let's bring in sara sidner, she's in kabul. s sara, how much money did these families receive and how is it that this news even emerged. >> reporter: we were told there was a meeting in kandahar city where there was the governor of kandahar province, some of the provincial leaders there as well as a few of the victims and they were handed over $50,000 per each person who died and $10,000 for each person who was injured. so that totals about $860,000 that has gone to these victims. the aft the afghan government says that there were 16 people who were killed in the massacre, was the u.s. government has released the charge seat for army staff sergeant bales, which charges him with 17 counts of murder. and we're told by afghan officials that the payout was for 16 civilians who had dies. so there's still a discrepancy there and no one can quite figure out why the discrepancy exists. but we know a large sum of money, imagine being in one of these villages where your houses are made out of money and you're not used to having this kind

we're speaking to sara sidner in kabul. sara, what's the news? >> reporter: we have some breaking news to tell you about right now. i just got off the phone with the international security assistance forces officials, and they have said that the soldier that is accused in the massacre that happened sunday leaving 16 civilians dead has been transferred out of afghanistan and that some afghan officials were told about this before it happened. it happened sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 this evening afghan time. so that is the latest news out of afghanistan, the soldier accused in the shooting of afghan civilians in the dead of night on sunday has left the country. now, let's move on to mr. panetta. mr. panetta was in the country today. his plane landed in camp bastion in helmand province, and when he landed, there was an incident there. there was a driver that ended up driving onto the runway and eventually ended upcoming out of that car and he was burned, he was on fire. so we're seeing some incidents as mr. panetta shows up. no one is saying exac

>> sara sidner in kabul, thank you. >>> brand-new video coming out of syria.on demonstrators coming under fire. at least three people were killed on the outskirts of damascus today. >>> republican voters are heading to the polls in puerto rico. a key campaign issue has been puerto rico's statehood. >>> starting tomorrow, tsa is easing security measures for seniors in orlando and portland, oregon. under the new procedure, some passengers age 75 and older won't have to take off their shoes and jackets or even get a pat-down. we'll be right back. imagine living your life with less chronic low back pain. imagine you, with less pain. cymbalta can help. cymbalta is fda-approved to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain. one non-narcotic pill a day, every day, can help reduce this pain. tell your doctor right away if your mood worsens, you have unusual changes in mood or behavior or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not approved for children under 18. people taking maois or thioridazine or with unco

what may have happened, so we're still waiting to see if any of that comes down as well, randy. >> sara sidnertching this. sara, thank you. >>> people in japan gathered to mourn and reflect and pray today. exactly one year ago the country endured a triple nightmare that stunned the world. >> first a magazinesive undersea earthquake -- it actually shifted the earth's abbing yis it was so powerful, and what happened next was even worse. >> the quake triggered a giant tsunami. the towering wave washed away nearly everything in its path. [ screaming ] >> terrified residents flet fled in panic as the wall of water chased them, and then this amateur video. that man screaming at others to get it higher ground before the wave swallows them. zimplgt the tsunami crippled the fukushima daiichi power plant sparking a meltdown and unleashing dangerous radiation that forced thousands to flee. the quake and tsunami killed nearly 16,000 people and levelled entire towns. the disaster caused at least $300 billion in damage. >>> one year later japan is still actually trying to recover. one of the hardest hit cit

cnn's sara sidner in the capital city of kabul. a lot of conflicting reports on this story so far this morning. what have you been able to sort out? >> reporter: we heard finally from the kandahar government who say they were 15 casualties as they know it. seven feared dead and the other eight wounded. those people being treated by coalition forces in a medical facility in kandahar. according to isef, so far they have not released any kind of numbers when it comes to those who may have been killed. they are only saying people have been injured and that those people who are injured, all civilians, are being treated by coalition forces. yes, conflicting information. the taliban also weighing in saying that 50 people have been killed although their numbers a bit hard to believe in that they tend to exaggerate the number of casualties. that being said, we are getting information now from the u.s. embassy. isef has already released information saying they are deeply regrettable this incident involving civilians. any time you have an inc

sara sidner is in kabul, barbara starr is in the pentagon. sara we want to start with you. how close were these attacks to leon panetta? was he ever in any danger? >> reporter: no. they were quite far away from where he was in helmand province. this happened in -- we're talking about 100 kilometers or so away. quite a distance away, however, these types of roadside bombs have been used many times against isaf soldiers going to and from different parts of the country. so of course that's going to put things more on a high alert for anyone visiting, although they're already on high security alert right now because of what has happened on sunday with the massacre allegedly by a u.s. soldier. i want to talk to you a little bit about what mr. panetta has been saying as he's been visiting the country. he talked to u.s. and u.k. troops there and trying to reassure them that the mission right now is a transitional one. their job to help train afghan soldiers so that the afghan soldiers can take over their country and to control the country themselves as the time for u.s. and nato t

here's sara sidner. >> reporter: this is commerce in kabul, afghanistan.re money sits in piles on the streets to be bought and sold in the open air. but all the money changing before your eyes here isn't a drop in the bucket compared to all the cash being siphoned out of the country in suitcases. >> it's hard to exactly estimate how much is going out of afghanistan. but i can tell you that in 2011, 4.5 billion was out of afghanistan. >> reporter: and that's just the money being lugged out of kabul airport. it's estimated $8 billion in cash is brought out of this country every year. that is almost double the entire country's budget for last year. the government is making a move to try and stop the outflow of money to other countries and encourage investment here. so it's capped the amount of cash that can be taken out of afghanistan to $20,000. >> it's not an easy job. definitely there is a challenge and people will try, you know, to use other channels but we will not let anybody take out the physical cash from afghanistan. >> reporter: developer haji hopes

sara sidner is reporting live from that action. sara?om the massacre that happened in two villages in panjwai district. there there was a funeral going on with high-level officials at that funeral, and there were two blasts from a grenade and some arms fire. they believe one of the officials were included, as well as one of his brothers. all of the officials are okay, however we hear someone was wounded in an attack there. we are also seeing protests in jalalabad, which is far from this protest in southern kandahar. there were 4 to 500 people who took to the streets in jalalabad, many of them university students screaming slogans such as down with the u.s. and down with obama. however, there was no damage left behind by those protestors. they did manage to close the main kabul road for some time today. we also heard a chilling statement from the taliban. i received an e-mail this morning from taliban sources and it said it must seek revenge for these killings by a u.s. soldier, and it said they will behead any american who is on afghan s

sara sidner is watching it for us. we begin with athena jones in washington. morning, athena. >> good morning. now, we know that robert bales, he's a 38-year-old father with young children. he's had three tours in iraq and this was his first tour in afghanistan. he lived with family in the community of lake tapp, not far outside of tacoma, washington. his lawyer has described him as a loving husband. his neighbor ves described him as a happy family man. let's listen to what one of his neighbors had to say when she found out that he's akiesed of this shooting incident. >> i was completely blown away, yeah. i was devastated, heart broken. i mean, i -- completely shocked. i would describe him -- he was super fun to hang around with. kind of the life of the party kind of guy. super loving, friendly to everybody he met. great with his kids. i just -- i don't see how this has happened. i never saw any signs of marital problems. they always seemed pretty happy. >> now, that last bit about marital problems is important to bring up because in some of the press reports

sara sidner, cnn, afghanistan. >>> we'll have much more on the impact the massacre is having on kabul and washington in about 20 minutes. >>> the gop presidential candidates are splitting their time between missouri, illinois and puerto rico. rick santorum is campaigning in missouri. missouri held a mimery last month. that was just a beauty contest, as they say. today's caucuses will determine who gets missouri's 52 delegates. mitt romney is dividing his time between p puerto rico and illinois today. he began on the caribbean island which hold its primary tomorrow, then travels to illinois where voters head to the polls tuesday. >>> here is a look how the candidates are faring with delegates going into these latest races. mitt romney is leading with 498. rick santorum is in second place with 239 delegates followed by newt gingrich with 139 and ron paul trails the pack with 69 delegates. >>> in other news, a notorious nazi criminal has died. 91-year-old john demjanjuk was living in a home forethe elderly in germany when he passed away earlier today. the retired u.s. auto worker was sen

sara sidner, she is joining us from kabul. bly, are furious over this shooting. you have 16 people who are dead. what are the afghans telling you now? >> reporter: what we're hearing from some of the afghans is that they are furious. they are very angry. they are saying, down with obama, down with the u.s. services. down with nato. very upset. we saw some protests today in jalalabad, in eastern afghanistan, a far bit away from kandahar, which is in southern afghanistan, where this massacre took place. however, 400 to 500 people went out in the streets, many of them university students, and they were chanting all these kinds of slogans. they managed to shut down the important route between jalalabad and kabul for a bit. but then the road was reopened. however, there was no violence there. but there was violence in the very village where the this massacre took place, during a funeral. several high-level officials with the afghans had been in that village to try and show their condolences, be there for the villagers who lost loved

sara sidner has the story. >> reporter: robert bales is being charged with 17 counts of murder. discrepancy. the afghan government has a list of 16 people killed and six people injured. sergeant bales also faces charges of assault and attempted murder on the six people who are injured, every single one of the injured is expected to survive. so we still haven't figured out why there is a discrepancy between the number of people he is charged with murdering and the number that the afghan government has as dead. let's talk about some of the reaction that happened here in afghanistan. the taliban has reacted saying that they do not in any way trust american courts, they call them theater, they do not believe in the american justice system. they think justice should be done here and they have again vowed to take revenge against any american troops here in the country. so there you have reaction from them. but as far as overall reaction, we have not seen any, not one, protest since these charges came down and really in a week, we haven't seen anyone going out in the streets, making an

sara sidner joined us with the latest on this story. sara, what do we know right now? >> reporter: president hamid karzai has released a statement saying 16 people have been dialed including 9 children, 3 women, and 4 afghan men. he's called this a deplorable 5k9 saying it's an act of terrorism that's unforgivable, and he is -- has been talking about what has to be done going forward. now, there is a full investigation going on, as you might imagine, from nato officials as well as afghan officials looking into this incident. what we're hearing from the international security assistance forces officials, they're saying there's one soldier, an army staff sergeant who acted alone, who went off base around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, went out to the villages and opened fire on civilians and then came back and turned himself in. they are saying this is absolutely only one person involved in this, and though we've been hearing from also afghan officials on the ground there saying -- questioning that, wondering if there are more soldiers on the ground. some of the witnesses

as sara sidner explains, they aren't likely to get what they do want. >> reporter: family members of sunday's massacre and village elders from kandahar spoke to afghan parliamentarians today telling much of the same story they did to mr. karzai on friday. these family members are asking for justice. they don't want compensation, but would like to see the suspect tried right here in afghanistan. meantime, another protest broke out in jalalabad, the second one in a week. that protest where protestors were screaming "death to america," they asked the suspect be tried using islamic rule as opposed to what they call foreign justice. that is not likely to happen. the soldier has been sent back to the united states. there is an agreement between the u.s. and afghan government how to deal with cases such as these. there is something in place that governs that and the u.s. is going by that, which likely means that soldier will not be tried here. he will not be tried in the afghan judicial system. sara sidner, cnn, kabul, afghanistan. >>> the republican presidential hopefuls are out and about

sara sidner is in afghanistan. we spoke to her a few hours ago about photos we had just seen. >> we looked at the pictures. they are absolutely gruesome. there are shots of burned bodies lying in the back of trucks, a toddler we saw had a blood-covered face, it appeared to be a bullet wound. >> the state department says a full investigation is underway. >>> the contra costa county sheriff's department identified a man killed over the weekend in a motorcycle officer. they say keith cross was riding on wagon wheel way on saturday night. they say at some point he lost control of the bike and crashed into bushes and a tree. police say he was not wearing a helmet when he crashed. >>> if you own an electric vehicle it's gonna be easier to charge it up in san francisco. the city today unveiled 26 new charges stations. some are in front of city hall, others are in city-owned public garages. fiona maws sponsored a new law that exclude companies from being regulated as utilities by the p.u.c. >> they will not be regulated as

sara sidner joins us with much more on this developing story. what can you tell us about these payments there to the victims in afghanistan? >> reporter: randi, we talked to one of the provincial council members in kandahar and he told us he was there at the meeting and what went down was basically a u.s. representative came, spoke with him, spoke with some of the family members who were there, and handed over more than $800,000, the equivalent of that in cash in afghan money. also, we should tell you that the breakdown goes like this. $50,000 for each person who died, $11,000 for each person who was wounded. what is interesting, if you do the math, is that it looks as if the u.s. has paid for a total of 16 dead, and they have charged a total of 17 people dead. we're trying to figure out why there is a discrepancy again. as you might remember, the afghan government also has a list of only 16 people who were killed in that massacre on march 11th, not 17. so still there's this issue with the numbers, but we do know more than $800,000, the equivale

sara sidner is joining us. president karzai says he doesn't believe what he u.s. military and u.s. officials are saying about this. what is he saying? >>. >> they said that they could not possibly say this is one soldier on his own and he went from house to house. he tied up some of the people that he ended up burning some of the people in their own homes and they just don't believe this is the work of one man. mr. karzai reiterated, based on what you're saying, it sounds like this wasn't the work of one man. he also said that his investigators are not buying this surveillance video that they have been shown. they have been shown a surveillance video by u.s. officials that it reportedly showed a u.s. soldier accused of this coming back to the base after this attack. and they are saying that they suspect that this might not be a video that really shows what really happened that night and if it really is from that date. so there's a lot of skepticism going on here, suzanne. >> and does karzai have his own investigation going on as well? >>. >> reporter: yes. he does have a team of pe

>> sara sidner, kabul, afghanistan.reciate your reporting on this. >>> the court battle over health care is on. it's been two years since president obama signed eed >>> president barack obama's health care law, all 2,700 pages of it, lands on the steps of the u.s. supreme court next week. it was a fight that started two year ago. our congressional correspondent is kate bolduan and she's live in washington for us. hi, kate. >> hey there, don. >> what are the arguments here? who has a beef with the central provision of this law? >> reporter: this is a huge case when you look at not only the actual policy impli kacations b the political implications. this is something that really rarely happens. how much time the supreme court justices are giving to this one case. there are four issues for questions that the court is going to consider. this is going to happen over a six-hour period that will spread through days of oral arguments. that rarely happens. that shows just how important this case really is. of the four issues the

sara sidner is live in kabul with the latest. sara?onversation with mr. panetta today in a visit that was planned weeks ago. basically he asked the question -- and made some demand that i don't think mr. panetta was expecting the but basically asked that not only the troops pull out of villages and remote areas and pulled back to the major bay bases that exist. but he also asked to speed up the transition process from 2014 to 2013 to have that process complete and that's quite difference than what international forces had in my. they've been saying they still want to stick with the main plan that troops would down down in -- would come down in 2015. we got some clarification from mr. karzai's spokesman who said he wants that to happen faster but he's not asking that all of the troops beout of 2015, ken. >> yesterday, the taliban threatened to behead. i'm wondering who how effective they can be. le are they able to move around and do their jobs? are you able to move around afghanistan. >> we can move around a little bit. but there is a

this year it comes as beijing finds debt laden europe holding its hand for help our correspondent sara sidner reports. with china's three trillion plus dollars in foreign currency reserves it was only a matter of time before debt lead and europe came knocking on its store from chinese side of the leaders are we for you ok bill waving the shoulder we can reach the car so actually you can see that's kind of a accurate because i feel. it's like a not putting in practice maybe we want some kind of a deal well it's not even a maybe now china's claw is clearly on the rise and so is its confidence this time around china has no qualms letting the e.u. know that it is well aware of its trunk card and that any help will come at a price top of its list of demands gaining the status of a full fledged market economy and lifting the one nine hundred eighty nine ban on its purchase of military weapons from the e.u. . for the first time china has openly used its potential cash card to lash out at the e.u. for a recent ad the subsidy an anti dumping investigations into imports of chinese made steel products p

. >> i want to go straight to kabul to sara sidner, and sara, i know there was an incident there whenappened in kambashun. when he got on the ground, there was a car apparently stolen. someone had driven that car onto the runway and the person caught fire. we don't know exactly if this is something the person was trying to threaten mr. panetta or if this was something or someone just decided to steal a car. we do know the person who was in that car, the driver of the car, was apparently a civilian who worked at camp dogson, so there is an investigation going on to find out exactly what happened. we know an isop worker was injured when the car was stolen and brought to the runway. at no time was panetta ever in danger. he also talks to the troops about what the mission is going forward, and he really said, look, it's a transitional one. this is a mission now that really needs to focus on the transition from having u.s. and nato forces in place to having the afghan forces take over and take control of their own country. but while he is saying all this, there were another two incidents t

. >>> got sara sidner joining us by phone. expected between the afghan president and some of the victims' families. okay. obviously we are having technical difficulties as that is not sara sidner. >>> let's tell you what's coming up, would we're going to talk to a jag officer. he'll update us on how this trial could eventually lay out over the next months and maybe even more than months. got other headlines making news though. christine has those. >>> good morning. let's go to michigan. homes were torn apart. over 200 people were forced to come out. a rare march tornado touched down there. >> oh, my god. oh, my god e oh, my god. >> amateur video of the funnel cloud just outside ann arbor. a tornado ripping through that community. there were reports of three funnel clouds in the area. the storm damaging or demolishing many homes. also downing trees, power lines. >>> the north koreans announcing plans to blast a satellite into space. they're claiming it's part of a peaceful space program initiative and not a nuclear test but it'

cnn's sara sidner was at that meeting. she joins us live from kabul.arzai made a serious allegations against the u.s. today. what did he say? >> reporter: well, he was sitting and listening for more than an hour from villagers who were very angry, saying they believed there was more than one u.s. soldier involved in this, and he said based on what you're saying, there is more than one u.s. soldier involved in this, kind of reiterating what they were saying. but he also said that the relationship between the united states and afghanistan is, and i'm quoting here, we're at the end of our rope, is how he put it. so you can see there is a great deal of frustration on his part, and he was referring to many of the things that have happened in afghanistan over the past three months. we're talking about not only this incident, but the past incidents with the burning of the koran, and the picture showing u.s. troops allegedly urinating on dead afghan bodies. a lot of frustration there. and he was also very clear on how upset the afghan officials are and his gov

sara sidner is in the afghan capitol of kabul. what can you tell us about this latest attack? >> reporter: we understand 13 people have been killed, including nine children, and the government saying that this was the act of terrorists. this did not happen anywhere in the provinces that we've been hearing of different things going on, including obviously the visit of mr. panetta. mr. panetta met with mr. karzai today. we have just confirmed that mr. karzai has asked for american forces and nato forces to leave all afghan villages and remote areas. that's coming in from the presidential palace and that is after this massacre allegedly by a u.s. soldier that u.s. soldier sent out of the country overnight. we've talked to a local afghan official from cab da hakandahar. he said people are angry because they had asked to talk to him. saying we as afghan officials should actually be able to question him ourselves. now he's out of the country and we can't do that. so some anger there from afghan lawmakers in that area. we do understand that we will perhaps be hearing more from the la

sara sidner spoke to them, and she has their story. >> reporter: graves in this village, a place now saw. it was around 3:00 at night that they entered the room. they took my uncle out of the room and shot him after asking him where is the taliban. my uncle replied that he didn't know. ahmed said the worst happened next door. finally, they came to this room and martyred all the children in the room. there was even a 2-month-old baby, he said. once the shooting stopped, the villagers said some of the dead were piled in a room and set on fire. at daybreak in the back of trucks, evidence emerged of the burning of bodies and killing of babies. u.s. officials say this was the work of a single soldier acting on his own. army staff sergeant robert bales is under arrest accused in the crime. most of the villagers say they do not believe the u.s. version. but when it comes to actual eyewitnesses, their stories conflict. one of the young witnesses said, he was an american. it was just one person the boy next to him chimes in. but some adults in the village tell us they have evidence more than

>> sara sidner in kandahar. what is president obama saying? they've been quick to act on this shooting by the american soldier. hillary clinton is the latest u.s. official who tried to assure the afghan people that justice will be served in this case. in fact, she spoke out earlier this afternoon. >> of course, i agree with president obama and secretary panetta and the other american people in expressing our deepest regrets and condolences. a full investigation is under way. a suspect is in custody, and we will hold anyone found responsible fully accountable. >> i want to go straight to the white house, to brianna kheiler. brianna, in the past we've seen crisis management extensions here between washington and kabul. is the administration there pleased with the afghan government, how they responded this time around? >> reporter: i think this is going to play out over days, brooke, so i think really the best way to phrase what they're doing right now might be a little bit of holding their breath. you see the administration working overtime to t

. >> sara sidner in kabul for us. thank you very much. >>> what is the reaction to the afghan shooting incident and how does it impact on troop withdrawal? join me at 10:00 a.m. eastern. we'll talk with general spider. >>> now to syria. two huge explosions killed 27 in damascus today. the syrian government is blaming terrorists. at least ten people also died in other parts of syria. >>> former nazi death camp guard and retired ohio auto worker john demen yeo died. he was found guilty last year. he denied those charges and was appealing a five-year prison sentence. >>> witnesses spotted him on the right days ago wearing the red shirt. saw him running through the streets on thursday wearing only his underwear. his film has received 80 million views on youtube. he's suffering stress and dehydration. >>> a san diego judge approved a settlement yesterday between the automaker and drivers who say their cars didn't get the promised gas mileage. the settlement will pay up to $200 to nearly a quarter million owners. they'll al