check check >> hello, welcome to al jazeera america. i'm stephanie sy. here are the top stories. is a winter storm is hammering the north-easterb u.s. massachusetts is seeing a foot and a half of snow and other areas are. >> airlines across the u.s. were forced to cancel 23 hunt flights nationwide. boston's logan airport is closed. 600 flights scheduled for friday have been cancelled out of newark and laguardia. >> secretary of state john kerry is on his 10th visit to the middle east.

he will travel to the west bank to meet with mab a palestine president. >> a 648 foot cargo ship is being item fitted with technology in jirgeia to destroy some chemical weapons. it is undergoing work at a shipyard. >> toronto mayor rob ford, who confessed to smoking crack cocaine put his name on the bat ot for the next election. toronto voters will go to the polls in october. those are the headlines "america tonight" is up next on john dominis. -- onaljazeera.com -- at new lows even in chicago, but what's the viral dangerous scene that is playing out on line? >> now somebody goes and sees this and they are

looking for him. >> also tonight, a medical mystery so many of the basic things that make one feel like a human being become impossible. >> a debilitating syndrome turning bedrooms into prisons, largely ignored until now. and rocky mountain high? colorado fired up over legal marijuana. but it's not as free and easy as you may think. good evening everyone and thank you for joining us. violent crime has dropped to levels that haven't been seen since the 1960's. in chicago, for example, the number of murders

fell by close to 100. but that city is still ranked as the murder capitol of the u.s. with at least 412 people killed in 2013. the biggest problem is gang related violence. america tonight investigating how social media may be fueling that violence. >> . >> three guys in this video that you made. >> yeah. >> are all dead. >> they are dead. >> yep. >> alvin el moore and his partner shorty capone are some of the most prolific producers in an exploding hip-hop music scene. most of the artist he works with produce a style of hip-hop called drill music, that is 19 occupation with wealth with and other the top or sound that emphasizes the gritty underbelly of the streets of chicago.

>> how many have you made? >> i'm thinking over 200. >> is most of your clients? >> most of my clients are -- most rappers are gangsters in chicago. >> yeah. >> most of them are gangsters. >> most of your clients are gangsters? >> yeah. >> so right now we are on the west side of chicago, he is performing real music. ♪ i might get a close shot, a far away shot, and just move around. >> slow motion. >> the grimy becomes artistic looking. like all of that was put together, and just be

like born. >> a little more authentic? >> yeah. >> ill will and his crew call themselves the k tonganster. a click that affiliated with one of the biggest street gangs. it's not uncommon for clicks to shoot a music video every week. the videos are wildly popular online, sometimes receiving views in the millions. but they also serve a means to claim their drug territory, and issue threats. many of the music videos like this one from a click show members on their block brandishing real guns and depicting execution type killings.

it's estimated there are over 75 street gangs in chicago. over the last decade, top leaders have has led to a fracture of the gun violence. no one is really encharged any many, and on the south and west sides there can be warking clicks on nearly every other blob. in a story we produced for america tonight last summer, one of the clicks shows us the tools of their trade. we are doing what we with have to to survive. >> you would kill somebody to survive? >> yeah, yeah i will kill you. it is crazy. it is a million different groups, everybody against

everybody. >> where are we right now? >> wrest side of chicago, cape town. smoke, drink, just -- it is a block that's where we with come together. >> highway bar away do you have to walk before you are in somebody else's territory? >> past the tracks over there. three blocks you will be in a mexican neighborhood. >> would it be dangerous for you to go there? >> i wouldn't go there by myself. waiting to kill somebody, rob somebody. just me being smart, and knowing i shouldn't be there, and i am not super man. >> before almost every game click in the city, there's a rapper like ill will that is the public face, representing the block and taking on the dangerous game of calling out rivals on line. >> recently, i had to come by -- i would say

his name, because i don't give no [bleep]. [bleep]. i had a confrontation with breezy montana. i seen him at the show, and he was talking crazy on the internet. >> now let me show you something. >> now you see this. >> yeah. >> this is right here. >> gangster disciples in. >> yeah, they are throwing it up. say this is a gang sign. if a person don't like you, they will do this. >> so they butt it upside down in their video. >> they will drop it. now look at what he doing, he is dropping it. >> these are black basile pes. >> so what's the result? >> now somebody goes and sees this, and they looking for him. he disrespected us, man. >> this video has almost 3 1/2 million hits that's a lot. >> yeah. >> if you say something about me, and everybody see you said something about me, that mean you disrespected me, and if you disrespect me, i

can't let you get away with disrespecting me, so you have to retaliate. it is sad, but when you are in them type of neighborhoods you don't have nothing to live for that kind of stuff mean as lot to you. >> are you having words with somebody on this right now? >> yeah. [bleep]. >> what's that about? >> goofy, tripping. i see you in the streets and bang bang. >> where does all that come from? >> so he is threatening to shoot you? >> yeah. >> we with spoke to a known member of the disciples who asked us not to use his name. >> you have to defend yourself when you get put in a situation like 24. >> so you would kill somebody over this. >> yeah. what you suppose to do? >> so you have to kill that piece of cancer? >> yeah, shortly after this interview, he barely

escaped for being arrested for brandishing a gun, the next day he was picked up on separate assault charges. >> the most high profile case of an online beef resulting in real world violence involved the real music pioneer chief key, and a up and coming rapper named little jo-jo. last year, little jo-jo was affiliated with with the gangster disciples made a youtube video mocking him who is affiliated with the black disciples. >> little jo-jo also made a video of himself taunting a member of chief's entourage, who can be heard shouting back, i am going to kill you. >> that night, little jo-jo taunts them further, and tagged chief's crew. a few minutes later jo-jo was shot and killed in a drive by. thioate disneyed any involvement, somebody

from the twitter account mocked the murder, and said it is sad, because jo-jo wanted to be just like us, #lmao. ♪ . >> in the studio with ill will with and his crew, if they weren't in the booth laying down lyrics they were constantly on their smart phones sending tweets posting pictures and sharing videos. >> why does the feuding on facebook and on twitter seem to lead to more violence? >> people just being on there talking crazy for nothing. >> intire net gangsters? >> yeah. >> you say about somebody on facebook, for all these people to see, people don't know nothing about you, it is like dang, he trying to throw me out.

this is the problem right here. >> the ultimate disrespect is the distushing practice of videotaping reprisals. in this video, a young rapper is blind sided by a rival artist. nate is punched repeatedly, in a daze, he is forced to give up the belt he is wearing. the youtube video is eventually posted to the website, world star hip-hop. >> what is this site? what is word tar? >> world star is good news. this is the biggest urban site in the world. world star hip-hop is the major catalyst for -- using social media for gang stuff. >> yeah, that has 180,000 hits. >> that's what i'm talking about. everybody wants to feel

like the man. nobody makes you feel like the man than beating somebody else. the whole world wants to be a rapper. used to be to get out of the hood you want to be a basketball player, or a pitch, or a drug dealer, now the new thing is to be a rapper, and it is easy, because you have people out there -- you don't have to have any type of musical skills or anything. people straight out of jail, and they are good rap. >> out here the value of life is deteriorating. it doesn't have as much value, where you will see somebody die, and then the person they will laugh about it on twitter. it is like no, this person just -- you know, he isn't going to breathe any more. oh yeah, they do all that the time. a lot of people babb about how they are real gangster, and they kill people, at first i didn't believe them, the death toll in chicago is

getting up so high, maybe they are telling the truth. >> yeah, i am on t.v. for a living and i am on all the social networks some people love it, beam that hate my work, people talk smack about me all the time online, and that's just something i just have to live with with and deal with. i don't go out and kill them. >> you ain't in the same line of business. you feel like your name is your livelihood? >> yeah. >> is it worth losing your life over? is. >> i am not going to lose my wife. i am going to protect myself. >> well, chicago's mayor says various young programs have played a role in helping produce violent crime, now new york also saw a drop in the murder rate, and former mayor michael bloomberg claimed that the city's police force play add big part in proeffect thing new yorkers from violent crime. >> if you compare this decade to the previous murder rate, we can literally say that we have saved more than 9,200 lives in the last

12 years. new york, chicago, detroit, each one seeing murder rates going down, so can all the credit go to police. joining us for that conversation, criminalist university -- what do you think is driving down crime? sevenly police aboutivity is helpful but it isn't the only explanation. there are complicated relationships among gangs, among drug use, drug sales. and that will have an impact on the crime rate, and murder rate in particular. >> how can something change that quickly? we saw many of these cities where the homicide rates were actually going up. or they were stagnant for a couple of years and then you see some huge deductions when you look down at the numbers.

in chicago alone, almost 100 fewer. is it usual? >> it is very much so. and i think some of that is explained by demographics, that is the aiming at which people are engagin engaging in vit crime, engaging in murder. people worker are being arrested and temporarily or for long period of time put behind bars but that's not the full explanation. in some cities where they have a coordinated policies and programs between prosecutors and police, such as project exile, such as the boston program that can have an effect. >> project exile, isn't that basically where the federal authorities and the state authorities are getting together trying to cut down on illegal guns in. >> getting them out of individuals they know to have possessed gun used those guns in violent crimes in the past. and keeping a individual leapt eye on those communities where those

activities go on. >> the murder rate is going up in some places, one city, for example, is baltimore, with the murder rate has jumped 18 here in the last year, it is up to 235. least, washington, d.c., also saw an increase in their murder rate going up to 104. interestingly both of those cities that saw an increase were here in the mid atlantic, or the regional differences here, what's making this area different than what is happening in the rest of the country? >> i don't think that there's necessarily a regional connection that would be an easy explanation. i just think there's probably similarity oz what is going on in say for example the drug markets in both cities, policing practices to a limited extent. also to another anomaly too is a lot of people suggested that the crime rate in the concern in washington, d.c. would go down, it would simply transfer or be displaced to say the suburbs like

prince georges county, but prince georges county the crime rate and in particular the murder rate has decreased to 57 murders last year, and down about 19%. so what happens is from year to year, cities increase, they decrease, there are explanations that are not rock solid. to explain what is going on. people that to tess handguns the sale of handguns the motion. and then to a lipped extent, police crack downs on those individuals and on those gangs to disrupt those patterns that can have an effect on the violent crime rate and also the murder rate. one word answer, do you think it will increase or decrease in. >> i think it is anybody's guess. >> criminallology at the university of baltimore, thank you for joining us.

>> my pleasure. >> 100 million americas in it's path, a massive storm, single different temperatures. several inches of snow. when and where. >> i just hope that it won't be as bad as they say. >> just keeps piling up, and doesn't stop. >> and later, it's high times in colorado. smoking pot, now legal. but when the smoke clears, can users still

chilliest winter they have seen in a while. >> so far, 24 is probably one of the codest winters i remember since i was a kid. >> chicago is already blanketed beneath a foot of snow, a familiar sen far locals. >> it is the january. it could be a lot worse,

you know that. so i guess we have to roll with the muchs. >> so this kind of snowfall is expected by some, slick road conditions are still a nightmare for commuters. >> i am leaving an hour and a half ahead of time to get to work, which should only take me 20-25 minutes. icy roads have become dangerous. from detroit to minneapolis, to western kentucky, slippery conditions left many cars spinning out of control. causing drivers to crash into barricades and into each other. also on alert, air travelers. so far more than 2300 flights delayed nearly 1500 others canceled. the storm is headed eastbound, with residents from massachusets, to new york, stocking up on the essentials. >> ed in meantime, some are just making the most

of it. >> that is one bright spot, the major storm is marching east, tracking that storm, kevin, we with got a little bit of snow falling here, but this is a big system, can you explain where it is. >> we can, it is the combination of two storms believe it or not. one of them, of course that's the one that came through parts of the great lakes, across chicago, detroit, that one is now bringing the snow as well as the storm system that came in from the south. these two are coming together, and across the northeast, that is where we expect to see, of course, the heaviest snow, already some places already exceeded a foot. let's break it down just a little bit. here is the one coming in from the west. swell the system over the atlantic. this is going to bring very heavy snow across much of the area, and merge as we go across the overnight hours and into tomorrow. as you can see the, the snow is expected to

settle all the way down across many parts of the eastern seaboard, all the way down to parts of virginia. >> so how much snow are we expected and where these two meet, is there also the concern for ice? >> well, we will be seeing the ice, and the temperatures are going to be coming down. right now you can see where you are in washington, we are about 36 degrees here in new york, we are at 25. boston is already at 10. the winds are picking up and getting much stronger that's one of the big problems, that's what will be causing the police saturday conditions and with those winds it makes the temperatures feel more like minus 18. minus 30 in portland, and 11 degrees already here in new york. tomorrow morning, it is going to be in the lower than that. wake up your temperatures will be in the single differents here, philadelphia at 6, and washington at about 13.

all right, thank you so much. >> it's a debilitating disease, and a medical mystery. 1 million americans effected. the victims mostly women. the children we would have, and i don't know what is going to happen to all of that.

after being frozen andes. trapped for nine days, all 52 passengers onboard a rucks research ship have been rescued. the crews had to battle some fierce winter weather and to help the effort, the passengers themselves took initiative and stomped out a landing site in the snow for that emergency helicopter. well, wedding bells were ringing in pasadena california on the first day of the new year. a sanction semicouple ties the knot during the one hundred twenty-fifth

tournament of roses parade. despite talk of a boycott, thousands cheered on the couple who got married on the aids healthcare foundation float. gobbing tors in houston are triting barbara bush for a respiratory issue. the eight-year-old wife of president george hw bush has been in the hospital since monday, said to be responding well to treatment. tonight, we with want to talk about a devastating disease one that is still searching for an identity. it sometimes go business the name chronic fatigue syndrome, tiffs first diagnosed back in the 1980's. almost three decades later ill still goes mig diesed and it is effecting 1 million americans mostly women. one woman who is trying to thing that. >> the first time we met jennifer, she is on the floor of her bedroom. she is just taken a shower, he first of this week.

the most basic tasks brushing her teeth, taking her medication, are exhausting. >> i would describe it like being a broken battery, where every time you try to charge me, i maybe fill to 5%. i think the thing that is hard to understand about this illness is just how much it takes away from you. and how so many of the basic things that make one feel like a human being just become impossible. >> as we talked jennifer lay on the sofa wrapped in blankets sitting up, just too draining. >> when did you get sick? >> i got sick about three years ago. and the first year it was really unclear what was going wrong. every time i would go to my doctor i would get a different explanation, they would assume it was common, i was 28. >> and healthy. >> yeah. >> three years ago,

jennifer was an advenes rouse post grad student. traveling through africa. she hoped to one day return and share the experience with a soul mate. >> i was in tanzania, but i didn't climb kilo ma jar rah because i wanted to do that with somebody i loved. i was at the pyramids but i didn't go inside, because i wanted to do that -- . >> so it fete like lost opportunity? >> when i first met jen, she was not only not ill, but she was somebody who was in constant motion. >> omar is jennifer's husband, he is now a professor aspirinston university. >> i saw her come in as a perspective student to graduate school, and i was totally schmidten when i first saw her. just a go geter and took the world on with both hands.

and so this is a very different state for jen now. after more than a year of repeated itnesses and infection as year of seeing doctor whose had no idea what she had, she finally got a diagnosis. a chronic fatigue syndrome. >> i think the thing that is hard to see is that i feel sick every single moment of the day. when she does leave the house now, she most often depends on a wheelchair. >> a simple day out takes ma tick louse planning. and outings are few and far between. >> you okay. >> yeah. >> it's primary symptoms are profound fatigue, and pain. although i think a close third would be cognitive difficulties.

concentration problems. >> dr. nancy is director of the incity fought for neuroimmune medicine. it's a premier research and treatment center for chronic fatigue syndrome in south florida. >> it seems to be a post infectious illness, someone has an acute infection, and then when a healthy immune system would have allowed it to come and go, these patients remain terribly ill after the acute virus is gone. >> researchers at this clinic say at least 1 million americans suffer from cff. once derided as yuppy flu. women suffer it four times the rate of men, it cuts across all races. 30 years after the disease was first discovered in the u.s., there is still no single diagnostic test, and no treatment. research funding is scarce. >> it's been a very very small budget, if you have to compare it to something, pick anything else.

i looked up made pattern baldness, $18 million. $3 million for chronic fatigue syndrome, an illness that effects 1 million people, that has at least 25% of them out of work. >> studies show that fewer than 20% of cff patients in the u.s. are improperly diagnosed. that's because many doctors tell their patients their symptoms are psychological. the name itself chronic fatigue syndrome is a problem she says. >> just a lousy name. it doesn't describe the illness very well. it is very pray othertive that doctors don't think it is very important. family members don't think it is important. to have somebody desperately ill, i have chronic fatigue syndrome, oh, honey, i am tired too, take a nap. >> here is an example of what this kind of fatigue and pain looks like. a video from jennifer's wedding. a beautiful day, a

beautiful location. and a beautiful bride. can we with talk about your wedding? >> it was beautiful, and wonderful, and hard. i didn't know -- i still don't know how longly be sick. >> i have for so many years been something less than all of me. and then i found you. my soul mate. >> help me understand why you needed someone else to speak your vows for you? >> i didn't think i would have the energy to do it. and i remember in that moment how i felt, and how much physical discomfort i was. >> what makes living with this illness so much harder, is the reluctance of some doctors to believe the origins are physical. jennifer is making a documentary about her illness, to raise awareness and she hopes

increase funding for medical research. she is calling it cannonry in a coal. >> do you want me to do a run through. >> definitely. i think we should do a couple. >> on this day, they drive from their home in princeton to new york city. to pitch the documentary. >> if this is going to be my life for five years or forever, i need to make that better, and i need to show the world this. >> she is already been selected as one of five finalists. >> the doctor has said to me, everything you are feeling is in your head. >> jennifer hopes to bring more attention to this illness that most doctors know so little about. >> with with this film we are going to finally give a true face to this disease. >> the jury awarded her a special prize, one with thousand dollars, enough

funding to buy a new and more sophisticated camera. >> how do you feel physically? >> there was a price for a day like this? >> i feel sore. my body is achy. >> yeah, this is -- i think we just have to be exceedingly cautious. >> it took me two or three days to feel the same as i did the morning before i left. >> for jennifer, and the many others like her, there's still no cure and for jennifer in omar, that mannose clear path to their future together. >> my husband and i got engaged in the first year of my illinoisness, and it is hard to think about -- plans that we had for our life, all the places we would travel, the chin we would have, and i just -- i just don't know what is going

to happen to all of that. now, this month, other researchers plan to meet to discuss rebranding chronic fatigue syndrome, and two criteria to help doctors to a better job of recognizing it. roof the break, the mile high city lives up to its name. >> we drove eight hours here just to do this legally, finally. >> one of the first buyers of one of the businesses was from england. >> when we return, up in smoke in colorado. it may be legal, but can you still get burned by >> every sunday night, al jazeera america presents extraordinary films from the worlds top documentary directors this week: is love enough? >> that was a dream of ours... four children.... >> a little girl, removed from everything she's ever known... >> she's gone through a ton of orphan stuff... >> if their hopes don't turn out to be the reality...are they

gonna crash? >> an unflinching look at a family learning to love >> i think she could have used a hug... >> dark matter of love on al jazeera america

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peoplen verb migrants and

impoverished work ed p p 1.3 bought mat lanes are living in the united states. in 2012, they september home a record $4.8 billion. nine pest, of guatemalaen's gross domestic product, but there's a high cost. al jazeera has the story, of the dark side of migration, reporting from guatemala's western highlands be p in dusty towns and villages there's a quiet exodus underway. every day, hundreds of people begin the perilous trip to the united states, driven north by hopes of a better future. but for many, the american dream is a nightmare. >> it's a terrible situation. it makes my wife cry. >> for years augustine wanted to two to the wrights to work, tired of

his children going to bed hungry, the father of five agreed to pay smugglers $7,500 for a so called special trip to the united states. but augustine was caught by u.s. immigration at the border and sent back to guatemala in leg shackles. i went to the united states to make life better for my children. they can't go to school now because i can't pay for class materialses. >> now he has to figure out how to pay the cripples debt. >> here if we can mind work we only makes 5-dollar as day, i don't know how many years it will take to pay back the money i owe, it may never be possible to pay it back. >> but successfully crossing the border and finding a job doesn't guarantee a better life. for those that are left behind. her husband went to the u.s. nine years ago, she didn't want him to leave, but he promised the money he earned would help him build a house and pay for

education, however once he was settled into his new life, he abandoned them. >> after he paid the thousands of dollars he owed to the people that took him there, he stopped spending money. he said he was forced to work when he was young, and our children should do the same. he left when our son was eight days old. and it is her children who are paying the highest price. now nearly ten, her son pedro has never met his father. >> i miss him so much, even though i don't know him. if he can't send money to us, i just want him to come home. >> the estimated that one out of every ten guatemalaens has gone to the united states looking for work. in 2012, these migrants sent home nearly $5 billion. it's a lifeline in a country where more than half of the population lives in poverty.

and a reminder of why so many take the risk. >> seeing houses like this one, is one of the things that really drives people here to make the dangerous trip north, the idea of making lots of money coming back, building a house, building a business, and changing the lives of their family. >> but this too creates problems. migrants are driving up the price of land. parcels like this have shot up by 10,000%. katherine that has to borrow $1,500 just to pie a 10th of an acre, now he is hoping her son working in the u.s. can buy off the bank loan. >> the price of land has gone up so much, and when the seller hears that you have family in the united states, the price goes up even higher. but what can we do? >> historians link the beginning of migration to a c.i. a. orchestrated

cue data in 1954. that single event layed the ground work for a 36 year civil war, latin america's bloodiest. in the battle against communism, the united states support add succession of guatemalaen dictators. some of whom are accused of wiping villages off the map. >> all of the people here were devastated be i the war, we lost land, houghses, and family members and we still face many problems. frank cisco works with with families in the region, and has seen first hand the dark side. but he thinks the u.s. has an important role to play as well. >> the commission for the clarification makes clear the united states played

in the guatemalaen civil war, and this is why the u.s. should help our community recover by providing temporary work visas, this will mean people would haven't to travel to the u.s. illegally, with all the devastating impacts on our communities. >> in the meantime, his group continues the grass roots work, one of their latest projects going after deadbeat dads. katherine that is one of their first success stories. with her help, she got an arrest warrant, for not paying child support. rather than risk being arrested when he returns to guatemala, he agreed to start paying. initially he didn't want to send my son anything. but thankfully he changed his mind, and on january, last year, he started sending 25-dollar as month. while it may not seem like much, for her and her son, it was good news. and as the land of

opportunity continues to draw thousands of guatemalaens north, good news is sometimes hard to come by. david mercer, al jazeera, guatemala. >> and that is it for us here on america tonight, remember if you would like to comment on any of the stories you have seen here, just log on to our website, aljazeera.com/america tonight. and join the conversation on our twitter and facebook pages. good night. >> an exclusive "america tonight" investigative series >> we traveled here to japan to find out what's really happening at fukushima daiich >> three years after the nucular disaster, the hidden truth about the ongoing cleanup efforts and how the fallout could effect the safety of americans >> are dangerous amounts of radioactive water, leaking into the pacific eververyday? >> join america tonight's michael okwu for an exclusive four part series, as we return to fukushima

only on al jazeera america ♪ this is al jazeera. ♪ hello and welcome to another news hour from doha and our top story, taking the fight to south sudan's capitol and marching on juda. they killed three people. new york declares a state of emergency, as a huge snowstorm hits the united states. and packing