welcome to al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler in new york. and here are tonight's top stories. new jersey governor, chris christie spent the first part of the his state of the state address apologizing for the scandaling plaguing his administration. but he says it does not define his team or the state. israel's minister of defense has apologized after ridiculing secretary of state john kerry's peace efforts. he said it was not worth the paper it was written on. the white house condemned those comments. president obama is once again calling for congress to

create more jobs. he urged passage of a bill to extend long-term unemployment benefits. a federal judge in tulsa called the ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. the judge put his ruling on hold, though, and said there is a decision in a similar case out in utah. those are the headlines at this hour. i'm john siegenthaler. i'll see you back here at 11:00 eastern, 8:00 pacific time. "consider this" is next. and you can always get the latest on aljazeera.com. ♪ secret documents on benghazi raise more questions about the white house response. what did they know and when did they know it? always the massive nfl settlement on concussions grinds

to a halt. what does a federal judge want plus have self absorbed baby boomers made the world a better place? and consumer space flight has liftoff but is it just one small or a giant leap. hello, i'm antonio mora welcome to "consider this," here is more on what is ahead. ♪ >> the states were clearly made, and as a result we let down the people. >> from the judge's perspective she has to look out for the people that weren't able to participate in negotiations. >> we were the first generation, probably in the his of the world that really had the opportunity to do what we wanted to do. >> three, two, one . . . ♪ >> we begin with the newly

declassified testimony on the september 2012 attack on the american embassy in benghazi it says they labeled the incident an act of terrorism within minutes of the attack. the testimony raises new questions about the obama administration statements on the siege that resulted in the death of four americans. for more i'm joined by brigadier general, a former deputy assistant secretary of assist for middle east policy. he is also a contributor to al jazeera english. good to have you back on the show. the head of the command says . . . now generalhamm managed military

operations in libya, and he is saying within 15 minutes he knew it was a terrorist attack. what does this do to obama officials who were pushing that this was an attack spurred by the anti-muslim video? >> well, i have known colonel hamm for 20 years. he is a man of incredible integrity. i think a lot of us have been surprised over the months how the obama administration has continued to stick to the narrative that somehow there was a spontaneous uprising generated by a video. it just doesn't hold water, and i think the testimony coming out demonstrates that as well. >> looking at the time line, general hamm briefed leon panetta after he got his information from libya, and then they briefed the president and

apparently they said he was told it does clear the u.s. embassy was under attack. general hamm said he didn't even know there was a video out there. so where did the white house statement come from since apparently it didn't start with the military? >> my sensing is it came out of the talking points that were developed. the information was incomplete, the intelligence was incomplete, but neither the state officials on the ground for general hamm military personnel thought it was a video that caused this. but over the space of a couple of days, the talking points were developed that would indicate that the belief inside the white house for whatever reason whether it was factual or political, somehow this was a spontaneous eruption in reaction to a video.

>> emails have shown that the people at the state department did not want this linked to al-qaeda. susan rice went on all of those news shows and called it a spontaneous mob uprising and not a premedicated attack. what does this mean for her and former secretary of state hillary clinton? >> well, you know, again, i'm not here to comment on the political ramifications of this. i think the american people will make the decision. this will be clearly amplified by the republicans in the up coming elections that -- and they will use this as an assault on the character of hillary clinton. nonetheless this argument about whether this was core al-qaeda or an affiliate of al-qaeda is senseless. even the article in the "new york times" indicated that one of the leading organizers of

some of the violence was someone who very much believed in the vision of al-qaeda. he may not have had a bumper sticker saying i'm with al-qaeda, but it was clear he was sympathetic towards the view. so i think politically this will add damage to the narrative of the clinton campaign, and i think the american people are going to be as interested in hearing what hillary clinton has to say about this as they are hearing chris christie talk about what happened in new jersey. >> you referred to the "new york times" investigation that found that al-qaeda wasn't responsible for the attack. they brought up the video, and spontaneous demonstration. they said things that certainly supported the white house narrative, but then senator diane feinstein said she

disagreed with the times and she said . . . >> yeah. >> that's my understanding. and then she went on to say talking about the video, she said . . . >> so i guess the question most people are asking is more than a year later why are there so many different explanations about what happened there? >> well, in many ways this notion of whether this was core al-qaeda or al-qaeda affiliates is a distinction without a difference. >> right. >> the administration has said the core al-qaeda that resident inside of pakistan lead by bin laden may not have been involved, but that's not the real threat to the region or the united states. these franchises that have been developed over the years certainly were part of that, so while it may not have been the headquarters of al-qaeda

involved, it was certainly the affiliates. the kirkpatrick article emphasizes that it wasn't core al-qaeda, but i think he misses the point. >> yeah, and the testimony also shows that the military was very ill prepared to deal with something like what happened there in benghazi, and i'm sure that will be a big part of the discussion in the future. thank you for being on the show. we turn now to governor chris christie who addressed the georg g&a -- george washington bridge scandal head on. >> mistakes were clearly made, and as a result we let down the people we're entrusted to serve, and without a doubt we will cooperate with all appropriate inquiries to ensure this breach of trust does not happen again. but i also want to assure the

people of new jersey today that what has occurred does not define us or our state. >> and joining me now to discuss what is next for governor christie and what he means by appropriate inquiries is the man who launched the initial investigation into the lanes on the bridge, he shares a new committee that focuses exclusively on the investigation on the bridge closure. and we have the man who has just written on the christie administration controversy in the ad scandal. bob i want to start with you. he got a surprising amount of applause. how did he do? >> he did start with it right away. he did use a passive voice.

we heard a lot of the passive voice last week. you hear that a lot from the professional athletes who apologize for misdeeds speaking in the third person. he did say he would cooperate with any inquiries. i'm not sure how you decide which inquiries are appropriate or not. but he mentioned it. and i think cnn and some of the other networks pulled away after he bridge gate right away. so some of the other things he said went unheard. >> yeah. assemblyman i know you are the one who is going to have to deal with whether it is an appropriate inquiry or not. how did you feel when you heard him say that? >> i'm not sure what he means by it. he said he was going to cooperate, and he said he would

cooperate with all appropriate inquiries. i would assume that an inquiry by an assembly committee is an appropriate inquiry. we'll take him at his word right now that he'll cooperate, and his actions will speak to whether he actually meant it, when we do our investigation into his office, see whether he cooperates and come back and talk about it at that time. >> have they cooperated? >> well, we just started the examination. we're going to start the new committee this thursday and we'll test the cooperation from that point forward. >> bob one thing christie did not mention was this audit into the hurricane sandy ad that involved him. you have documents that it can his administration tried to hide its role in the contract with a firm that cost much more than

another company to run an ad that featured him and his family. what do you see about that? this >> well, the federal government is doing an audit of the contract. that's basically examining the spending, not precisely looking at how the contract was awarded and all of the details. we found -- we have been tracking this for many, many months. it has been hard to get records from the administration. one of the latest set of records that we reported on on monday, there were six members of christie's staff and also part of an independent state agency where he has appointees and they scored two final bids, and we did receive the score sheets from six individuals, but the names were redacted. so it's impossible to determine -- >> but there has been this money that was allocated to a

marketing campaign to bring back new jersey, the jersey shore is back. so is there anything illegal with using taxpayer money for ads like this? other governors have certainly used money to promote their state. again, is there anything illegal? >> there's nothing illegal in new jersey. there's no law against it. other states do have prohibitions. new york used sandy money for a campaign and the governor was in those ads. i think new york may have a law prohibiting it. in new jersey it came down to, it was an election year, and taxpayer money, so, you know, it -- it became quite a topic in new jersey last year. >> the "wall street journal" has released a picture of governor christie with david wild steen

who is the one who received the email from bridget kelly and said he got it when it came to closing lanes down. last week he pleaded the fifth. the governor said he hadn't been talking to him for a while, but this pictures shows them together a up call of months before the election. any significance there? >> i think it fits into a pattern. the governor said he didn't know anything about this affair until january 8th when he first heard about it. but then we see a lot of the senior staff really deeply involved in this. bridget kelly, his soon to be chief of staff and other folks. this is an election year, and his staff gets an email saying that two of your appointees may have broken the law. it's hard to believe that in the middle of an election campaign that somebody on his team that

got this email didn't pull him aside and say you may get a question about this. and then you see this photograph of david wildsteen with the governor at least on two different occasions when the lanes were shut down -- >> it wasn't a public event though. one thing that comes up is about christie's approval ratings. 59% approve, only 32% disapprove, it is certainly lower than it has been, but is this -- how big -- how much is this hurting governor christie? >> that poll only showed a 6-point drop in christie's ratings since bridge gate broke. people love christie for his

personality and style, and those people are going to overlook maybe a lack of governance ethics by his staff. but, you know, as this story place out, and christie possibly gets tied closer and closer to what went wrong, that number definitely could go soft very quickly. >> very quickly, how soon are we going to start seeing subpoenas? >> we'll organize this thursday. subpoenas will come out shortly after. we want to look at documents first. but ultimately we'll bring people in for testimony. >> appreciate both of you for coming on. and hopefully you'll come back to keep us posted. >> look forward to it. concussions in the nfl and their terrible consequences. a federal judge denied initial approval of the landmark

settlement between the nfl and in of its former players, saying the money is insufficient. judge brodie ruled that even if only 10% of retired nfl football players eventually receive a qualifying diagnosis, it is difficult to see how the monetary award fund would have the funds available over its life span to play all claimants at these significant award levels. joining me is a former pro bowl defensive lineman for the jets, he won the super bowl twice. he is part of that class action suit. it's an honor have you in here. >> thank you for having me. >> the judge has basically said she wants more financial details from both sides. do you think a letter deal is going to be worked out and what

was your reaction to what happened today. >> first of all, i'll do it chronologically. i think a better deal needs to be struck between the players and the national football league. i think it's one thing to have an award, and a significant award, but it is also something else to have a significant award that will take care of a major class of this population. i think there are a number of guys and families that have endured enough, as the result of the irresponsibilities that the nfl showed, and there are families like the webster family, the long family, the duerson family -- >> so many deaths and suicides. >> all have suffered through this process and for the most part are continuing to suffer. i think that based upon what you just read it speaks volumes in itself. you take 450 guys and say of the

450 how many have ct, how many of them have als, and how many have dementia, and award a claim, you wouldn't have enough to pay them out. plus the attorneys have come back and said now they want $112 million of the settlement. that's not fair. when it was announced they said they didn't want a piece of that money. >> right. $112 million is going to go to the lawyers. now you brought up how much money goes to each player, and it really will vary tremendously depending on what happened to the players. some of the older players who may have very serious problems could only get $25,000. >> right. >> what do you think about the way the money is being distributed? this >> it's too unfair.

i look at tony dorsett, joe, mark, and myself. we are guys -- excuse me -- living specimens that had this issue, this job-related illness from playing contact tackle football in the national football league. we didn't have it before we joined the nfl. you can't state or make that claim, because if you knew that why did you make the purchase when we came out of college? we all went through physicals, got diagnosed whether we had problems or not, and we were all high-round draft picks. so it just didn't make sense that now that all of the evidence is out, that a player that does have ct now and is qualified for this money now has to take a portion of money versus the entire piece of the pie as he deserves. i say you take the money, you put into it a fund, let the player live off of the interest, as his case weakens or gets bet

you now make the decision on whether or not to take back some of the money or outright award the money, but don't punish the player and say you need to be dead to really receive this money. we need to cut your brain open and we don't accept the study you did, and until we do that, we don't want to award the money. then you will see players saying i might as well just go ahead and kill myself if i'm going to get the $4 million for myself and my family, i would rather not be here. >> yeah, and the stories are heart breaking, not just the suicides, but dorsett has told his stories, and so many big stars like you in the nfl that have suffered. how are you doing? this >> i'm doing better. i'm not doing great. i'm doing better. i have support. i have a bunch of good doctors ash me.

good advisors around me. i have a great lady in my life. so i'm doing well in trying to adjust to having ct and then coping with ct. >> some people have again been critical of this deal from the beginning, because they felt there wasn't enough money. you are talking about them putting the money in a fund and figuring it out the interest as it goes along. what do you say to the critics? is it enough money given that this only deals with former players? >> let's say for example you had classification. 10% with ct, 10% with als, and 10% with dimension. you are talking 30% of 6, $800 million. so then all of that money is gone. what happens to the other 70% of those players? the general population, what happens to them?

and how many of them were fully diagnosed? how many of them fully went to the doctors to figure out what is going on with them? >> yeah. >> so the number i think is more like $4 billion just for argument's sake, but who am i. >> and this is just the beginning of it. i'm glad you are doing well, we certainly hope they figure out something to take care of all of the guys that need taken care of, and also figure out how to make sure it doesn't keep happening in the future. >> absolutely. >> it is great to meet you and thank you for being on the show. >> thank you. michelle reah gets good bad grade. and what is trending on the web

hermela? >> we'll discuss what is trending on the web. and give us a shoutout on facebook and google plus. activists show the

a group lead by one of the best known education reformers has released a new report that ranks state school systems not on academic performance but whether they are moving forward on policies to boost students performance down the road. and not one earned an a. according to the state policy report card prepared by her group, the nation's performance overall was pretty business mall. the u.s. scoreded an overall grade of d-plus with a 1.40 g pa. for more i'm joined from nashville, tennessee, by

michelle reah, former washington, d.c. schools chancellor, thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> is there any good news in your report? >> there is some good news. this is our second annual report and actually we saw some progress from last year, and not only had the gpa of the nation as a whole went up, but also we saw far less states in the failing grade. so that's good news. we also saw a lot of states make some good movement by making sure that they are putting really solid and rigorous teacher evaluation systems in place. >> what did the states in your top ten list do to earn their way to the top of the chart? was that the biggest thing? elevating the teaching profession? >> that's what a lot of states did. you take a state like tennessee which did extraordinarily well.

they have done a tremendous amount of work on elevating the teaching profession by making sure that they were doing layoffs by quality instead of seniority, but implementing a new teacher evaluation system, by ensuring that schools had the ability to choose the teachers they wanted to hire instead of havi having -- the district force teachers on to the schools. it earned the state a higher grade, and you can see the corresponding increases in student achievement as well, tennessee was the top grower. >> what is really interesting is just how varied that very financially, politically, geographically. clearly different states and their policies can make a real different. if we look at american teenagers

and their academic performance compared to the rest of the wealthy countries, a major study found that americans were 17th out of 34 in reading, 21st in science, 26th in math. what do we do to catch these guys? because obviously they are going to try to stay ahead of us if they can. >> yeah, i think this results were very sobering, because not only did we drop rankings in every one of those categories, but some of the countries that leap frogged ahead of us were countries like astonia, and slovakia. if the u.s. had fallen behind the slovakians in gold medals,

people would go nuts. and net we come 26 in the globe in math, and people aren't batting an eye. i think it taught be a wake-up call for people to say we have got to fix our system. we are not allowing our educators to put in place the kinds of practices that they need to, and it's up to our government, our state legislators to take the mantel here. >> what do you see as the biggest barriers against reforms going forward? >>, you know, i think that change is difficult, and any time you want to really shake up a system, you know, implementing new teacher evaluation systems, introducing choice and competition into the -- school marketplace, you are going to get a lot of push back, but at the same time, we have to know as a country that, you know,

when -- when we have less than 50% of our fourth and eighth graders at proficiency, that's a call to do something wildly different. >> you support the common core curriculum, those standards have also been criticized by both sides of the isle. to read a couple of them . . . is all right. your response? >> i would say that both of those quotes are actually wildly inaccurate. on the first one, the fact that the person would say that -- that national standards

have shown no progress is absolutely incorrect. in fact most states are just getting started in terms of implementing the standards, but the two states on the front edge of this which are washington, d.c., and tennessee, have actually shown the greatest gains in student achievement levels over the last two years. so i think we are seeing progress in this area. you know, i -- i think that generally people have -- you know, a lot of complaints about the common core, but the bottom line is we do have to have a set of rigorous national standards that are internationally benchmarked, because the children growing up in america today in nashville are not going to be competing for jobs against the kids in detroit or sacramento, they will be competing for jobs against people from india and china and japan. and we have to make sure that our kids are earn willing the skills that they need to

compete. >> twitter user michael miles wrote in a question for michelle. michelle do you believe public education is a public asset? and if so does privatization threaten us? >> i think that education is absolutely a public right, and it is a responsibility of the government to provide an excellent education for all children. i think there is this really odd sort of revisive argument going on right now, where when you want to provide choice to families people see that as a move to privatize public education. i don't think that's the case at all. public education means you are providing an education to the public, and in that vein we have to make sure that every family has high quality options. we should not be in a situation where any family feels like they are trapped in a failing school with no choices.

we need to make sure that the next generation is well educated. we have some excellent traditional public schools in this country, and we also have some excellent charter schools and private schools, so why not give children and family those options -- high quality options to choose from. >> you address a lot of these issues in your book "radical." thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you. >> next week america -- "america tonight" will investigate education in america. that's next week on "america tonight." time now to see what is trending on al jazeera's website. let's check back in with jan. >> a report out tonight found that state lawmakers are increasingly hiding anti-abortion policies within increasingly unrelated

provisions. in ohio a 2013 state budget included a measure requiring clinics to provide seeking an abortion with evidence of a fetal art beat before the procedure. lots of reaction to this story. mitchell tweeted us -- writing . . . on the flip side the president of the national life to right committee reacted to the ohio and north carolina cases, welling al jazeera over the phone, quote . . . you can read more at the website, america.aljazeera.com. and there was an over 4,000%

increase since 1995 in legislation. now do nazi's and aliens figure in to the edward snowden leak? also are your friends richer and more popular than you are? the cons of social networking. and p.j. o'rourke tells us why he thinks his generation was such a success.

>> every sunday night aljazeera america presents gripping films from the worlds top documetary directors. >> everybody's different here... >> for students at the esteemed international high school at

lafayette everyday is a fight to suceeed >> it was my dream to get a high school diploma >> but a failing grade can mean loosing it all... >> i don't know how my life would look, if i would get deported... >> will they make it in america? >> i have a chance... >> i learn america the world is our fault. that's according to author p.j. o'rourke who writes about baby boomers, but the world is still our fault. so while most generations think they are special and have some distaste for generations that follow them and not o'rourke. it is great to have p.j. with us tonight. good to see you. >> good to see you. >> very funny book. as a fellow baby boomer are we

really that bad in you say we go well beyond self absorbed. >> we do. we are terribly self absorbed, but are we bad? no, i think we're a very tolerant generation. it's very hard to imagine us as nazis or communists. except play communists, but we don't have that kind of discipline, and it's a good thing. this is a generation that never grew up. yeah, but all of the bad things in the world, they have been done by grown ups. >> you joke about the world being our fault, and you say the reality is the world is a better place thanks to baby boomers. >> i think so. obviously we don't run the world from the time we are born. when we take over the world is when "animal house" is released. [ laughter ]

>> and you look down in washington and there are senators [ inaudible ] everywhere you look. [ laughter ] >> i'm not sure that is a good thing. >> it keeps the public amused and that's a good thing. but compared to world war ii, world war i, korea, vietnam, once the baby boomers get in charge, things calm down considerably. because we are too lazy and self absorbed -- >> you are right, far fewer americans have died in war -- >> many less. >> and you say that we are spoiled brats, but at the same time you point out we are one of the most altruistic generations ever. >> absolutely. and we have been very innovative, all of this tech stuff that is around. we older baby boomers may not

know how to use it, but we did invent it. >> and you do a little dividing amongst baby boomers. >> yeah, because it's such a huge generation. >> and you -- you divide us into seniors, jr.s, sophomores and freshman. you are one of the seniors. >> yes. >> you had hillary clinton, democrat. >> bill. >> bill clinton, also a democrat. george w. bush, and you had cheech from cheech and chong. [ laughter ] >> the very first part of the generation, we were like right out there on -- on the bow wave of this voyage of exploration, but we were also very closely tethered to our parents, to the great estrogen ration, so we d

ended up getting drug under the boat. then you get the junior class -- >> those are the tech class. >> the tech class, and they were worse hippies than we were. >> not necessarily bill gates but steve jobs. >> yeah. bill gates belonged to the math club. but they come back and they find shoes and they get down to -- they have never found the neckties, you know. >> i have to complain about my group, i'm probably one of the sophomores, and you talk about us being mba's and you talk about an old friend of mine as representatives of the generation. >> obviously you guys were looking at us guys and thinking this works in general, but it

may not works specifically when the bong sets fire to the bean bag chair. maybe i better finish college. >> one of my favorite quotes is when you say that baby boomers believed passion for living should replace working for one. >> which is why i'm not retired and playing golf the way i should be. [ laughter ] >> yeah, we totally were -- we were the first generation probably in the history of the world that really had the opportunity to do what we wanted to do, truly do what we wanted to do. by world historical standards we were very rich. we came from very stable family backgrounds. the war and depression was open, the open and optimism couldn't be understated. and we decided we were going to go for it. of course that stuff turned out to be pretty stupid, but you can't do everything.

>> and you write that we were happy. >> yeah. >> one of the questions that arose was how did we end upturning into helicopter parents? >> yeah, i thought about that myself. i was a little puzzled because we are. and it's because we are the generation that never grow up, so we know what is on their little mines. the greatst generation parents they didn't know what kids are thinking. we know what you are thinking. you are thinking about pot and beer and sex. >> and that makes us more careful. >> yeah, and of course i have to blame the kids a little bit, because we would have shot that helicopter down. they let us do that. >> the other thing that you write about is you don't like the name of the generation -- >> it does sound pretty silly -- >> but on the other hand do you want to be generation, x, y, or

the millennium. >> yeah, the lost generation was bad. it sounds like exploding infant. >> your book is a lot of fun. a couple of things that were in the news these days, chris christie what do you think is going to happen? this >> i think it was a slow news week is what it was. this story just goes on and on and on, and like -- of course, here in new york you are like george washington bridge traffic jam, oh my gosh -- >> yeah, every day. >> what are they thinking in ohio? okay. the news tonight is there are traffic jams in new jersey. it shows -- interesting part of the story is somebody is really scared of chris christie in 16. and if they think that bridge traffic jams have legs that will

last until 16 they have another thing coming. >> one final one, given that we are talking about baby boomers and you mentioned pot, the legalization of pot, what do you think is going to happen and how big of deal is it? >> it is a big deal. it is going to lead to more use. part of the costs of pot were its ill legality, so even if you don't physically lower the cost, you are taking some of the danger out of it. i'm kind of torn, but basically i think it's so pervasive in our culture that we're not going to get that genie back in the battle, so this might be part of the drug war where we should surrender. >> it's greet have you here. p.j. o'rourke great to have you. >> thank you. straight ahead a new study that says yes, your friends are

really richer, happier, and more popular than you are. our data dive is up next.

today's data dive tries to keep up with the jones and fails. researchers in finland and france found most people's friends are happier and more successful than they are. it's termed the generalized friendship paradox. it's mostly about averages. most people have small numbers of friends but will be pals with someone who has a bigger social

circle. that person skews the average. also those with more friends have more financial success. we're not sure if it's the success that lead to more friends or more friends lead to more success. your facebook friends have more facebook friends than you. on average your romantic partner will have had more partners than you did, and so on. this follows the university of michigan study that found the more people use facebook, the more depressed they are. while the study did not offer reasons for depression, therapists said facebook leads people to compare themselves to others. it had what you might say is a reverse shodden freud. but sometimes even when you do make more money it won't lead to personal satisfaction.

the levels of people satisfied with their lives starts to drop once a country has an annual average income of $33,000. the average american's salary was more than $51,000 last year, so the happiest countries are rich but not too rich. maybe that extra $18,000 helped edge the u.s. out of the top ten list of the happiest countries in the world. coming up, a space test passes a test, people might be heading into space soon. we'll explain next. ♪

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virgin gal ak tick has hit another milestone. the company has flown its test vehicle higher than it has ever gone before, making a 2014 maid envoyage into space even more

likely. and a breath taking new image has been released by nasa, dubbed the hand of god, but what are we actually seeing? derrick let's start with the hand of god, the picture went viral, it's really ah-inspiring. what is it? the >> it's a beautiful image, but we have to realize that what we are seeing are gases leftover from the explosion of a star. the process is called super nova, and the upper player of gases are blown away, leaving a pulsating star. and the gases are illuminated by the x rays watching the star.

>> incredible picture. >> beautiful. >> one thing we have been keeping an eye on are the develops in the commercial space industry. is this a big milestone? >> i think it definitely a big milestone. this is the first successful test flight this year, i think they have another one or two to go before they actually put some people on board and take them to space. richard branson says it is coming this year, but we have to remember they were trying to do that last year too. they don't really tell us about the hurdles, but it looks like they are coming nob the less. >> branson said . . . so you think it's realistic?

do you think we'll start seeing these tourist flights into space? >> oh, there's no question about it. the list of people who have paid for tickets are solid. they are there, and they have been in training for this for a couple of years, so people are ready to go and chomping another the bit to do it, i think it will be the ultimate in the bucket list of the things to do for the well healed in our society. >> quarter. quarter million dollars for now, but maybe the price will go down in the future. let's talk about china's man lander. it just came out of hibernation because it needs solar power. nasa was concerned that it might disrupt some of its experiments. do we know if it did create any problems? >> yeah, the concerns were once

it came into the lunar atmosphere and fired its retro rockets that dust could kick up problems. but i haven't heard of any problems so far. and the rover is roaming around and taking photographs. the chinese have done a fabulous job of getting this craft on the surface of the moon and operating well. >> everyone was disappointed when the commit disisn't it grated when it passed the sun, but now they are hoping to collect of debris in antarctica. >> hopefully the comet will serve this up to us. dust left over from the melted

nucleus will -- could fall into the earth's atmosphere meteors. the an arctic is a great place to find it because of the spans of ice. they can also exist in a rather pristine state because of the environment in antarctica, so scientists might be able to find some of these. >> nasa has gotten a billion dollars increase, a four-year life increase for the space station. how important is this? >> nasa has been doing a tremendous amount on essentially a seriously reduced budget, and in order for them to tackle the big jobs, they do need to up their budget significantly, back to what it with us like a few years ago. this billion dollars extra will help them continue the work on the launch system that we need

to develop to carry the orion mann manned capsule. >> some shocking news out of iran. the snowden nsa leak has shown that the u.s. government has been run since 1945 by space aliens. they say this information has been cooperated by the scientists. i am not joking. quickly have you had any contact with these alien over lords. >> we have been discussed and they said if i told anybody about it they would turn me into a put in, so my lips are closed on this. >> doctor thank you. that is it for tonight.

we'll see you next time. >> good evening, everyone. welcome to al jazeera america. i'm john seigenthaler in new york. >> middle school shooting a 12-year-old boy armed with a shotgun opens fire. two classmates wounded. we'll have the latest from new mexico. >> hunted down - nigeria's antigay laws hunting people down and persecution >> showdown in africa between armed vigilantes and drug lords >> holy moly, it's