country's poor, this trade in human beings looks set to continue. this is al jazeera america. live from new york city, i'm tony harris. a look at the headlines. the do you falls more than thrend point300points. heroin use jumping 80% in just the last seven years. why its popularity is rising and not just among celebrities. an a winter storm bringing ice and snow, flight cancellations are mounting and another storm is right on the

heels of this one. we have got to talk about wall street. today, is the worst day, for u.s. stocks, in more than seven months. the dow plunges 326 points. that's -- plung plingz over plue points. manufacturing are growth had been on the upswing, in november, but it is the seventh time this year, the index saw a triple digit drop. tens of millions of americans have recently had their credit and debit card information compromised because of data breaches at target and oarl retailers. maybe it happened to you. today lawmakers are looking at

how to keep your personal information safe. well, safer. representatives from several government agencies and oartle toootheragents took part in a ae hearing. john terrett is here. >> they're talking about whether companies should be compelled to reveal if they've had a data breach or not. if that was during the holiday season they should be hung out to dry. that is basically what happened during the senate banking committee, particularly when it comes to the use of debit and credit cards. they heard from william noonan, the deputy special agent, looking at cybercrime around the world, and his main message is these latest broamps at --

breaches and nee manmarcus and target and michael's have been an increasing pattern of u.s. corporations from overseas. eastern europe and the use of the russian language as cover. mark warner who is the democratic senator, it is incumbent for all of us to are check those statements each month to make sure there isn't a charge that we didn't authorize. >> government has a role to play, industry has a role to play, but as consumers we need to be more vigilant as well. >> reporter: so you can see this is congress i feel really waking up now at last to the significant threats that have been going on in the last ten

years to do something fairly swiftly, tony. >> that is something i want to pick up on. to do something fairly swiftly, what are congressmen trying to do at this point? >> doing everything from the hill to have them singing from the same hymn sheet. there is a meeting at the judiciary committee in the senate which is actually going to involve the cfo of target, also probably if congress committee as well. those are the committees that need to be on the same page when it comes to cyber-crime. here is jess caw richnau, she is the secretary of consumer protection. her message is while there are laws at the state level which are actually laws that are helpful, she's looking for that to change. check it out. >> we have tools and we're using

them to enforce -- to address data security fail yurts by faio protect companies, it would be very good to have a law to face securities. >> there are laws but not here in the united states yet. >> john, appreciate it thank you. documents related to the so-called bridge gate scandal surrounding new jersey governor chris christie are being turned over to a legislative panel, this comes after attacks and counterattacks. wynnstein's lawyer says there's evidence that christie knew about the closures as they happened. >> not 72 good day for christie's presidential

aspirations. these call e-mails, messages, phone calls and records from 20 different people at the governor's office and the port authority. investigators will start looking at these items tonight. in the meantime, the bizarre manner in which christie has been trying to discredit david wielwildstein. the prospect of wildstein telling all he knows about the bridgegate scandal, so over the weekend, governor christie decided to hit back. he distributed a 700 word memo to reporters, supporters and republican strategies saying, quote, in david winestein's past, people have described him

as tumultuous. he was not productive. that's right. as a 16-year-old kid he wildstein sued over a local school board election. he was publicly accused by his high school social studies teacher as an instigator. they like wildstein even more and they like chris christie even legs for trying to make a big deal over wildstein over his deceptive behavior in social studies class. talk about lame, according to one official. as governor chris christie was essentially trying to do while celebrating the super bowl this weekend, the characteristic assassination has to make sense. a potential presidential

candidate attackin attacking anl for, in this fashion, not a very good day for him. >> so we talked about this earlier in the 4:00 p.m. hour. i got to ask again. we don't know at this point what is going to come out of all of this. we don't know, i have to ask you, attacking the man in this way from your perch as the governor, is it hurting him? >> yeah, when the best you can come up with is stuff related to high school that hurts. and secondly, as far as the actually allegations, whether governor christie knew during the lane closures or did he know afterwards as governor christie has alleged. but wildstein hasn't said anything that the governor knew anything about why. why doesn't christie ignore this? see how it plays out? in the way of going after

wildstein the way christie has, it's raising a lot of questions. >> david shuster, thank you. this winter storm dumping search inches of snow, several flights have been delayed because of snow and ice and numerous accidents, you would expect that, right? and another storm on the heels of this one. kevin corriveau is tracking this. >> well tony, not just several inches of snow. some locations have seen over 12 inches of snow. >> what? >> yes, definitely. it's been a very impressive day. so let's take a look what's happening. you can see the snow is just about to end across new york, pennsylvania, new jersey, also towards south. still more snow across new

england but expect it to stop about 10:00 this evening. pennsylvania in some locations, 12.5, west virginia, 12, here in central park it is just about over with. we saw six inches actually walking to work. it was the most beautiful scene i have ever seen. beautiful central park right now. temperatures are 31°. they are going to come down slightly. not very much over the overnight hours, down to 27 as we go towards about midnight and then as we go towards tomorrow we are going to be seeing a little bit more in terms of clearer skies. so 22, 24° then coming back up by the time we get omore. so we are going to be seeing a lot of melting going on. it's going to be fairly clear over the next day through monday and tuesday, but tony unfortunately by the time we get to wednesday we have another major storm. >> major? >> yeah, it's coming in, it's not going obring as up snow as

this -- >> the east coast again. >> all the way up about. >> wow kevin what a winter so far. thanks. the florida stand your ground law, jury selection is underway in the trial of a white man killing a black man over the playing of loud music. nah santa barbara ah guinane is there. >> michael jordan. his attorney tells him he has a better case of self defense than zimmerman. >> luceie mcbath often sits in her son's room to feel closer to him. >> people also used to say jordan was my shadow. a good heart. he cared about people. and he had such a joy for life. >> the life of 17-year-old jordan davis ended in this suv in 2012. he and three friends were at a

jacksonville gas station when 46-year-old michael dunn pulled alongside them. dunn was a tourist visiting the city with his girlfriend. during an interview with police he said he politely asked the teenagers to turn down their music. they complied at first. >> the music is coming on, i'm like live and let live don't need any trouble. >> things quickly escalated. dunn told police he pulled out a gun because he thought the teenagerrers had one too. >> this guy like goes down on the ground and comes up with something. i thought it was a shotgun and he says you're dead (bleep) quicker than a flash i had a round chaibd and i shot. >> dunn shot into the suv eight times killing day davis. then he drove to his hotel,

ordered a pizza and drove home. we spoke with high profile defense attorney roy black about the case. >> under the law they don't have to have a weapon, they have to reasonably appear by the defendant to have a weapon and they were going to shoot him. >> tmg cases have drawn many comparisons. >> he thought into a car with fourth youths in it. this is different than with zimmerman. he is nod injured in any way -- not injured in any way so i think this is a much more difficult case. >> he told his mother he felt like young black men had to be on their guard. >> davis said, i'm going to run, mom, nobody's going to shoot me. i'm going to be okay. >> mcbath said, she is feeling nervous as the trial starts. especially the way the defense

may portray her son. but we tried to speak with the dunn family but they refused. dunn recently settled a civil suit brought by his parents. natasha guinane, florida. armed with two rifles went to his school in moscow. he killed a teacher and a police officer and took more than 20 people hostage. the sturnt eventually gave himself up. al jazeera's paul brennan has more from moscow. >> initially, a father gone into the school looking for his son. but the reality transpired it was a teenage boy a pupil who went in looking for a geography teacher armed with two rifles and opened file. the fatalities so far including the geography teacher, a police

officer and the teen aged alleged shooter has been taken into custody. the terrifying experience was heard, the gun shots were heard by other pupils who were rapidly evacuated and gave their eyewitness reports as to exactly what went on in those terrifying minutes as the gunman burst into the classroom. >> we were told to move away from the windows then everybody was led out into the ham, everything was crying. >> everything was fast, there was panic. >> translator: mommy save me. he has a rifle. we're in school, he is shooting, mommy save me it is not a joke. i texted her to call police. >> reporter: as i say the teen aged sheert has been taken into custody. we are told by the interior ministry that he is subject to psychiatric evaluation. we have had no motivation

suggested so far, throarn was some kind of conflict, at the school. the details of exactly what it was that motivated this tboi to do this may -- boy to do this may become evident over the coming hours and perhaps days. that said, there was a huge security operation and that shows how alert the police and security forces are hee in russia so close to the sochi olympics, surrounding roads were blocked off. schools and other public works buildings were put on lock down. there is a real appreciation there is a security situation on here a really high security status and they are not taking nis chances. >> the u.s. considering sending financial aid to ukraine. the u.s. and the european union are holding preliminary negotiations regarding aid. this as veurkt yask too viktor a

hard line against the protesters. what did president yanukovych have to say about the protestersers at his return? >> he criticized screamism and undermining society here, day before the parliament meets here. the opposition is hoping that it has overturned the presidential majority there and will be able to get amnesty for more than 100 people in jail. but right now ahead of that parliament meeting for both politicians and the public, it is all about persuasion. they're reading them the headlines. these antigovernment demonstrators think police want them brain washed and want to hear their side of the story. >> the police are getting a lot of disinformation, they're

constantly being told lice about what's happening in ukraine. >> while there was once demonstrators, protesters have held up a white sheet. >> if police don't know what's going on, we want to help them understand so we are showing them news. >> trying to change the minds of their police, the leaders are trying to do the same with politicians. in a committee meeting on tuesday, opposition leaders try to persuade parliament leaders and join them publicly. >> translator: big pressure to be honest is on the deputies, we are speaking with them which hasn't been easy. in private they support us but we'll see if we can manage to create a parliamentary majority. we'll see tomorrow. >> but the foreign minister didn't seem to want more compromise.

>> the president has implemented most all demands by the opposition. we are open and willing to continue negotiations with them. with you point concerns us that for the first time in ukraine we have an experience of different extra-mystic groups. >> while a handful of radicals seem to have started the trouble, not rel extremists declaring they want change. music blaring from both sides, it's not clear whether anyone is really listening. >> and we'll really understand tomorrow whether anyone has changed anyone's mind. whether the parliament votes with the opposition or with the president, tony. >> what is this in the ukraine? >> it is a work in progress, no numbers have been discussed. we know the idea is to help bail

out a faltering here and maybe give a little bit of an alternative to the russian package, the $15 billion russian package that upsets so many here. that is on hold for now until a new government is formed but europe and the united states hoping they can give ukraine a little bit of relief, little bit of leverage, little bit of help so they don't have to totally. >> the death of philip seymour hoffman, more and more people are using heroin, we'll take a look at the drug's rising popularity, next.

>> new information from law enforcement about the death of oscar winning actor philip seymour hoffman. tests confirm there was heroin in at least some of the packets found in the apartment he died. they're trying to find out if the heroine was mixed with anything else. the autopsy is happening today. he was found dead sunday morning with a syringe in his arm,

according to authorities. investigators believe it was a drug overdose. in 2012 hoffman entered rehab to treat a heroin addiction. heroin use is becoming more used. jonathan betz has the report. >> not just philip seymour hoffman and cory monteith fought addition. heroin use has jumped 80%, close to 670,000 people using today and its use getting younger. its use still less popular than cocaine and marijuana. much of america's heroin actually comes from mexico. second largest sploir after afghanistan. it is the northeast and the great lakes region that consider heroin one of their biggest

threats. meanwhile in other parts of the country meth or cocaine are the bigger problem. overdoses and deaths in some places. frankly other drugs are just now harder to get. crack downs on prescription pills. a bag costs as little as $6. one in four people become addicted, users underestimate its power and they sadly overdose. >> thank you jonathan. let's bring dr. carl williams into this conversation. he is the chief medical examiner in allegheny county. he is investigating a fentanil

overdose. what does it do to heroin? i'm assuming it makes it more potent. >> yes, it does. fentanil is a drug that was invented in the '70s. all narcotics are based on the morphine molecule as is fentanil. but it is a genuinely sin genuiy synthesized drug, a lot of the mixed overdoses they're found in including allegheny county, are seeing are heroin mixed with oxy codone, is coupled with increase in the prescription medications also. >> let's talk about the situations you're dealing with.

how many deaths in your county, which includes pittsburgh are attributed to heroin and fentanil? >> i've counted 15 so far. it appears that the peak may be over. it always takes a while to work out the details. three overdoses four on saturday and three on sunday. that's a marked spike. i get an average of 250 a year, as you noted that's up from 100 only 15 years ago. steady progressive increase in combined drug intoxications. this drug is fairly different. we were rabidly, in the office of the a allegheny county medicl

offices, have identified that it's almost a pure half and half mixture of heroin with fentanil. it is different from appearance and testing from the heroin we're used to seeing. this is a distinctive white fluffy powder that doesn't have the off color that most heroins we see. we were most quickly able to determine that the fentanil and heroin is the exact same as we see in the blood of our victims, we have a very potent -- >> no, no, does it tell you anything about where it's coming from and where it's being manufactured and how it's being manufactured? >> not so far. this is information that we are sharing with the dea and the local law enforcement agencies to be able to tell them that we

know that it's distinctive. and so far, we see it in the surrounding areas, from pittsburgh, wet see it in the intercity plus the suburbs plus now the urban area. so it's just a different demographic, it's a different group, young, old, 22 to 52, white, black, male, female. >> doctor, appreciate your time. i'm sure we'll be following up with you. carl williams, chief medical examiner for allegheny county. appreciate your time. a convicted killer is on the loose. he was under sentence for murdering four people, nonhe escaped. winter olympics man in charge of the game talks about the security arrangements in sochi.

real reporting that brings you the world. giving you a real global perspective like no other can. real reporting from around the world. this is what we do. al jazeera america. >> and welcome back everyone to

al jazeera america. here are your top of stories. congress is looking into the safety of your credit card data. the consumer and other protection agencies testified at a congressional hearing today. looking into the theft at target, neiman marcus and michael's, the dow jones industrials drops 326 points today, its worst day in seven months. reacting to a slow down in manufacturing. the dow has lost more than 7% of its value from this time last year. the senate voted to cut off debate for the farm bill. that sets up a vote for tomorrow. the legislation is up to $1 trillion, includes 80 million to the food stamp program. a massive man hunt is underway for a man who escaped from a prison in central michigan. michael david elliot escaped

last night, abducted a woman and drove to indiana. elliot was serving a life sentence for killing 4 people. bisi onile-ere. how did this man escape? >> tony somehow he maneuvered the fence outside of that prison and he crawled through the a hole. as you mentioned, right now there is a man hunt going oon for michael elliot. at last check, the vehicle he fled in was found in a town in northern indiana. that vehicle was found, when it was found they put a school district on lock down while they proceeded with their search but their search turned up empty. as you mentioned, scott, he was able to abduct and carjack a woman by 95 point or by a bok

cutter sometime last night. they drove to a gas station near the indiana-michigan border and i want you to take a look. we have new video coming into the newsroom and you can see, this right here is elliot in a gas station purchasing dpas and while he -- gas and whierl he was there, the woman he an deducted managed to flee and call 911. unfortunately by the time authorities arrived at that gas station, elliot he was gone, got out of there. this is a woman who as you mentioned served a life sentence for calling five people. despite his violent background authorities came forward and said, he has not had any trouble in the prison system, listen. >> preliminary investigation shows he had no assistants, had a level 2 classification, wasn't

he, warren, that's a little step down but based on their performance in the institutions. nothing in this man's history would have indicated a high risk for escape. >> and at this point, authorities believe that he was acting alone. thissings is a maximum security prison. right now prison officials are reevaluating their system there. tony. >> bisi, do authorities still believe that elliot may be in indiana, do they presume he's on foot or taken another vehicle? >> right now they presume he's on foot. prison officials all day they have been talking to fellow inmates of this man trying to figure out exactly where he may be but for the most part right now authorities definitely have a strong feeling had he is not here in michigan and they are believing yes, he could be in indiana but at the same time he could be anywhere at this point.

>> okay, bisi onile-ere for us, bisi thank you. a suicide bomber struck a bus today killing one person. three persons were injured in the attack. the bus was driving in a shia area. a spillover from the ongoing syrian conflict. a leaked broadcast on egyptian tv, showing the preaft of our completion in cairo. acting bureau chief mohamed fa hee and peter greste and baher mohamed have been held withou without -- for over a month now. stephanie. >> joirnlts were arrested in the

cairo hotel room. we decided to use screen grabs rather than return the video. to which he applies, i asked them many times if our legal position is valid in egypt. i was told the al jazeera english position is valid, otherwise would i not have accepted the job. the audio on the tape has been overlaid with overly dramatic music. al jazeera english's director of news has condemned the videos saying if this video was deliberately leaks it violates standards of journalist. the process is called into question. they were also not operating in cairo secretly. the team openly filed several permanence packages and

documentation prior to their arrest. them not having full paperwork from the authorities in no way justifies their incarceration. closed down by egyptian authorities especially since the 2011 revolution that saw president hosne mubarak hoisted from power. the al jazeera network says the bizarre dram dramatized video,. >> now been held without charge for more than one month. al jazeera continues to call for their immediate and un, release.

stephanie decker, al jazeera america. research suppose all 28 member-states of the european yoinl are guilty of padding government contracts, prescribary and other practices. the stid foun study found that f money could fund the eu for a area. iran's leader, roached a temporary dealing in november which gave an access to more than $4 billion in carn. today, iranian government said it received building a weapon. >> the best guarantee that could provide the assurance for

everybody that iran would not produce nuclear weapons is not limitation on iran's nuclear potential because even a small power plant can produce fuel for a weapon if the country was determined to use it. >> another effort to save detroit's finances. maria innes ferre joins us. maria. >> tony, discussions in brups court, complicated deal involves detroit's prior casino revenue to avoid debt payments. valid at $165 million and the judge needs to improve it. in ohio an apartment building owner is in jail. the owner appeared in court today, charged with starting the fire. court documents say he used a flammable liquid to set the

fire. he is being held on a $5 million bond. in idaho dozens were arrested at the state capital, protesting for gay rights. police say the protestors blocked the entry to the state senate chamber for hours. asking for protection for gay and transgender people in idaho's human rights act. the protest to add those people to the act has been denied a hearing. a police officer has been fired over a haircut. officer bernadette major giving a haircut to a woman under arrest. officer said she cut off the woman's hair we've, to prevent the woman from committing suicide. >> oh no. maria, thank you. a new round of snowy weather is disrupting travel plans, closing schools and the storm is dumping

ten inches of snow across parts of the northeast and another one on its heels. kevin. >> we are talking at the aimplet, philadelphia, newark, jfk and la guardia, snow is going on all day long. we're beginning oget a break right now for the major metropolitan areas but as you can see we're still not done here over here towards boston. now if you think this is going to be the end of it, unfortunately it is not. tomorrow we are going to be seeing some more snow coming out of our other impulse. rain to the south, snow to the north. we're talking indianapolis, columbus, ohio, cincinnati and pittsburgh. new york city is going to be right on the edge. that white is half to three quarters of an inch there. as we go towards wednesday that begins to move upper here towards northeast.

snow around the area for new york by the end of the day on wednesday we could see another four to six inches of snow. it's going to be nothing like we saw today but of course it's going to be on top of that slushy kind of wet snow that we had here, down to the south we are looking at some rain showers coming into parts of new jersey so our five day forecast for new york we're going to see that rain and slushy weather come in on wednesday but as we go towards the weekend those temperatures are dropping again. you can see on friday we're down to about 16° as an overnight low, back up to about 31. so almost about average for this time of year, tony. >> kevin, thank you, appreciate it. a history was made at the federal reserve, janet yellen was sworn in as the first woman to head the national bank the first time in history. she is succeeding ben bernanke.

she is taking on the challenge of rolling down monch backed securities. look at those numbers. so about 15 minutes time, al jazeera america is taking a closer look at the financial challenges facing the middle class. with "real money"'s ali velshi. >> i'm hiding, i'm watching out for falling stocks. >> do you want to start there? i want to talk about what you're looking at starting tonight and for week but the numbers with the dow and the drop and the -- >> i mean here's the thing, the number you just showed on the dow board, the 326, wasn't the worst. i don't worry much about stocks on a day-to-day basis, i think people should be long term investors. stuff was happening that made me worry. i've got a different show coming up tonight about the middle class. i had one eye on the stock

market saying what's up with that, it was triggered by a manufacturing report which showed a slow down. here's the thing in january we're done request with january. >> yes. >> thank you. and 7% already since the beginning of the year this market was down. we were up almost 30 last year and we're down 7. that's a year's wofor year's won a month. since january the beginning of the year. so i'm a little concerned that investors are just looking for reasons to sell so any little thing. the report we got today was not a reason to sell out of stocks the way you saw. so people are just getting nervous and they're taking some of their winnings off the table. >> you're going to be looking at this all week, america's middle class, the dream, and when you have seven days of drops, what are you looking at exactly in your program?

>> here's the thing. almost half of all americans don't even own stocks. they didn't participate in the 30% runup last year. so many americans are squeezed on so many frornts, houses that are underwater, job losses, it seems for a lot of reasons the system's up against them. up until the middle of the 1970s, this was a country that was ticking for the middle class. even with a college education you could get a great blue collar job with a pension, send your kids off to college. things have really changed. you and i discussed this on state of the union night. there's a building of income and equality in this country. i am spending an entire hour, anybody who dvrs this make sure you settle it for an hour. robert shiller, suze orman, the

financial guru, we're going otalk about the middle class, why they're squeezed but more importantly tony how we fix it. this is the beginning of a year long conversation that we're all having, this entire channel is going to have. we're also talking to as we always do on this show, people with real world pressure in their lives. sabino family of new york, the mamaddox family of oregon. we want to be able to tell you what's going on with the middle class. >> i was going to end it here but here's the other doggone thing, when i listen to you talk about the factors that lead to the squeeze of the middle class, everyone knows about it happens but leads me to wonder how important is the middle class? if it is really important, there are people working on this right?

>> it's crucial. the most all of history every successful economy have a robust middle class. they do two things, they buy the stuff that we build and produce so you can have jobs and they pay the taxes our government needs. the rich are you can get the more taxes can you avoid. if you earn $10 million a year you don't spend $9 million. a carton of milk is still the same, a gallon of gas is still the same. if you don't earn any money you're not consuming as much. the middle class is what keeps the economy ticking. it's crucial for everybody. >> i can't wait for that special, america's middle class, rebuilding the dream. it's on at 7:00 and 10:00 and it's on again at 10 a.m. let me not forget that, on the west coast. on al jazeera america. the cars could soon be able to

talk to each other. experts say, it may prevent request accidents, vehicle to vehicle communications next. plus a coca-cola ad with a patriotic song. i may seem pretty straightforward but it is causing all kinds of controversy. social media reaction, coming up.

>> don't know if i saw this coming. one of the most lopsided wins in super bowl history, this is the part i didn't see coming, was almost the most watched, ever! the final ratings were just released for the big game last night and 111.5 million people tuned in to see the seattle seahawks take apart the denver broncos, piece by spee piece by

piece, bruno mars, broke the record set two years ago bir by madonna. america the beautiful has set off a fire storm. maria innes ferre is here. >> clip of the commercial in case you haven't seen it yet. take a listen. ♪ america, america god shed his grace on thee [ foreign language ] ♪ >> now over the last 24 hours a boycott coca-cola page was set up on facebook, with over 1500

"likes" on it. take a look at some of the comments, dear coke, your commercial is the slap to my italian and finnish an says torres who came here and learned english. fernando writes, normally i wouldn't care about the coke times. these are not normal times. now more than other we need patriotic american unity, english please. support coke page, is it so critical to support other cultures in the u.s? ash said, immigrants threatening your way of life, man that must be tough and then griffin writes i'm thinking about change my dog's name from pepsi to coke for a week in support of coke. #support coke. it plans to release a 90-second

version for the sochi olympics. >> double down coke. too much sugar could lead to heart problems even two extra full sugar sodas could be a problem. the study of the study of the american journal of medicine, twice the risk of dying of heart disease, as those capped their sugar, only found in soda and other sugar ladened drinks not sugar found in fruit. new cars and trucks hopes of reducing crashes deaths. jake pob ward, what is this vehicle to vehicle communication would you talk us through this

please? >> sure. the idea of vehicle to vehicle communication is literally the ability of one car to communicate to one another, how fast it's going, where it's headed and its exact location. in order to warn drivers ahead of time before a collision occurs. i actually had an opportunity to sit in a system like this built by ford at the consumer electronics show in vaiftion int month. >> we would be going normally through the green light, then there's someone running the red. and the cars communicate and warn each other basically that that's about to happen. the idea here is of course that you're going to be warning human drivers ahead of time but what we'll see in the future is cars that don't even need a warning for the driver. they'll just take control themselves. >> whoa. how close are we to actually -- this actually happening?

>> well, volvo showed off a system called sart, road trains that once you get close to a truck that's in the lead, you can press a button, presumably go to sleep and be taken to jury destination, to your exit that way. -- your destination, your exit that way. what we'll see is a tiered version of this, by the end of the decade we should see the beginning of the first fully autonomous vehicle rolling out. >> this guy had his hands off the wheel and was turning around in the car. >> drinking, writing, who knows what's going to be happening behind the wheel. >> the world is spinning too fast for us. the winter olympics kick off

in three days. the ealternative flame reaches sochi, and tens of thousands of military and police personnel have been deployed to protect the games but the ioc president says despite terrorist threats visitors should feel safe. and this a pest control company says it has been ordered to kill stray dogs throughout the olympics. my goodness. thousands of dogs are roaming the streets of sochi and the company refused to comment on whether they shoot or poison the dogs. and where they dispose of the carcasses. an update on the day's top stories straight ahead, and then it's ali velshi. morgages... inflation... taking it's toll... >> we live paycheck to paycheck... >> now in a continuing series,

join ali velshi as we follow families, just like yours, as they try to get by... >> we're all struggling financially... >> america's middle class: rebuilding the dream on al jazeera america!

it's the american dream, a good job, a home for your family, a better future for your children. somewhere along the way, that dream gave way to harsh reality. >> living paycheck to paycheck. >> hard work is not enough to keep middle class families from falling behind. their struggle is the story of today's america. a country that counts on those in the middle to lead on the path to prosperity.