>> you are watching al jazeera america live from new york city i'm johnathan betz with a look at today's top stories four people are dead and more than 60 others are injured this morning when a metro north train derailed. 14 of those were critically injured. they were in the first two cars. the operator was also among those hurt. the train left the track stopping feet from the harlem river. >> by the time i looked up it was going to off the track and there was rubble from the track flying at my face. >> national transportation safety board investigators on the scene of the accident. the obama administration say healthcare.gov is working most of the time.

their hope is to have it successfully. to have 50,000 people sign up at once. >> in thailand the anti-government leader has met with the prime minister and refused to back down. thirty than thousand people toot in the pro safety. test. and in kiev 100,000 people are rallying in the streets the protest began last year to support a trade agreement with the european union. >> those are the headlines i'm johnathan betz. america tonight weekend is up next. >> good evening and thanks for being with us i'm jo john

joie chen. you are watching "america tonight" evening edition. one in seven americans are food insecure. what does that mean? it means to put food on the table on a consistent basis. many americans are faced with the choice of putting food on the table and living without basic necessities. often times they makes poor food choices the cost of processed food has gone down and the price of fresh food has gone up. the price for health has gone up in things like type two diabetes. >> this family in baltimore are a tight-knit clan. that is on sale we can get that.

>> get the big one down in stef not the small one. >> julie and ai aaron have been together since they were teenagers. and in 22 years ago they have never spent a night apart. family first is their motto and their desire to provide for their children is the bedrock of their lives. these days there are some hard choices to make. that is really cheap. 1 pn $1.77 for ocean spray they are one of the millions of americans on food stamps of a or snap. and $100 billion budget with snap and other food programs it's hardly enough to keep the wolf from the door. the program just took a big cut. lopping off 50. >> a month from the bri brians bryan's

already tight budget. >> what does it mean when you are in this position when you have to think constantly about food and your kid and feeding your kids. >> it's hard and heart breaking and it's frustrating at a point. i don't want my kids to ever be hungry. and it's really hard. >> it bothers her more than anything. any bill or anything. if her kids can't eat then she is a very upset person. i try not to cry in front of them and when they come to me and the fridge and the pa pantrs empty and they say "what are we going to eat". >> one:eat". >> one in six americans are living with food insecurity. it means new tris nutritious affordable food is not available. the family doesn't have the funds even with federal assistance to be able to buy it. zachery and tabby and gabby

don't know about the food stamps they have lived on since june and their parents don't want them to. >> they know what we have what i call a food card. >> what is a food card? >> they think maybe it's a credit card that once a month we get food on. unfortunately i had no money and we had no more funds anywheres and i couldn't sit and watch my kids go hungry. and so you know i have to suck up my plie pride and go and appr food stamps. >> it was for me, wow! for me to swallow my pride you have no idea what that was like. i work. i'm not lazy. i work everyday. and to apply for food stamps was, was a new low for me. >> even the free things that you know, i it involves parking. it's free to come but you have to pay for parking.

>> it's free to get in but you can't bring food in. you have to buy food. if i spend 5. >> to give my kids a day of fun where am i going to get my toilet paper from. >> not longin long ago they were a mid emiddle class family that was able to renovate the kitchen. for aaron it hits home. >> i was on welfare all of my life. i was on food stamps until i was 18 years old i always said there was no way in this world that i'm going to be on welfarend in 2007 i could have sat here and told you i will probably retire at 55. that is how well we were doing. we were doing really well. >> that is six years ago. >> that is only six years ago. and in six years, i'm on food stamps. >> aaron is a construction project manager. in the last year and a half he

has had just one four month job. when he had full-time work, he made $60,000 a year. he has run out of unemployment insurance and these days looks for the odd $100 a day side job wherever he can. still it's no where near enough to pay even the mortgage or the host of other monthly bills. >> i can show you i must send out 30 to 40 resumes a month. a month to beat the odds. and some of the jobs that he applies for says full time here in maryland. but when he calls them back it ends up being part time. or it ends up he had one that they wanted him to go to texas. i'm not picking my family up and leaving and taking the chances for him going there for this opportunity and being let go and then we just uprooted our whole family. >> did your fridge used to be more full? >> oh, yeah, definitely.

we used to buy ham, baloney, cheese. >> what is your favorite meal guys? >> shrimp salad. when we go on vacation we have shshrimp salad. and the second best is chicken pot pie. >> you hate chicken pot pie? >> i hate chicken pot pie. at least zach an, stef and gabby have been given healthy food. >> our student population is 80% eligible for the federal reduced lunch program. >> he is the princple for the academy where the bl bryan children attend school. >> this is an inner city cool

with a high number of families that are struggling to get by. the school offers a free breakfast. we have eggs and sausage and missing an milk and lots of good stuff. he has more than subsidized lunches. it's a secret weapon a class called "food for life". >> it's pretty good. i don't really care for it. i. >> let's vote on the gua guacamole. it forces kids to eat vegetables. if they want to try it great, if they don't want to, that is fine too. we have a no yuck rule. you can't say anything negative about the food. no yuck or nasty or grosses. >> julie bryan used to work part time washing and distributing

fresh food and vegetables in a federally funded program until it was cut. the school paid her 250 to $500 a month and ensured the kids not just her own was getting a healthy snack. now that comes out of the family food stamps alone. seven hundred fifty dollars for five people for 30 days times three meals a day. >> that is just over $8 a meal for a family of five. >> ththe strain of trying to mae the family equation to come out right is pa pal palipable. >> i cry for weeks at a time. i can't sleep. i don't know how tomorrow is going to be. you can have your good days and bad days. and one day it's yeah and the next day you get that phone call and all of that hope you just had is all washed away.

>> it's hard. how do you guys get out of the situation? >> how will we get out? >> how do you get out of this? >> i pray to god that he gretzky gretzky -- gets a job or i get a part time job and a miracle comes that we can get help and we can goa get caught up on our mortgage and we can go off food stamps. the bryan's do not have a fall back plan. when the phone rings they play y it's a job offer and not another bill chec collect whyors. julie's coupons helps and so do the food stamps. aaron has a side job for tomorrow. there will be food in the refrigerator for the next few days. sheila mcvicker reporting here. >> after the break. the fists of fewery. ewer -- fury.

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>> start with one issue ad guests on all sides of the debate. and a host willing to ask the tough questions and you'll get... the inside story ray suarez hosts inside story

weekdays at 5pm et / 2pm pt only on al jazeera america reaction to the report suggests is it's not one to bring clos closure to those t lost so much that day. >> what we now know doesn't answer the sing ol single most t question. why did he go it. >> why did adam kill his mother

in her bed and a drive to the school and launch his rampage? there were new disturbing decembedetails in the report ane isolated young man who covered his bedroom window with trash backs and communicated with his mother by e-mail. e-mail.. the school shooting. left for doom. owe collected articles some dating back to the 1800's detailing the killing of children kept troubling photos. a self portrait with a gun pointed at his head. a little video snipet a few seconds of children being shot. perhaps most tellingly. the report concludes he was obsessed with mass killing since the coo columbine school shooting. this report should have been released weeks ago. >> this report was to be

released in june and much of the information had been leaked to the media already. >> frustrating the community. >> we had the drip by drip revelations a and premature disclose yours disclosures. there are thousands of pages in that report that news agencies are seeking to have released. one of the things we are expecting to be accessed in the newspaper the 911 reports are not being released. >> half a world away to india. the brutal gang rape of a 21-year-old student has enforced the era that indian women are powerless in society. coming in at 85 pounds a bundle fury is going the distance. she put america tonight in her corner as she prepares for an upcoming match.

a preview of what is coming up on "america tonight". live advertised healthcare has left some some open wounds. the best thing for me to do with this is to pack it with kitchen sugar. the alleged mistreatment of prisoners. the two part story on healthcare in private prisons monday on america tonight. >> and coming up next on "america tonight" on the rise once again is there a cajun come back in louisiana.

zblchblghtsdz. >> and welcome back we have been shocked and entertained by the antics by toronto's mayor rob ford. but here in the south louisiana has had it's own provocative history with an outrageous pot politician. after four terms in the louisiana govenor. he has not again a been without. we caught the colorful govenor at his home in louisiana. >> you did good. >> thank you. >> the crazy thing is if he met you one time and you talked about two minutes, he would never for genever forget that. former louisiana govenor has been out of office for two

decades and is still widely popular. a poll of likely voters thought edwards was one of the state's best govenors second own to the current one. as govenor he was renowned for his wise cracks and take downs. >> he would brag to someone the only way i would lose this election today is if they catch me in bed with a dead woman or a live boy. >> you are a damned candidate, you can't be sitting there eating. >> i'm too out spoken. >> you are known for your colorful phrases. >> that is a nice way to put it. >> he was also known for his corruptions. claclancy is a fifth generation louisiana yan. luann.

>> he was a front page govenor. he what say something funny or important. he started asthm as a preacher d then a lawyer. but found success as a congressman and govenor. by 19 1980s he was the most powerful man in louisiana. controlling the state and the budget and making high level appointments. by then he had been hauled 3w-6 before a dozen grand jus juries facing charges of racketeering and insurance fraud. >> the first 15 grand juries he was still popular. the money flowed. the first eight years louisiana was rolling in dough and we were spending like drunken sailors. >> in 2000 a wake up call. i am facing a long prison term. >> the man known as the silver

fox was convicted on 1 17 counts of racketeering and mail and wire fraud and conspiracy. hunters and prosecutors have a common philosophy the bigger the game the bi bigger the prize. louisiana. >> we are still under a gag order so i'm restricted in what i ca can say. four years after leaving office at the age of 7 75 govenor edwards was s sentence to ten years. the china neeses hav i didn't whine or complain. i walked into prison and i vowed i would live to come home and i did. even in prison he maintained his innocence. he was betrayed by former

friends that cut deals with prosecutors. >> one of the reasons i took the assignment was i thought wait a minute this is away to find out if he is a croc. >> hcrook. he spent five years investigating the govenor. >> i fault into the fact a bougs guilty. but then when i went down to the fbi transcripts from the wire-taps it's not dollars. it's just not there. >> he said when he got could be convicted i believe in the system. i think there was a lot of unfairps iunfairness in the tri. >> it bothers me that it happened. it doesn't bother me as much that it happened to him. there was very little that was fair the way he gave away casino licenses to his krone cronies and the

way he gave away oil field permits. he had very good lawyers and they lawyered it all the way up the chain of command to supreme court. and they all said, nope. if it was error it was harmless error go to jail. >> in prison you met trina. she wrote me and said she was a republican and never voted democratic except one time for a lady that ran for govenor of louisiana who was elected and other than that she always voted republican. >> she was beautiful, blonde and 50 years his junior. our amy curiosity was piqued and she wanted to visit if you if you visit. >> i had a long list of family

and visitors that were on my visitor list. i wrote back to her and said i didn't think i could arrange for her to visit. she wrote back again and asked to visit and was smart enough to send a picture. and i looked at the picture and i said, well she is probably 30 years old and i will take a chance. >> in no time she was a regular visitor. every seat on visiting days whenit was time for the visitors to come half of the inplates ins would line up to watch her walk across the parking-lot. they were married after he was released from a halfway house. the reality show on a & e called "the govenor's wife" was her idea. >> i was worried that they would look at her as a dumb gold digging blonde. why a b an intelligent young woman

would be hooked up with an old guy like me. especially since i'm pretty well broke. >> 9 shothe show drew 1 1.2 miln viewers when it debuted in october. the viewership dropped off and the net work announced the end of the show's run along with the brings beinbrings being speaking engagements the govenor says he is making money. >> they moved to a quiet home on a golf course outside of baton rouge. >> his life has changed dramatically. >> you have a baby? >> yes a beautiful little boy. elie. three months old. >> she months old when we speak. >> you will be 107 when he goes to college. >> i plan to live to at least to 100 average100 and maybe i willo 107 i don't know.

>> i feel sorry for him. this man was once the most powerful man in louisiana. one of the most able politicians on the national scene. now he is reduced to being a comic prop on a badly written and more badly acted faux reality tv show. govenor he ha edwards is unphasy his critics. his goal is to get back in politics. >> you had hoped you would get a pardon. >> yes. >> i think from president obama. >> and president bush. >> and are you disappointed that neither one came through with a pardon for you. >> of course. president bush's father and you are good friends. he asked his son to issue a pardon. he cannot run for state office for 15 years.

the voters are tired of the four-time govenor. >> he is a cautionary tale. he is not relevant at all other than we are still cleaning up his mess. >> after a break here, the other america an "america tonight" series. a troubling look at making ends meet. our digital team shares some of your stories. >> every sunday night, al jazeera america presents... gripping films from the world's top documentary directors. >> this is just the beginning of something much bigger. >> next sunday: do the math. >> these companies are a rogue force. >> one environmentalist says fossil fuels equal disaster. will his movement add up to change? >> we will fight it together. >> al jazeera america presents: do the math.

>> i'm phil torezz, coming up next on techknow. >> hike! >> america's favorite sport is under fire. >> now, that impact simulated 100 g's of acceleration in your brain. >> it's the opponent no player can see. >> so the system is showing real-time impact. >> can science prevent concussions? >> i did my job and just had to sacrifice my brain to do it. >> now here is a sobering statistic to consider. more than half of all americans

will spend a year in poverty or near poverty at some point in their lifetime. in our series the other america we are looking into the lives of americans who are having serious trouble making ends meet. i spoke to our digital producer about the series and the responses she has received from the people that can relate. >> this is a look at how far reaching and mainstream poverty is. a mother of three who commutes four hours a day to get to and from work. we put her story on-line and we asked americans to share their stories and we received it 2* 00 200 responses i want to show an an excerpt of sta stacey's story. >> at 2:00 i go in to wake my

youngersteryoungsters up. >> last minute check and hair is combed and faces washed and we are out of the door at 6:30. if all goes well. most morning prayer is essential. mobility and reliable transportation because i don't have a car. because in order for me to go to their school i have to catch a cab from my job to their school which is $40. for me to go to award ceremonies orpik uor pick up a sick child t in my budget. >> you behave. be a good little boy. other than that i normally get the kids out on their bus on time. it's a matter of whether i will make my bus. >> this is the first bus and then i take two trains and 234e7thenanother bus. >> we shared stacey's story and we put it i on-line and with unexpected and people we didn't

expect to be i near poverty. i will start with the story of mike barnham. i'm mikey barnham and i'm a college graduate. i work 36 hours a week as a cashier earning a little more than $50 $500 every two weeks. and sometimes i have to make a choice between my hiv medication and my student loan repayment and my bills. my annual deductible is $1,200 teas$1,200it's three paychecks d last year i was out of medication for two months. it was scary you don't know if you will be -- sometimes you lay awake at night saying god how am i going to make ends meet this month. >> this is the thing we hear.

most of us are one big bad event from a complete economic disaster in our lives. >> a lot of times they are unpaid medical bills. they are the majority of the reasons filing for bankruptcy. 2 million americans will file for bankruptcy due to unpaid medical bills. it extends beyond the uninsured. if you look at the insured a large number of them are struggling to pay medical bills and often times like mikey and what we have heard him say, have to pay high out of pocket prices as a result of high insurance deductibles. >> and he ends up in a situation where he can't pay. i noticed he said up front, "i'm a college graduate". he went to college and worked hard and you would get ahead and

have a solid foundation. >> he is not alone. we have heard from many college grated waits. graduates i want to share the story of rebecca who shared the story of what she is going through. >> my name is rebecca and i'm 26 years old and i live in ft. lauderdale, florida. i live an hour away from my job. i have never been able to afford to live closer than that. after my rent and bills are paid i have $100 left. any emergency at all drains my savings and i have nothing left. i feel a little cheated because i went to college, i graduated from college and i have been working full time for a decade now and i still can't afford to live and indulge. i can't afford to get married. i can't afford to have kids and neither can anyone else i know.

>> this is really frustrating you are talking about people with p.hd degrees and doctor whdoctorates who are in poverty. >> we heard from people with p.hd's who say listen i have been homeless or i have been >> homeless. we have one woman who has a p.hd who has been homeless for a period of time. what is interesting is that the number of people with advanced degrees between 2007 and 2010 who sought aid nearly tripled. and that was both for people that were graduate degrees and the numbers climbed from is 1001 thank you. 1,001,000 you are seeing these from populations that are higher. they are taking lower paid jobs and in turn pushing others out

of those jobs who may be lower skilled and lower wage workers than either seeking opportunity elsewhere and working part time jobs or unemployed. that continues to have a cyclic effect. some of the biggest factors that we have seen jobs created are the lower wage industries the fastest growing occupations are retail and food service and home health aids. this is something that has far reaching effects. >> when you talk about the folks with advanced degrees. how do people pay off these huge bills that they come out of college and their advanced degrees with. student loans that get enormous and out of control. >> that is getting higher. i want to share the story of one young woman alyssa who wrote to us and sent in a video explaining how she is committed 23,4023,409to not taking on any.

i'm 25 years old and i live in iowa. i'm a full time nursing student with two part time jobs that are physically and emotionally demanding. i work as a nurse's aid in a hospital and i work with people with disabilities i make an average of 11. a$11 $11 an hour and ilive below the. i frequently stress about money and i don't have any savings. i don't want to get bogged down with student debt and tha that s the main reason i have decided to work so hard ra at this timen my life in hopes that i can secure a job in nursing. the cost of the debt that people are graduating with are getting higher and higher. in 2011, 57% of public school graduates came out of school with debt. it's higher at private university where 66% of

graduates came out with debt of $30,000. the number is getting higher and you know teas it's going to afft them down the line. the numbers we are seeing are people that graduated a few years ago and are struggling with paying their student loan. we are going to see this get worse in the years to come as the debt gets higher and higher. >> we are talking about a new kind of poor. and remarkable in a way, because people are so willing to share their stories with you. >> right. i heard people talk about the stigma of it and how they are getting over that. and how that hurts them. we are still looking for more people to share their stories. remember because we selected a few today there are people you may not expect to hear from. some of the demographics who have always been in poverty are pushed further into it. they are still looking for stories and we want to hear in everyday americans and tell us

what they are doing and mow they are struggling to get by. >> at al jazeera.com/americatonight. >> our digital producer. >> ahead in our final segment, a mouth ful of tradition has gone missing. we hit the streets of new york to find them. an america tonight special report. as states try to save money, are prisoners paying the price? >> what are you talking about, he's dead. >> an exclusive investigation into prison health care.

>> and now, a techknow minute...

>> and finally from us tonight. for the first time since the late 19th century there was a collision on the holiday calendars thanksgiving and hanukkah shared a day a jewish delicacy was scarce during this hollywood. there was a carolin knish crisis. >> there is more to the shortage

than the dishes a dish. >> on september 24th the biggest can. carolina knish. >> there is a one way to caution cause afire storm in new york is deprive yo us of this delicacy. >> once ordered by the dozen and sold in street carts and delis and grocery stores around the country the square knish is more ewilelusive in manhattan. good morning. can i get a carolin knish. no knish. to be honest i have never eaten a knish. i enlisted laura silverman to help me understand what people are missing. >> you say knish they think of a

perioaperiod in time and their n assesancestors and it's got allf that history wrapped into it. plus it's really good. >> what is a knisl mean t sh mean to you. >> i'm a native new yorker. i felt like it encapsulated our history. something linked to a jewish past. >> a knish is a filling usually potatoes wrap in dough. it was a fire that caused the national shortage. >> when the fire occurred on september 2 24th the machinery was destroyed. when the firefighters came in they did what they had to do but the water dabblin damage that te machine sustained rendered the machine unoperable. and since that time we have not

been able to marc-andr manufacte square knishes. this is stacey and her family has the corner on the market for generations. we always new our customers loved our knishes. but we could never have imagined outcry of when they will be back. the shortage means customers have to find alternatives. bidding for them on ebay or the less popular round knisles. >> i grew up as a round person. >> and you converted? >> i would say i'm equally interested in both. >> you didn't grow up eating square ones of in one corner deep fried and processed in the other the round c carolin knish.

they came in little round wax bags and i bought them on the beach. i visited a shop on the lower east side selling round knishes. a square fried knish is not a true knish. it's a yiddish word and it means dumpling. a knish must be round and big. if you have not had our knish you never had a knish. all right. >> about to bake up our knish. it wasn't long before ellen put me to work to help bake the knishes that they put out every everyday. how did i do? >> you see how much love is put into this? >> the last little piece of this delicacy. hum.

delicious. >> when are you going to give people back their knishes. >> we think we'll be able to do that in the last week of november and hopefully the worst case scenario the first week of december which does coincide with hanukkah this year. that is our hope. >> i never was able to taste a square knish. but i did devour many round ones and with it a piece of new york and jewish history. >> i'm excited to be here on forsythe street where cabilla's was founded. some people think it's a jewish thing but it's a new york identity people of all backgrounds channe clamoring for knishes and something that opens up worlds when you eat it. >> a fried ball of mashed poa

potatoes all wrapped in dough. it must lose something in translation. that was christopher reporting from the streets of new york. we'll see how he fairs when the knishes come back out. that is it for us on "america tonight" if you would like to comment on our stories log on to al jazeera.com/america tonight. you can join the conversation with us we are on twitter and we are running our own facebook page. look for us there. good night. we'll have more of america tonight, tomorrow. ♪

>> this is al jazeera america live from new york city. i'm jonathan betz. investigators searching for what went wrong after a deadly train derailment in new york. the city's first in decades. >> we lost four new yorkers this morning. we have 11 critically injured, in hospitals. i ask all new yorkers to remember them in your prayers tonight. >> in the ukraine - protesters are taking over buildings in the capital, demanding the president step down. >> a set back for gay rights. the european union's newest member votes to ban same-sex