-hop legend's death when we return. dad, why are you getting that? is there a prize in there? oh, there's a prize, all right. [ male announcer ] inside every box of cheerios are those great-tasting little o's made from carefully selected oats that can help lower cholesterol. is it a superhero? kinda. ♪ will be giving away passafree copies kinda. of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. >>> a "360 bulletin." a 19-year-old california man faces one count of attempted murder in a shooting that paralyzed a u.s. army soldier during a party to welcome him home. rubin turned himself in yesterday. >>> police have identified the victims of that brutal christmas day shooting in the dallas suburb. he dressed as santa claus, allegedly killing his estranged wife, their two children before turning the

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i'm alina cho along with deb feyerick.is morning. >>> up first, an early christmas present for 160 million working americans. the house expected to vote today on extending the payroll tax cut that divided washington for weeks. so what is in it for you? what does it xblemean? the legislation will keep the payroll tax rate at 4.2%. otherwise it would have expired on december 31st shooting up to 6.2%. this also expires at the end of two months. it comes out to about $83 per month for the average family. that's about $1,000 over the course of a year, but, again, this sewn a two-month extension. >>> house republicans caved yesterday after a lot of arm twisting by president obama who said it was the disgust of the american people that broke the log jam. speaker john boehner saying his side still want add one-year extension. he also admitted that opposes the senate's two-month plan maybe was not politically smart. >> we have fought the fight, the good fight, but, you know, i talked to enough members over the last 24 hours who bel

our deb feyerick reports. >> reporter: it's friday night, december 16th. 20-month-old ayla reynolds is ready for bed wearing her green polka dots pajamas with the words "daddy's princess" on the front. her father, justin dipietro puts her to sleep. he says it's the last time he saw his daughter. the next morning, ayla was gone. vanished sometime during the night. dipietro had been caring for baby ayla for weeks after her mother, trista reynolds, checked herself into a ten-day rehab program. after completing rehab, reynolds filed court papers to regain custody of her daughter. the papers were filed the day before ayla was last seen. police say both parents are fully cooperating in the case, and say they have not suspects yet, but they are certain ayla was taken from her home on that friday night. >> we believe that someone was involved in taking her out of the house, and that's where the focus of this investigation has turned. >> reporter: two days after ayla's disappearance, trista reynolds tells various media outlets including hln's nancy grace she worried ayla was not safe with her f

. >> and deb feyerick joins me from new york. this is such a sad story.r of course struggling with this but the community and the fire department as well. what more are you learning today? >> well, it's interesting. the autopsies suggest the grandfather who was director of security for a major company down in kentucky, he was able to get out of the window. had he not falling through the r rafter there's a good chance he could have pulled the child to safety but the location showed they were so close to getting out but weren't able to do so. also the mom initially directed the firefighters up to the third floor thinking the kids were still upstairs, but her friend had been able to race up and get them, so there was a desperate attempt to try to get out of the house, but the embers caught so quickly and by the time they realized, it simply was just too late because there were no smoke detectors in the home. >> was the family, do they know if the family was aware there wasn't a smoke detector in the home or working fire alarm? >> the home was under renovatio

let's get more on this mystery from deb feyerick. >> reporter: it's friday night, december 16th. 20-month-olda reynolds is ready for bed, wearing her green polka dot pajamas with the words "daddy's princess" on the fraudulent. her father, justin dipietro, puts her to sleep. he says it's the last time he saw his daughter. the next morning, ayla was gone, vanished sometime during the night. dipietro had been caring for baby ayla for weeks, after her mother, trista reynolds, checked herself into a ten-day rehab program. after completing rehab, reynolds filed court papers to regain custody of her daughter. the papers were filed the day before ayla was last seen. police say both parents are fully cooperating in the case, and say they have no suspects yet, but they are certain ayla was taken from her home on that friday night. >> we believe that someone was involved in taking her out of the house, and that's where the focus of this investigation has turned. >> reporter: two days after ayla's disappearance, trista reynolds tells various media outlets, including hln's nancy grace, that she worried he

let's get more on this mystery with deb feyerick. >> reporter: it's friday night, december 16th. 20-month-oldd, wearing her green polka dot pajamas with the words "daddy' princess" on the front. her father, justin dipietro, puts her to sleep. he says it's the last time he saw his daughter. the next morning, ayla was gone, vanished sometime during the night. dipietro had been carrying for baby ayla for weeks, after her mother, trista reynolds, checked herself into a ten-day rehab program. after completing rehab, reynolds filed court papers to regain custody of her daughter. the papers were filed the day before ayla was last seen. police say both parents are fully cooperating in the case, and say they have no suspects yet, but they are certain ayla was taken from her home on that friday night. >> we believe that someone was involved in taking her out of the house, and that's where the focus of this investigation has turned. >> reporter: two days after ayla's disappearance, trista reynolds tells various media outlets, including hln's nancy grace that she worried her daughter was not safe with he

deborah feyerick has been following developments from new haven, connecticut. deb any idea? >> reporter: no, we don't, s suzan suzanne. the jury has a very, very tough road ahead of it. arguably this phase of the trial, the penalty phase, whether he dies or lives, is much more complicated than the actual guilt phase because the jury really has to balance the defense argument -- and the defense basically really only has to establish in fact there were a lot of factors that contributed to why joshua komisarjevsky did what he did and there has to be a preponderance of evidence. the president obama prosecutors say there is only one thing can you do, put him to death. the defense is trying to almost since the very beginning of the trial tried to establish that komisarjevsky is a person. in their words they say he is a human being, albeit severely damaged and his life has value. they are going to try to put him out there as somebody who was repeatedly sexually abused as a child, somebody who didn't understand the difference between right and wrong. a loving father, a 9-y

>> deb feyerick, thanks. >>> and demonstrators given an hour to dismantle an unfinished wooden structureice moved in with a cherry picker. here's athena jones with the details. >> reporter: hi, alina and christine. after more than nine hours and a tense standoff against occupy d.c. protesters and police came to an end with 31 arrests total throughout the day. it began late morning when police ordered demonstrators to take oun down a structure erected overnight. this said there were safety concerns and it hadn't gone through the proper permitting process. so demonstrators refused to take down the structure. many of them occupying it themselves. some climbing on to the roof where they held on for hours. they led chants with a crowd of demonstrators here who have been camped out in this park since early october. many of the demonstrators in the crowd threw food and water to the people who are on the structure over the course of the day. ultimately, police use add cherry picker, a giant inflatable cushion, two ladders, various ropes and harnesses to get the last protesters off of the roof of

deb feyerick goes inside for this story. >> reporter: name any luxury item, yachts, mansions, art collections, race car, diamonds, even ancient artifacts. chances are the u.s. government likely owns it. that's right. your government. it's all legal. in fact, it's justice. >> whether they're nar kacotics traffickers or standard security fraudsters, in every single type of case we bring we try to make sure we are looking at ways to take the profit of the crime and return money to the victims. >> reporter: it's called asset for fitch ch forfeiture. almost half of this money, $800 million, came from cases prosecuted in new york's southern district run by u.s. attorney fra ratherrara. >> we managed to bring in through the con set of of forfeiture, $800 million in funds or property which is about 16 times what our annual operating budget is, which i believe is better than most hedge funds these days. >> reporter: prosecutions of white collar crime, epic ponzi schemes and financial fraud are at an all-time high. >> criminals you're going after, bernie madoffs, mark dreiers, are you surprised what pe

i'm deb feyerick. well, talk about david taking on goliath. heather peters is suing honda.all claims court because ever since she bought her 2006 honda civic hybrid she says she's been spending a lot more on gasoline than she expected. now, heather joins us live from our los angeles bureau this morning and before we beginning, heather, we do want to mention that we did reach out to honda for a comment, but they arefuse because of this pending litigation. what is so interesting, heather, is you bought this car, you expected to get 50 miles per the gallon and then what happened? >> well, you know, they always say mileage may vary and you expect that. but when i bought the car, i never got more than 40 miles per gallon and i just sort of accepted that. it was a 20% variance and that was a big deal to me, but i wasn't going to go out and sue over it. but as the time went by it got worse and worse and worse and they did a software update that made it even worse and now i get 28, 29, max. >> the software update was to extend the battery life and also improve the gas mileage and t

debor deborah feyerick, thanks deb. >>> young men and women seem to be heading in different directions men better off or girls over their moms? answers and details in a minute. (screams) when an investment lacks discipline, it's never this obvious. introducing investment discipline etfs from russell. visit russelletfs.com r a prospectus, containing the investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses and other information. read and consider it carefully before investing. [ male announcer ] spreading joy in a pair of santa swimtrunks? [ buzzer ] scoring a kindle with special offers for only $79 at radioshack. so right. ♪ >>> i asked who you thought was earning more than their parents 30 years ago. if you guessed women, you nailed it. women make 17 cents more than every dollar than their parents. >> men are earning 10 cents lesson the dollar than mess their age 30 years ago. alison kosik to tell us more. >> guys have fewer opportunities because the areas where they used to find a lot of work like manufacturing, construction, other industries, those industries are shrinking and it is surpr