back to liz palmer, if we could, in cairo near tahrir square. e president have at this hour? how does this transition happen? >> reporter: it's very unclear. yesterday when president mubarak said he was handing over to vice president suleiman, the constitution was sill till in effect. i think this is a whole new ball game. fountain military is tag power, the constitution will probably be suspended and we should know in the next 24 hours or so how they are going to run things and how quickly they are going to assemble a true team that will manage reform heading to free and fair elections, which is something the military has promised. reiterated that promise again. so this could be the beginning of a new chapter that leads to democracy in egypt. >> okay. liz palmer, stay with us, if you could. for now, though, we would like to go to the white house and get reaction from the president. chip reid is standing byty white house this morning. chip, over to you. >> reporter: i'm looking at my blackberry just waiting for something to come over it with a re

katie. >> couric: all right, liz palmer in cairo tonight. liz, thank you. terry mccarthy was in tahrir square early today as word was spreading that mubarak might be leaving, but when it became clear he wasn't, the mood turned ugly. >> reporter: after 17 days of noisy protests in tahrir square only one man could bring silence the man they all want to leave. but the message he delivered was not what the crowd wanted to hear. their verdict was delivered in one arabic word over and over... erhal, erhal. leave, leave. they only agree one thing, which is they need president mubarak to leave. that's the only request that they have now. >> we don't have any trust in this government, and now he's making people, like, more having fight together again. >> reporter: the crowd's anger is growing. a very different mood from the optimism of the early evening when they heard the reports that mubarak was about to make an important speech. >> it's over! >> reporeter: convinced that mubarak was leaving, people were dancing in the street, waefg flags, holding candles, and get

liz palmer. liz, thank you so much. now, this massive rally that's taking place in liberation square never could have happened without the implicit blessing of egypt's military and as mark strassmann reports, many people who were moved to participate never imagined themselves as revolutionaries. >> reporter: they're hoping to rewrite egyptian history. revolutionaries like the three nageeb sisters. why is today different? >> because... >> it's now or never. >> it's now or never. >> we have to stand up. >> reporter: stand up and be counted in liberation square's mass rally. layla nageeb, now 23, says crowd size matters. >> reporter: by and large, the faces of this revolt are political and religious moderates, not professional protestors but in many cases educated secular first-time activists. fed up but fired up, too. ibrahim suleiman and shariff muradeef, different generations, same dream: an end to what muradeef calls "living in darkness." >> we don't care who's going to be the next president as long as it's going to be

>> couric: liz palmer in cairo tonight. liz, thank you. and those generals now running egypt? they were all appointed by hosni mubarak. so how did he lose their support? terry mccarthy now with that part of the story. >> reporter: hosni mubarak's fate was sealed yesterday when a handful of top military leaders convened a supreme council and didn't invite the president to their first meeting. >> we saw this meeting and all of us said "that's it." >> reporter: even before mubarak announced he was stepping down, the supreme council was issuing communiques, promising to lift the three-decade-long state of emergency and saying they would not detain protesters. as the protests grew larger this week and spread across the country, paralyzing the economy, the military was forced to choose. either they had to ditch the president they ushered into power back in 1981, or shoot protesters in the streets. the protesters won. with 468,000 members, the egyptian military is the largest in the arab world. it controls an estimated one- third of the egyptian economy, but is still respected by the

liz palmer in cairo. liz, thank you so much. snapshots of what is happening in egypt can be gleaned from twitter. here's a sampling of some that were written today. there are many opposition groups in egypt, but none are as organized or as vilified as the muslim brotherhood. its leader said today they won't run a candidate for president. mark strassmann in cairo has more about the brotherhood, who they are, and what they want. >> reporter: long before the clamor of tahrir square, hosni mubarak heard one group's dissent and despised them for it. they're the muslim brotherhood, religious conservatives often secretive and poorly understood. what is clear here, they want an egyptian islamic state. and this week they stepped out of the shadows and joined these protesters demanding mubarak step down. >> (translated): for so long we have voiced our objection of this criminal policies which have spoiled all aspects of life in egypt and all those who sought to express their opinion. >> reporter: the brotherhood, formed in 1928, is the wo

. >> couric: liz palmer in cairo tonight. liz, thank you. from cairo, we turn to one of the most dangerous cities in this part of the world-- juarez, mexico, ground zero in the drug war. murder is an everyday occurrence, but bill whitaker reports what happened there over the weekend was especially upsetting. >> reporter: even in this border city where violent death is so common, this hit home. three teenaged boys gunned down in a hail of bullets as they looked at cars at a dealership in juarez, mexico. two of them american citizens. 16-year-old carlos mario gonzalez bermudez and juan carlos echeverri, 15. both had attended cathedral high right across the border in el paso, texas. >> we always think that bad things only happen to bad guys but it's right there on the streets. >> i can't imagine that there's a single family on either side of the border who has not been affected by the violence in juarez. >> reporter: and the violence in juarez is breathtaking. more than 3,000 people killed last year, 253 so far this year. almost seven a day in

liz palmer in cairo tonight. liz, thank you.he world was shocked by the images coming out of cairo, the bloody battles between pro and anti-mubarak protestors. but anyone who watched egypt's state-run television last week saw an alternate version of reality without any violence. but as mark strassmann reports, the government could control the message for only so long. >> reporter: remarkably today, egyptian state television played it straight. it reported today's protests and the release of waled ghonaim, a google executive jailed as a mubarak critic. that changed since last tuesday when this massive outraged rocked cairo's downtown and egyptians state t.v. ignored it, instead showing this much smaller rally by his supporters. and when al jazeera and western networks showed bedlam, egyptian state television's music suggested bliss. chaos presented as quiet. an assault on the truth. so shahira amin revolted, too. the state television anchorwoman quit. >> reporter: egyptians have seen the cell phone videos. an unarmed man gunned d

. >> couric: reporter, liz palmer reporting from cairo tonight. liz, thanks so much, and stay safe. secretary of state hillary clinton today condemned the attack on reporters in the strongest terms. unacceptable under any circumstances. meanwhile, thed whous of foreign frerz egypt continues. the country's vice president said today a million foreign tourists have left in the past nine days, costing his country $1 billion in lost revenue, and as terry mccarthy reports, americans still there feel especially at risk. >> we're looking for any u.s. citizens. any american citizens? >> reporter: the race to get out of cairo as anti-american sentiment starts to grow among some of the demonstrations. >> it was violent yesterday with the demonstrations and our apartment, our hospital was right next to the river so we felt it was t would be a lot safer and our parents were worried about us. we were wander to stay away from the protests. >> reporter: with some 90,000 americans in egypt, the u.s. embarrass coordinated a huge effort to evacuate tourists and residents to get them on special charter

they put up the call for more people to come on down, the people are turning out. >> schieffer: liz palmer, what do you sense is going to happen now from here on in today? it seems to me that this, today, has marked some sort of a turning point. how long it lasts, i know none of us can say. what's your sense of where we are right now? >> well, in a period of serious engagement. everybody is wondering what is going on inside mubarak's office and his confidantes. it's a black box. we don't know. i spoke to somebody very influential recently. he said i think he gets the message now. he's furious because he says he doesn't want to bow to the "riffraff" in the square. but he is beginning to realize that there's only one way-- that's through the exit door. >> schieffer: what about the participation today of the muslim brotherhood? as far as i know, this is the first time anybody there has ever met with them in a serious way. what comes of that? >> well, it's extraordinary. i mean, they were a banned political party. they've been terribly repressed in this country since 1954. today, they were at

jeff. >> liz palmer in cairo this morning. t is out this morning. the labor department says employers added 36,000 jobs but the jobless rates are up sharply at 9%. the lowest since april 2009. this afternoon astronaut mark kelly will confirm that he is returning to space in april. an official says kelly will lead the shuttle endevour's final mission. kelly's wife gabby giffords, is still recovering from the shooting in tucson. joining us now on the telephone is cbs news space consultant bill harwood at the kennedy space center this morning. bill, good morning to you. clearly, mark kelly has been through a lot. how does this all now affect his preparation? >> well, it's going to be interesting to track this. you know the shuttle flight, especially as a commander, is very intense. his crew starts next week what they call integrative training where they start running through mission processes and procedures with the entire mission control team. it gets very intense. i think in this case because his wife is recovering in houston, h

elizabeth palmer is in cairo this morning with the very latest. lizer: good morning. here -- just behind me is the square. i just heard what might have been a gunshot. i can't confirm that, but you might be able to see, by and large, the scene as has it has been every day. people milling around. quite full. the mood has changed. it's uglier, and it all started when a group of pro-mubarak supportwrs tried to get into the square. originally the army stopped them from getting in. they left that entry point into the square, searched around and tried to come in from the back. they were joined by people on horses and a camel, believe it or not. the anti-mubarak people joined linked arms and refused to let them in, and it degenerated into quite nasty fighting, stone throwing. people were being hurt and bloodied. at one stage a young man climbed on a tank and asked everybody to calm down. it worked for a while, and then fights broke out again. you can see the mood has really changed, and nobody knows exactly whether it would catch fire or not, this fighting.

liz palmer following the story from cairo this morning, liz, thank you very much. >>> at least five peoplepennsylvania late last night. the blast, possibly caused about aghast leak, leveled two homes in allentown. the fire that followed quickly spread to eight other homes were destroyed and 16 others damaged. hundreds were forced to evacuate. at least one person is confirmed dead this morning. at least six people were killed when a commuter plane tried to land in southwest ireland this morning. that plane overturned and caught fire on the runway. there was heavy fog at the time of that crash. >>> in london, a couple of royal ladies did lunch. princess-to-be kate middleton and prince william's stepmother camilla seen having a friendly lunch together yesterday at a restaurant. camilla was reportedly offering advice into marrying into the family. >>> lindsay lohan is free on $40,000 bail after pleading not guilty to grand theft charges. if convicted she could be headed to prison. cbs news correspondent bill whitaker has that story. >> reporter: a crowd of cameras captured lindsay lohan making