>> hello, welcome to al jazeera america. i'm jonathan betz in new york. >> words of respect and criticism for ariel sharon, the controversial israeli prime minister dyingar eight years in a coma. the chemical spill in west virginia, it may be days before 300,000 people can use tap water again. >> prisons for profit. we look at whether it's ethical for companies to care for prisoners. >> alex rodriguez sentence is reduced, but he says it's still too much.

>> there are tears and cheers in the middle east as a pivotal israeli figure passes away. former prime minister ariel sharon died this morning after eight years in a coma. he was 85 years old. one of ariel sharon's sons spoke outside the hospital where his father died. >> translation: that's it. he's gone. he went when he decided to go >> many in israel are mourning. the president spoke about the deep love many had for the former prime minister. >> the state of israel mourns today the loss of one of its greatest leaders, former prime minister ariel sharon. he was an outstanding man and an exceptional commander who moved his people and loved them and

the people love him. >> there are many that are celebrating ariel sharon's death. many palestinians viewed him as destructive and an opponent. >> president obama honoured ariel sharon saying: >> vice president joe biden will lead the u.s. delegation in the memorial service. ariel sharon will lie in state. he is expected to be given a military funeral at his family farm. we turn to nick schifrin in jerusalem. what has been the reaction there to his death? >> they are mostly mourning tonight as you said. the man they used to call king eric for his military victory, using his first name in the palestine territories, a couple of miles from here, they are calling him a brutal bulldozer.

many are celebrating. everyone here in the palestinian territories and the region were affected by ariel sharon's policies. he was on the public stage for 60 years. from the beginning he was polarizing. >> it was a moment that defined everything that he stood for. in 2000 in jerusalem ariel sharon walked through the plaza of the al aqsa mosque. >> there's no provication here, it's on the other side >> a provication it was. his visit trigger outrage and the second palestine uprise. the violence that it sparked propelled him to election as prime minister. and proves once again that the brash bull-headed ariel sharon did what he wanted - seized land that he desired, and no one dared stop him. as much as anyone in the last 50 years ariel sharon helped to

define the israeli state. many loved him for it. others despised him. first he was an audacious and successful soldier, his campaigns redrawing the state's borders. in 1967 he won one of the most sensational battles in the six day war. israel doubling in size. in 1973 as a battlefield general his leadership presented defeat in the war. in 1982 as defence minister he lead the invasion of lebanon. but after the victory he ordered his forces to stand bias the lebanese fighters that he was supporting slaughtered hundreds, if not thousands of palestine refugees. it should have been the end of his career. he had to resign, an israeli commission of inquiry found him indirectly responsible. ariel sharon survived and returned to power as a right-wing politician. he helped to create the pit call

party that leads israel, and master minded the modern settler movement, a legal and controversial. he saw settlements as ball works against arab neighbours he didn't trust. >> all the communities we build, jude yeah, samaria, gaza districts, the golan heights are not an obstacle to peace, but an obstacle to war. >> for ariel sharon, there was no greater than yasser arafat. he targeted the palestine leader. he forced yasser arafat into excite from lebanon. when yasser arafat was palestine president, ariel sharon laid siege to his compound. yasser arafat was a prisoner in his home. in the end left without seeing the palestine state that ariel sharon fought hard against. >> one must understand we speak about a murderer. he's a murderer.

a path logic alliar >> ariel sharon promised israel's security and took the long-term view. in 2001 during a wave of suicide bomb attacks ariel sharon chose separation. he ordered the construction of a massive wall. he ghettoized some of the left bank, took land the palestinians called their own and redefined israel's borders. >> i understand peace. the first thing, the most important one, is to bring security for the citizens of israel. >> when he decided that security meant removing settlers from the gaza strip , the father of the settlement movement withstood resistance. ariel sharon did what he wanted with land israel seized. he was on his way to being re-elected prime minister. in 2006 he suffered a stroke. he was brought by ambulance to the hospital and never woke up.

always polarizing, ariel sharon was seen by many as the sign of israeli strength. others saw the symbol of israeli cruelty. as a writer put it, his story became israel's story. today's israel is ariel sharon's israel. >> the polarization continues in his death. allies call him a protector and an important architect. the spokesman for hamas which runs the gaza strip says this, "ariel sharon is a criminal whose hands are smeared with the blood of our people" a lot of diverse thoughts on this man. >> nick schifrin live in jerusalem. >> as nick mentioned not everyone is mourning the death of ariel sharon, for many palestinians his death was a reason to rejoice.

zeina khodr has more reaction from a refugee camp. >> the streets were littered with mutilated bodies, dead people, women, elderly, the children. palestinians killed in the infam awes shabra and shatilla massacres. people are celebrating once they heard of the death of ariel sharon. he was defence minister in 1982. the israeli army was in beirut, they lay siege to the camp and said they were pursuing fighters belonging to the palestine liberation organization but an ally entered the camp and carried out the killings. most of the survivors are rejoicing his death. no one is mourning his death. what they wanted to see was ariel sharon taken to an international court, tried for what they see are the crimes

committed against them. it never happened. there were numerous attempts. a lot of survivors said the death won't change much. it's a policy, a state policy which they believe the israeli government will never allow these people to go home. hundreds of thousands want to go home in compliance with u.n. resolution, giving them the right to return. is it >> as israel mourns, the secretary of state john kerry will continue to push for peace. we have an international affairs contributor juan cole live for us. what is the legacy, specially when it comes to the current middle east peace talks. >> ariel sharon's policies are responsible for the impasse that the region finds it is in. he was a big supporter of colonising the palestine west

bank. his policies in some ways leyed to the israeli seizure. he plotted to de-griff palestinians of 45% of the wang, even after the oslo accords had been arrested. >> later he pulled israeli settlers out of gaza and credited for wanting a palestine state. >> well, he did start walking about a palestine state. i'm afraid to say it was the way the south african apartheid leaders talked about a better stand for africans. he wanted to make whatever state emerge subard nate to israel --

subother nayed to israel. he pulled out of gaza and didn't negotiate. he prepared the way for the take over of the strip by the fundamentalist hamas movement >> do you think he was not moving in the right direction with the palestinians? do you thing his exact to the extent that he came to understand it wouldn't be acceptable for the world to abssh the trert t -- te territory. it wasn't enough. >> how does his leadership style compare to the current leaders. >> ariel sharon set a tone of

impetuousness. of bellagerance. when you hear nettan yeah hue talk about striking at iran, he's echoing the style that ariel sharon adopted of impet impetuousness and talking big. >> i wonder if you are being fair since a lot of people feel like in the later years he tried to reach the divide and tried to come up with a solution. >> i agree that he negotiated with them and started to talk about a palestinian state. he complained he had no partner for negotiations, and was

dismissive of the palestinian leadership. as i said, when he took a practical step, like withdrawing from gaza, he did it in a flat-footed way and an ara gant way that it boomeranged on israel, and on the palestinians. so i i'm a harsh critic, i won't hide it. i don't think that he should get credit for being a peacemaker when he didn't do anything really to make peace >> ariel sharon certainly a polarizing figure, juan coles our international affairs contributor. >> 300,000 people are without tap water after the chemical spill in west virginia. more than 30 have been treated for symptoms of nausea and vomiting. the spill happened in charleston. since then thousands had been lining up for water. jonathan martin has more in

charleston. >> with no clear time line for when tap water will be safe to use, thousands of west virginians are stocking up on clear water. >> we've been using it sparingly. >> the federal emergency management agency is delivering 1 million leaders of bottled water to the nine affected counties. >> getting up, washing your hair or feeding the baby with formula catches you off guard. >> i caught rain water to do the dishes with. >> the health department says the water was contaminated with a harmful chemical used in the preparation of coal. up to 5,000 gallons spilled into the elk river from a storage tank at freedom industries. the problem is impacting hundreds of businesses from restaurants to salons. many are forced to shut.

>> we have no idea when we'll get a report that the water is safe enough to use. >> steven blake is a hairdresser in charleston. >> my clients come in, they want the hair shampooed or it's necessary or water for chemical services. without that we can't work. >> charleston medical center is using two giant tankers. it's enough to last a few days. all nonemergency surgeries are on hold. a small number have come in complaining of symptoms relating to the chemical spill. they include nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. they are testing and flushing out the system. >> the president of the water company says chemical levels are declining. they don't have a broad sample of the water to say it's safe to use. >> jonathan martin there in west virginia. when we return, a rod is out,

but not as long as baseball wanted. prisons for profit. an al jazeera special. is it economical or ethical for private companies to run the country's gaols?

>> idaho is taking control of its privately run for profit prisons. states taxpayers paid corrections corporation of america $29 million to run the facility. the company has been the subject of lawsuits and allegations of allegations and contract fraud. courtney kxealy is here with more on that. >> despite idaho's decision, many states across the country turn to for-profit prisons to ease overcrowding, despite reports of abuse, violence and fraud in several of them. an investigation by the associated press led to a release of this video, showing an inmate beating another. no one, not even the guards

bothers to stop the fight. the beating went on so long that the inmate attacking him took a break to catch his breath. ap reporter rebecca boon has been investigating the correction system in idaho for seven years. >> we found the correctional center, the cca prison, had a rate three times higher. >> the correctional corporation of america runs the idaho center, the only privately run prison in the state. inmates and prison guards nicknamed it the gladiator school. the fight was visible on surveillance, it took 10 minutes for guards to step in. the beaten inmate sustained pan brain damage. cca settled a lawsuit with the family, one of many filed against the company. the release of the surveillance video did not prompts major changes. >> in 2012 cca billed the state for 3,000 hours for which no one had done any work.

it was at the beginning of this work that governor otter announced idaho would not review the contract with cca and said in a letter to the bored of corrections: >> on-friday governor otter, who has been in favour of the private prisons decided handover should happen immediately. he may not have had a choice. after years of lawsuits, cca decided not to rebid and no competitor was willing to step in. cca, the go group and mtc operate 130 facilities. idaho is not the only place where private prisons ran into controversy. dozens of inmates from injured when a fight at a prison run by

cca turned into a wry opt. the use of privately owned prisons to reduce overcrowding was voted in. california is under pressure to do the same. >> we are talking of less than 10% of the prison population. >> i spoke in california. >> there are as many bad stories coming out of public prisons as well as private prisons. >> another reason, lobbying and political spending. the companies spend tens of thousands in political contributions in key states. despite controversy it doesn't look like they are going away soon. >> cca settled several lawsuits but made 1.7 billion in profits. we reached to the company and governor otter for comment but received no reply. >> it's a big issue with a lot of money at stake. >> let's talk about it with

antonio mora, the reason foundation, and alex freedman, the managing editor of monthly magazine "prison legal news", thank you for both being with us. let's start with you adrian. explain to us how is it ethical for companies that are for profit to be in this business serving a public need? >> well, there are private for profit companies serving all sorts of needs. they provide food, drugs, water, electricity, our housing. that shouldn't be that shocking. the question of prisons is is a tricky thing. if they were private corporate institutions independent of the state that could lock people up, that would be very scary. that is not what these are. these are facilities where the government decides who will go to prison and they hire a

company to be prison guards, o run the facility to incarcerate the inmates. decisions about who goes in, who goes out are controlled by the state, and the reason it's ethic am, i think, is two fold. first of all, private prisons drive down the cost of the system, and costs are a serious consprint to improving the quality. they are cheaper in general, according to many studies, and stayed that have private prisons have lower costs in state-run prisons due to the competition. there's more oversight. in government prisons there's nobody watching the watchman. in every private prison there are state monitors monitoring those privately run prisons. somebody is watching to make sure that conditions are the way they are supposed to be. >> they come with a lot of controversy and claims of abuse and studies saying they don't

save taxpayer money. alex, has there been a firm conclusive evidence to show private prisons do a better or worse job than public prisons? >> that depends on what metrics you use to determine what is better or not. a lot of people look at cost savings. there has been a lot of research done on that over the last three decades, and some studies found they do save money. most are done with funding by the private prison industry or organizations that accept money from the private prison industry. some find that there is no cost savings, and most found it's equivocal, we are not sure, it depends how you calculate it. there's a lot of factors you have to factor in to get an apples to apples comparison. we are not sure. some studies say you do save money, some you don't. that's one metric.

there's other involved, which is the quality of supervision at the facilities, the condition of confinement and so on. i would disagree that there has been a study that shows a private prison do it better than public prisons. >> it's not in the private prison's interest to abuse the interests, to cause problems. adrian, why are we seeing these reports pop out? >> well, unfortunately in any system there are some failures. your reporter had, i think, a right on the money quote from mr horn saying you have to look at the totality of the system. there aren't any studies showing that private prisons have better positions than government-run prisons. overall, looking at hundreds of facilities, they are as good as private prisons. there are a call of reasons.

private prison guards do not have sovereign immunity from being sued for violating rites and private companies are subject to lawsuits and have a big incident if to keep a lid on it. you have the oversight from the state which doesn't exist with state facilities. look at states like california where abusive inmates and withholding of their right went on for decades before a lawsuit got the federal government to step in. and l.a. county gaols where abuses went on for years before the federal government is stepping in to investigate. this is a problem that is unfortunately occurring within the correctional system. and private systems are finding a way to address that. >> that is a good point. i'll get-alex's response. there has been abuse in prison for many years, whether publicly

for privately run. some have a lot more layers of cut -- scrutiny. what do you make of that. >> we have problems. systematically the criminal justice system has a lot of issues involved. whether it's public or private, that's across the board. however, a few points. one, mr horn, what he said was that the reports of bad things happening are coming equally out of public and private prisons. private prisons house 8% of state and federal inmates nationwide. 92% of them are publicly run, the facilities. we have a disproportionate number of reports coming out of privately operated prisons. that being said, in terms of the monitoring and the layers and making sure the companies do the right thing. where would the monitors at the

idaho, where were they, or the mtv prison in arizona, where the prisoners escaped and there was gross security violations of guards ignoring fence alarms. having monitors is not enough. the public prison system, every employee is a monitor. if you have one or two monitors at a private prison, history shows it's insufficient. they are not doing a great job of monitoring the prisoners at that facility. >> what do you make of the concerns that the lobbying efforts by the private prisoners are driving the spike in states handing over the control of prisoners to private companies. >> that has to do with a number of factors. a lot of it is to do with ipp -- incarceration policies.

we have 2.3 million if prison, the largest incarceration. we are the nation's biggest gaoler. as that grows it creates a market for the private prison industry. it's part and parcel of sentencing policies and how the prison justice system works. private prisoners provide an extra bed space so that states can incarcerate more people than they physically have room to incarcerate. when they run out of bed space they hire private companies. they can incarcerate more people without dealing with the problems of sentencing laws and overincarceration. the companies have a vested interest in this. they lobby state governments and federal governments. the associated press ran a report in 2012 finding the top three private prison companies spend $45 million in lobbying. these are enormous amounts of money. what are they lobbying for.

they profit from incarceration. they are lobbying for contracts, prisons to be privatized, more people to be put in prison. >> i want your response on that, adrian. >> i 100% agree we have a huge problem with overincarceration in this country. it's out of control. i don't think the way to deal with that is to reduce the prison supply and overcrowding that comes along with that. on the lobbying front, this is a big issue. no one provided an iota of evidence that private prison companies lobbied to have more people put in prison. they give political contributions to democrats in the states where they have companies that have contracting with the government. meanwhile the private prison guard unions out spend them in lobbying for more people to be put in prison. the prison guards union in

california spent the entire correctional industry on lobbying to have more people put in prison. that's where the lobbying is. >> great discussion on an issue affecting a lot of americans. alex freedman and adrian moore, thank you both for being with us tonight. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> a major retailer has customers' private information stolen. that story ahead. also ahead on al jazeera america - baseball star alex rodriguez says he'll fight the suspension taking him out of the 2014 season. what are the chances an a rod will win the fight?

. >> welcome back to al jazeera america.

i'm jonathan betz with the top stories. >> vice president joe biden will lead the u.s. delegation in a memorial ceremony. the former israeli prime minister died after being in a coma for eight years. he'll be given a military funeral at his family farm on monday. >> for some his death was a reason to rejoice. palestinians burnt images. palestinians viewed him as destructive and an opponent of their independence. >> in west virginia there's no word on when residence of nine counties will be able to use their own water after a chemical spill affected drinking water of 3,000 people. >> on the heels of a target security breach, neiman marcus says their system was hacked. >> neiman marcus confirmed that thieves broke into the computer system and took cart information from customers who shopped in

the stores. the retailer says a credit card processor told the company that card numbers had been used for unauthorised purchasers, and a forensic firm confirmed it on january 1st. a spokeswoman says the company does not know the cost, size or duration of the breach. it comes after target admitted the holiday data theft was larger than thought. that breach could affect more than 100 million people. one out of every three americans. and target confirms that the data left includes people who shopped in target stores before the holiday season, contrary to statements that only people who shopped in the stores from september 17th to december 15th were affected. >> jessica taff, a rod not happy about a decision. >> that's the case. the arbitrator in the steroid case upheld most of the original

substantial. alex rodriguez missing the entire 2014 season, including the play-offs if the yankees make the post season. the games was dropped from 211 to 162. the original suspension handed down on august 8th. a rod's appeal allowed him to play during the 2013 season. alex rodriguez released a statement saying in part: >> as for the yankees, they release a statement saying:

>> for more on this and what it means on the field, let's check in with baseball insider michael o'keefe who has been on the front line of this story. thanks for joining us. the yankees have an extra $24 million, but a rod says he still wants to be at spring training. what is the next move. >> thanks for having me. the yankees could try to buy out his contract. they'd owe him $61 million. they may tell him to ride the pine and sit it out for the season and try to join the team in 2015. he is going to be close to 40 next year. it will be difficult for him to comeback after being out for a year. remember, he started out, he played for six weeks or so at the end of the season, played

well for the first couple of weeks, but he looks like he had lost a couple of steps in the last few weeks of the season. >> is there a cans the yankees try to start a deal with him, get him out of the miss and work a deal that may be an early retirement. >> this may be part of the negotiation. "we'll give you x amount of dollars if you don't show up in tampa." this is spring training, which starts in a month, five weeks from now. that may be part. if he reports to tampa, they certainly will send him to the minor league camp across the street from where the big leaguers work out. that might be humiliating to him. there may be something he may want to do. discussions may happen for the next couple of days about what will happen when we hit the

middle of february and the players return to tampa. >> speaking about what will happen. he's never admitted to using the peds. he would not have appealed. brian was suspended for 65 after admitting he used it. why did he get so many games? >> well, you know, the arbitrator has not announced or made public the reasoning behind his decision. we can only speculate. one of the things is that he was accused of multiple violations of the drug policy. we are not talking about one violation here, m major league baseball presented evidence which he did peds over multiple times. the other thing he is accused of doing is obstructing the investigation. he tried to intimidate witnesses and buy off witnesses and documents. >> thank you, michael o'keefe of

the new york "daily news", it will go for a while. >> it's a good point, it's late in his career, it's do or die at this point. >> americans planning to attend the winter olympics have been issued a travel warning. u.s. citizens should stay on alert because of terror threats and crime. washington is not aware of threats, but large events like the olympic are an attractive target for terrorists. the government says five were detained in russia and they were found with grenades, amupition and a self-made explosive device. the arrest happened 185 miles east of soechi where the olympis will beedly. >> israel's army chief gave an clear es announcement of running for president. abdul fatah al-sisi says the

mandate must come from the people. he ousted mohamed morsi, and mohamed morsi supporters held mass protests calling for the rein statements. the iraqi army continued the bombardment on fallujah. international observers warn of fuel and food shortages in the city. dozens of people died across anbar province. the prime minister has called for national unity. >> in afghanistan selling scraps from former u.s. military bases has become a multi-million dollar industry. dealers have come through piles of material. a treasure hunt is not always possible. >> the war machine in afghanistan is broken down and sold. these are scraps of equipment from kandahar air base. for years a major american facility in southern afghanistan. whatever is not being packed up and sent to the u.s. or given to

african forces is sold to local dealers. much of it has been intentionally damaged. mohammed zarif shifts through a pile of scraps that was once a large tent. >> this could have been worth $5,000 if it was not in pieces, baffled that something to valuable had been destroyed much >> translation: what is the point in doing that. if they were functioning, we could use them. they are making something worth $1,000 into $10. they could be a treasure, but they break into pieces and send it to us. >> the military doesn't want to pass on anything useful for bomb making. the kandahar base housed thousands of soldiers, much of what was like a small town is sold to local traders, and end up in scrap yards like this on the edge of the city. >> many complain they prefer to have intact equipment and not stuff that has been destroyed, the industry of buying and

selling scrap from foreign military basis is a multi million dollar one in kandahar, employing thousands of local people. >> translation: i move stuff from here to there and live my life and feed 10 members of my family. it works or us. >> others are less forgiving. >> if they were thinking about afghanistan, they leave the things functioning to a poor person could use them. i don't have shoes, there are shoes coming from there with holes in them. >> locals sort through the remnants. neither will they use them. with items broken or in pieces. it will have to be reprocessed as scrap metal. afghanistan doesn't have the equipment to do that. most will be sold across the border. similar to the army that it belonged to. the remnants of war will be moving on.

>> the new interim president of the central african republic arrived in the country, alexandre ferdinand nguendet will take charge of the country until a new president is elected. the former president michel djotobia stepped down after international pressure. since taking office a million people have been displaced. >> more ahead from sport as the saints took on the sea hawks. >> and 50 years ago today an historical announcement about the dangers of smoking. that's ahead.

def conversation gianna tobani teftobacco tef >> welcome back, it's been 50 years since the first

surgeon-general report was released. the centres for disease control says cancer of the lung is the deadliest form, up to 90% of cases are connected to smoking and second-hand smoke. 50 years later lung cancer rate dropped 2.6% for men and 1% per year for women. 35-44-year-olds are the ones that listened to the surgeon general's advice, with the biggest drop of fighting induced lung cancer cases. we spoke to the acting u.s. surgeon general and he said smoking still killed millions. >> over the last 50 years we've lost 20 million lives through this preventible disease. smoking related diseases. ultimately we recently had reports saying that over that same time span, because of tobacco control measures, we saved 8 million lives. >> there has been gains in

helping people prevent smoking-related illnesses we look at the progress over the decades to help people live healthier lives. >> historians and health authorities look back and call it the single most significant public health movement of the 20th century. the campaign against smoking that began in 164. >> it's the most monumental change in lifestyle behaviour or health behaviours that we have had of any kind at all in the united states and remains that way. >> in 50 years the percentage of adult americans was dropped by more than half, from 42% to 19. researchers estimate the decline in smoking prevented 8 millions premature deaths, adding 20 years to life expectation si. >> who would have been close to a 5-fold higher rate of smoking in terms of per cap ita

consumption had it not been for tobacco trolley. tobacco control took many forms. warnings on secret packs, prevention campaigns, taxes and smoking bans. 26 states and the district of columbia has laws banning smoking. another 10 dates have restrictions. thousands of cities across the united states have comprehensive smoke-free laws. >> there was the rise of nicotine replacement products ranging from prescription drugs to packages. >> if we put together taxation, legislation, limits on advertising and promotion and individual smoking efforts, they are comprehensive packages to help people quit smoking and to prevent them starting. >> the games have been huge. the doctors say smoking remains

the number one preventible cause of death and disease in the united states. it is the primary risk factor for rung cancer, accounting for 90%ful cases in men, and 70% in women. an estimated 400,000 americans a year are still dying from smoking-related diseases. >> i would love to see a day when tobacco control would be completely successful, where tobacco would no longer be solved in the united states. >> for now, the work to promote quitting and prevention continues. >> they goal is to have nor more than one in 10 lighting up in 2020. >> back to weather. there's serious storms hitting the pacific north-west. >> it's a big huge low pressure. we have so much wind.

in the 3 o'clock however, the airport recorded a wind gust of 66 miles per hour. football players were sitting in the stadium dealing with the wind and the rain. now you can see that seriously heavy rain has changed over to shower bans. all that rain has pushed up in the mountains and coming down as snow. this is the last gasp of the strong wind gusts. out on the ghost we have gusts up to 40 miles per hour, and 74 miles per hour at last check. we this great falls, montana report 60 miles per hour because an area of low pressure crossing over vancouver island. it's a sweet spot for wind storms in the pacific north-west. the wind interacts with the mountains, wrapping around the mountains, channelling through them and has no place to go. that wind funnelled up through the sound and brought you the

powerful winds and is interacting towards the rockies, and we'll have strong winds continuing into monty python. this is what it looks like lower than 3,000 feet. finally you get snow. you haven't have skiing. tonnes of snow in the mountains. a foot tonight and tomorrow. this snow will push into the rockies, and we'll continue with the wind to the east. to the north-east it is all about the flooding. we are focussing on how much snow is falling in the north-west for water supply. >> it is stunning, the change in degrees. we talk about the n.f.l. games. the high winds knocking up power for tens of thousands in washington state. utility companies were unable to restore power or watch the game. bans and players endured the

wind and rain, gusts more than 50 miles per hour. as we heard from rebecca, a big storm, fans could not be happy. >> fans that showed up in seattle were punished with the wind and the rain, and, of course we had the rain for the seattle players, they were wearing gloves in that. happening on to the ball. seattle players are used to it. maybe it was best to run the ball. that was the recipe. they rode the horse. he had a franchise post-season record wracking up 140 yards an 28 carries, two touch downs, seattle's defense kept the saints out until the fourth quarter, beating the saint 23-15, hosting the winner of the 49ers game next sunday. as for the afc divisional game. it is decided now, with the patriots hosting the colts. all that action for you later. >> it didn't slow down for the

seahawks. >> slowed down the saints. thank you. >> still ahead, bridge debacle. will a traffic jam on the george washington bridge block chris christie's road to the white house. >> outcry over a black rhino hunt auctioned off as a fundraiser.

>> new jersey lawmakers have more questions about the george washington bridge scandal for chris christie. the new speaker at the state asem reply plans to call a special session to investigate

the lain closures. before the scandal broke chris christie was the favourite for the 20 sf presidential election. earlier i asked matthew arcoe if bridge-gate will change that. >> since he's in the national spotlight talking about a run for 2016, that's the thing that everyone is looking through. this is serious stuff and serious allegations, and he - it's reaching his closer inner circle with the release of documents the other day. we are seeing that it's getting closer and closer. the governor said he had no knowledge of this, but democratic lawmakers in the state house are trying to pick at that and get it closer to the governor. at this point he's been adamant that he has no knowledge of it. if it does get closer, it will probably be damning to him. when he looks to 2016 on the national statement, and how something like this plays out to

voters across the country. >> thanks to matthew arc, e from politico new jersey. >> the governor of virgin was sworn in, a friend of bill and hillary clinton, and a chairman of the democratic national committee. he listed the expansion of medicade as a goal. he signed four executive orders, one banning discrimination in the state government based on sexual orientation. >> in dallas a hunting club is hunting off a permit to kill an endangered rhino. it sparked outrage. >> space inside the dallas convention centre is at a premium. an estimated 45,000 hunting enthusiasts are here to attend the dallas safari club. >> this is the single biggest fundraiser we have. >> jewellery, rifle and furs.

this time the big item is a permit to hunt the black rhino in the namibia. >> trophy hunters, putting animals on display. that is wrong to do. >> angela and others say the auction is inhumane. >> we need every one of these animals, not one to be taken out. the dallas safari club says all proceeds go towards saving the species. >> a lot of people think wildlife takes care of it said. it doesn't. nam ibia is a small county. they don't have excess money, they need money to manage the wildlife and protect and increase the population of black rhino. >> the permit could bridge in there 160,000. >> this is the first time that this permit has been auction the off in the united states.

>> protesters say the dallas safari club should give money directly to namibia, instead of giving a licence to kill. wayne made the point on "america tonight." >> the idea of lipping a trophy hunting exercise to those involved in trefy hunting, but not in the grand scheme of things. >> the rhino that has been killed is past breeding age and is aggressive to other lives. >> well, the family of a young boy who decide stopping a suicide bomber in pakistan will receive his country's highest medal of honour. the prime minister office says the boy's family will receive a star of bravery. the 15-year-old chased the suicide bomb are outside his

school's gates. he was killed when the bomber detonated his it vest. >> a panda has been sent to china. he was born at the zoo. his parents are on loan. panda diplomacy allows the chinese government to bring cubs born in the u.s. back to china before their fourth birthday. he's going back to his homeland. >> did the u.s. try to intervene in elections in afghanistan? in the 11 o'clock eastern hour we look at revelations and former defense secrete robert gates recently published book. that's our show. see you at 11:00 pm eastern. thank you for join us. stay with us, the top stories are just ahead.

kz you are watching al jazeera america live from new york. i'm jonathan betz with the headlines. joe biden will lead the delegation in the memorial surgeon much he died this morning after eight years in a coma, he was 85 years old. ariel sharon is expected to be given a military funeral at the family farm on monday. >> 300,000 are without tap water in west virginia. a chemical spill on thursday caused nausea and vomiting. no decision on when people there there can drink the water. >> luxury retail neiman marcus said cme