or facebook or google+. you can find us on twitter. see you next time. >> a convicted killer executed in missouri, the state carry out the death penalty despite the use of a lethal drug cocktail. >> another day off for schools and businesses after the crippling winter storm. >> concerns over the civil war raging in syria. one official warning it's a breeding ground for al qaeda looking to attack the u.s. >> now we have hundreds of

companies employing tens of thousands of people that didn't exist 30 years ago. >> a model or economic recovery, how a city went from near ruin to riding the wave of new industry. >> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm thomas drayton. missouri death row inmate herbert smalls has been put to death, shortly after the u.s. supreme court denied his appeals. the lethal drug used was at the center of his legal challenges. >> herbert smalls is the sixth ban executed by lethal injection in the u.s. there was appeals over the pharmaceuticals used to carry out his order failed. in 2008 the u.s. supreme court

ruled three drug protocol does not amount to cruel and unusual punishment. with pharmaceutical d companies failing to allow their chemicals to be used, states are struggling to find alternatives. >> dennis maguire was executed using a combination of drugs not used before. it took 26 minutes after witnesses gassed, choked and convulsed. are these inmates entitled to a pain-free death. the constitution does not guarantee a pain-free death. at some point it's so intense, protracted. the sense of decency precluts the infliction of capital pin ushment. >> missouri state representative rick bratton introduced legislation that would add a 5-person firing squad as an

alternative to lethal injection. he defend it. >> these cold-blooded murderers are turning into the victims. they are paying the price for a crime committed against an innocent person. this is not a step back. it's putting to rest a horrible situation. >> of the 32 states that have capital punishment. all use lethal injection. under certain conditions eight states allow death by electrocution, three by gas claimer, three by hanging and two by firing somewhated. >> in 2010 ronnie was executed by a firing squad. >> putting someone in an electric chair and attaching electrodes is humin. i think that is a stretch. the firing squad.

i think these things depend on whether they go as planned. the problem with lethal injections is they are not going as planned. >> regardless of the method each had problems, and each has been challenged. it's a debate straddling the fine line for what is considered cruel and unusual and what is just. >> herbert smalls lawyers are trying to get missouri to disclose the pharmacy. they claim the state's supply of the drug was stored at room temperature and may have been tainted. >> some are questioning the way state and local officials handle the situation. some children were forced to spend the night at school, others trapped in buses. >> robert ray has more on the questions facing those in power. >> atlanta paralyzed by a few

inches much snow that turned into dangerous ice. >> the ice on the road people trying to drive up and down and couldn't make it. tyres were losing traction. everyone hit each other. >> a million commuters and schoolchildren trying to go home simultaneously tuesday as the storm bore down. the result a colossal region wide traffic jam. many driving, if you can call it that, for over 16 hours, marking the progress in inches. some stranded overnight. forced to leave vehicles, and walk to makeshift shelters in freezing temperatures. some sleeping in store aisles and restaurants. if we had not had everyone exiting at the same time and going en route to pick up children. i don't believe we would have had the kind of gridlock that resulted. >> on wednesday, the state's stop leaders faced questions over whether their decisions to

send workers home and when to let schools out brought metro atlanta to a stant still. >> we can't control mother nature. just as we could not make better predictions, neither could school superintendents, that's why the schoolchildren were in the situation they were in. >> the governor said more than 2,000 students in the area spent the night in their schools because buses like these idle on the roads in the atlanta area, couldn't move because the hills and ice. >> students, teachers and principles tried to make the best of it. >> we had kids that had to make the best of it. some of them had never been away from home. they called their parents last night and this morning. it calmed their fears. >> atlanta, the busiest airport is facing consequences of not being prepared to deal with snow

and ice, forecast in advance. >> i lived off the streets and never saw anything like this. the city is shut down, schools closed and residents looking to put the blame on someone. >> another champ of how tough it was getting around. a woman stuck in a snow storm gave birth on the highway. her husband was driving her to the hospital. they were forced to pull over. >> we couldn't go forward. that's when i knew the contransactions had gotten strong. the couple pulled over. that's when a policeman stopped to see help. the officer got the surprise. >> i walked over to them and said, "are you all broke down?" i could see the baby's head. i knew it was coming. baby grace was born. the newborn and her parents are doing just fine.

>> well, things are improving across the south-east, but they are not getting better on the roads, and that is because there is a lot of snow and ice, and it is freezing this morning. temperatures dropping down to 16. this is what it looks like. we are having difficulties across parts of southern georgia, the coastal regions and the panhandle. to the north the cold air is coming down. they'll come down in atlanta to 16. they'll warm back up. thing will unfreeze. as we go towards friday, we'll see a lot of messy, slippery conditions, not necessarily on the highway, but in the communities, on the back roads. it's not until the weekend that we get up to 63 degrees, that we'll get a break and be more like a spring time condition. here to the north-west. there's a lot of mixed precipitation snow, icing and

rain, and down towards california, northern california. we are getting rain that will not last long. thursday, along the coastal regions, there's rain. here in the sierra nevadas, the cascades, we'll see snow. in some locations, especially where you see the pimming, that indicates that we could see snow between 18 and 20 inches. temperatures in seattle - looking to be 46 degrees, and rainy conditions continuing to friday, getting better over the weekend. overnight lows down to freezing. there is the rain in parts of calf your, not reaching to the south. we also need - we are looking at stream to exceptional drought across most of the region. >> a group of fighters in syria is training fighters around the world for an attack, according to the director of national intelligence, telling congress the war-torn nation is a magnet

for extremist. concern for the extremists who were attracted to syria, engaged in combat, get training, and now we see the appearance of training complexes in syria to train people to go back to their country, and of course conduct more terrorist acts. >> clapper's there are as many as 110,000 fighters battling the syrians, 26,000 are extremists. as nick schifrin reports, their popularity is agreeing. >> in this turkish market next to the clocks you can by fabbic for your own sir ran rebel unforms, inside military vests are 30 bucks. there's a matching dagger. on the wall behind the nervous owner, a flag declaring allegiance to fighters linked to

al qaeda. >> inside syria the fighter released propaganda videos. they are the most lethal, and successful of all the armed groups, and popular. we met jamil in turkey. who facilitates and supports islamist fighters. the islamic state phytes the robbers and leaves, that's why the syrian people support them. >> the islamic state is not just fighting assad, but u.s. backed opposition fighters for control of the country side and borer crossing. the fight is not only inside syria, but is at the border, and control over supplies going into syria. it's volatile. the area was controlled by

fighters. two weeks ago it was than over by radical fighters. >> in geneva, assad's negotiator said the radicals means the government needs to stay in power to night terrorists. >> the issue for the syrians is to stop terrorism. the opposition says that's the excuse. they argued that assad's brutality opened the door to terrorist. there's a third option in syria. a democratic transition which we are representing. >> the colonel was one of the third officers to defect. he argues without american weapons, the americans can't defeat assad or the radicals. the united states of america has let us down. and so those radicals aren't going anywhere. in geneva, the two sides will

disagree and in syria the death toll will mount. >> syria's three-year-old civil war killed 130,000 people and forced millions from their homes, as ukraine stanth on the brink of its own civil war, the government is making teams to ease tensions, ukraine's parliament offered amnesty to protesters. there's a catch. the protesters must agree to clear public areas within 15 days. opposition leaders called the trade-off unacceptable. it's an attempt to shutter protest without change. >> an investigation into the security breach is widening. still ahead the government looking into the hacker attack that compromised information of millions of customers. >> and we focus on a u.s. city as a model for economic recovery. how pittsburg turned itself

around. police investigating a costly caper. how someone made off with a 300-year-old stradavarius violently.

>> the justice department is the investigating the target breach. hackers stole information during the holidays. the names and addresses of 70 million more customers were come promised. attorney-general eric holder told lawmakers that authorities are committed to finding the hackers and exploiting anyone. >> in new york, a congressman is apologising for threatening a reporter after the state of the union. michael grimm was being interviewed by michael scotto.

he asked about an investigation into his finances. he told him the question was off topics, threatened to break him in half and throw him off the balcony. he did later call to apologise and issued a public economy. >> i was wrong, it shouldn't have happened. i called michael scotto. he accepted my apology. >> michael grimm is a tea party republican. he is under a federal investigation for questionable campai campaign fund raiding. >> president obama sfopd in maryland, and pennsylvania, an issue he focussed on was income inequality. the president announced a new retirement savings bond. we have the story of the region's comeback.

>> talk focussed on speeding up the economy and growing the middle class. the steel factory was used as a back drop. this is a region ta came far in its economic recovery. >> when i was thinking... >> alica ash wood is anoning a number of entrepreneurs launching start-ups in pittsburg. >> pittsburg is an interesting city. it was never on my list of places i dreamed i would live in. >> but it's here, the rust belt, where this 42-year-old wife and mother is trying to make her dream a reality. ash wood started a company called truly accomplished. it's a web-based operation helping people organise their lives and businesses. >> if you have a good idea that can be proven in the mid west, and in pittsburg you can be successful in every other

market. >> it was not always this way. 30 years ago pittsburg was at its worse. as the city lost steel and its industrial base the economy collapsed. 100,000 jobs were lost and a quarter million moved out. >> it was a steel depression in the 1980s. >> bill flannagan has the leading development organisation, and says after the economic bust reinvention was key in moving pittsburg forward. health care, education, technology fuel the economy here now. >> now we have hundreds of companies employing tens of thousands of people that didn't exist. with unemployment hovering above 6% the regional economist at the university of pittsburg says

there's a lot of work to do. >> changes he plain. the places where steel was, the mon valley and smaller communities have not moved past the worst of the job loss. >> in light of that bill flannagan says the focus is to educate, train and attract enough people to meet people. >> the cool thing about being part of an entre pren your communicate any is when you do something great. others support you and amplify it. leading to more opportunities, and more economic growth. >> the president's visit to the pittsburg area gave him the opportunity to drive home the message that he brought forth during the state of the union address. there'll be more stops to come. >> the president's road drip will continue. on thursday he'll visit

wisconsin. >> a world caribbean cruise ship returned to port in new jersey carrying hundreds of passengers. the "explorer of the sea"s trip was cut short after many passengers became sick. the centers for the disease control is looking for the cause of the ilinnocence. >> a mill walkee concert master was robbed of a priceless stradavarius. after a concert was given at wisconsin luth ren college. he was robbed at gun point, tasered. the vil -- violin was the targeted. a similar told for $3.25 million in 2006. >> how one company is making sure only a gun owner can pull a trigger.

>> a mid air rescue after a sky diver is impossibled unconscious. the scenes caught on a camera that he was wearing.

>> wednesday night's n.b.a. schedule featured a meeting of two of the league's biggest stars. lebron james, and ken. lebron james may have to hand over to dur roont. the nva player. kevin durant netted 33. certainlying had 82. they blew out the heat at home. it was the 12th strait game of 30 or more points. the lodgest streak in the n.b.a.

sips 2003. on the college hard wood, top ranked arizona had a scare on the road. thanks to a three pointer. the cardinal missing two attempts to tie it. the win gave arizona school records 21 straight victories, remaining one of three unbeatenen teams. now for the second time in four gamesment the islanders faced the islanders. unlike sunday's win over the new jersey devils, the series game was played at night where game-time temperatures hovered around 22 degrees with a single-digit windchill factor. >> the ranges with a 2-game streak. 2-1 was the final. the rangers 3 and 0.

that's a look at sport. >> die-hard fans. there's a push in silicon valley to create a safer gun. as jacob ward shows us, only the owner of the record can fire it. >> whether it's the key to your lug im, the pin code on the phone or lock on the car, there's almost nothing you own that doesn't come with some sort of technology keeping someone from making use of it. the eptions it guns. the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and farms says many go missing. in part nothing in the guns prevent a thief from using a stolen gun. some people are now trying to change that. >> i have a gun. the only thing standing between me and making a terrible decision with the weapon is my conscience, and the fact that this gun is not actually mine. it's designed by a company

called armitax. because it's not mine i don't have a watch. it's locked. it's useless, a piece of metal. the armitax gun is purpose built. only those guns are linked to the watch. the technology may be one of four challenges. started by sill gone valley investor. he's trying to spur development of gun safety technology. the first is tech that links the gun to the owner. >> we'll find the entrepreneur and hopefully whoever wins, build it into a company. >> a device named by yardarm fits into the whack of existing globing pistols, and can alert the owner. >> unholesering or holstering is an event.

>> the national rife association didn't have a statement in time ready for the broadcast. and wal-mart declined to comment when we asked if it could study the weapon. dean hoffmann, chairman of a gun advocacy group please it will not work. >> it's like all door locks that keep honest people honest. if they steel the gun, they'll take it to the garage, disassemble it, take out the technology and turn it back to a firearm. >> what can the objection be to coding the gun. own your gun, but it's your gun. it's specific to you. and is can't fall into the wrong hands. >> pressure on the electronics industry makes companies like apple and samsung disarm remotely. perhaps with the help of this prize it will be impossible to

fire a fun that doesn't be long to you. >> the new study found that gunshot wounds send about 20 children to the hospital, and one third of those injuries are accidental. look at the video. a sky diver in england saved by quick-thinking friends and there's new video. a scare more than 12,000 feet. this from james lee's camera. a fellow skydiver's legs hit him in the head. he was knocked out. unable to open the parachute. his friend grabbed him, turned him around. he landed safely, but has no memory of the accident. he says he'll continue sky diving. that'll do it for this edition of al jazeera. i'm thomas drayton in new york. news at the top of every hour. log on to aljazeera.com 24 hours

a day. we leave you with a look at times square in new york city which has been travelled into super bowl sunday. a lot of activity ahead of the match up between the denver broncos and the seattle seahawks. thanks for watching. you're in the stream . our digital our producer is here as always, bringing in all of your live comments throughout the show. most people, including you and