to know why these people keep on fighting... ...it's so seldom you get that access to the other side. >> faultlines: on the front lines with the taliban then an america tonight: special edition, only on al jazeera america >> >> russian forces storming a naval base in crimea a short time ago, raising the russian flag over a strategic ukrainian post. >> one of the largest porpography busts. the only thing worse than the numbers is the age of the

victims. >> we are losing our privacy. >> paying per mile, a plan met with opposition. >> cuts that people didn't know how to work with are becoming popular. >> why the record breaking drought in california is pushing up supermarket prices nationwide. >> good morning, and welcome to al jazeera america. i'm stephanie sy. one day after russia signed a treatedy making crimea a part of the russian operation, pro-russian forces stormed a base in sevastopol. jennifer glasse is there and joins us on the phone. things are escalating quickly. what are you hearing? >> that's right. i'm here at the base. you can here russian army trucks arriving on the base a few hours

ago. the civilian men came in, followed by russian forces. they stormed the building in the commanders hours , and made the ukrainian forces leave. there's a few sailors in the courtyard with their belongings around them. i took photos earlier that document what happens. there are men in regular uniforms standing guard outside the headquarters. the men stormed the hours. men went in and stored, pulling things out and cheering as people ripped the ukrainian naval emblem off the wall, held it up and threw it out the window. and it took a couple of hours. they were searching for the ukrainian commander of the black sea fleet. they found him a few minutes ago, took him out of the headquarters in a man - they are

not sure where they went. people are wondering around, some civilians. a couple of sailors heaving now. they are carrying everything in their offices. many have changed from civilian clothes, clearly under russian control. when i asked one of the ukrainian commanders why this all happened, he said the russians told him it was because the ukrainian ministry of intense told the soldiers, the sailors, that they were allowed to shoot in self-defence after a shooting in the crimean capital. that is because the sailors who have been trapped in the base were pretty much unarmed. >> are the ukraine yn sailors and soldiers leaving without

resistance, and the military men that went into the base bore no insignia. do we know for a fact that these are russians. >> there's a mixture of who is here. you have cossacks, proper soldiers well disciplined and armed. and a rag tag group of what they called the defense force. he had a weapon, mismatched como flaj. it allows them to say it was done by people, but it was organised. they attacked at once on all different dates on the base. there were civilian women with them. some of them had arms and told

the ukrainians to leave. now there's a few ukrainians sitting around with their belongings. many have changed into civilian clothes. a number have uniforms. a number have been told to leave the base and as they left some of the crimeans shouted "go home, go to the train station, you're not welcome here. go back home to ukraine." >> it's amazing how quickly events are moving. jennifer glasse reporting from sevastopol. thank you. >> russia is facing the threat of sanctions this morning as the u.s. and union push for international monitors in southern and eastern ukraine. vladimir putin announced that crimea was part of russia, but they are not seeking more territory to annex. let's go to phil ittner. ukraine's prime minister has been meeting with his cabinet. what is the government saying about losing crimea?

>> clorl they are angry about losing crimea, but we attended the cabinet meeting. it was a moving event because it began with a moment of silence for the ukrainian officer, who was shot yesterday. we heard jennifer glasse reporting. they are concerned about the incident in kiev. allegedly it was committed by a 17-year-old with far right tendencies, and that - those elements, pro-right elements have been used by moscow as a pretext for actions in crimea and eastern ukraine. they are concerned about that. they are putting out after the cabinet meeting a vice prime minister and the 2010s americans. the prime minister arseniy yatsenyuk september the two gentlemen on a plane to fly to crimea to de-escalate the

situation of we are hearing that the crimean authorities will not allow the plane to land, they say. so they are in the air at the moment. they have to decide whether or not they'll turn around and come back to kiev or face a confrontation in the air, over the black sea. >> the u.s. and the e.u. are talking about further actions in southern and eastern ukraine, is the impact felt in kiev. >> well, they want more stronger action from the west. they want to see the anxious programs grove. but they are looking at the possibility of doing things like nationalizing certain russian assets, including the pipeline. if they do that, clearly that will be a very strong provocation to moscow. >> phil ittner for us in kiev. thank you. >> the u.s. and europe are flattening russia, as we just

said, with economic sanctions. as ali velshi reports, e.u.'s dependence on russian energy could limit how far they go. >> a lot can change your in three decades, and a lot can stay the same. when president regan took control of the united states, united states and russia were the superpowers, confronting each other. moscow amassed troops on poland's border, threatening to inraid. regan sounded the alarm bells against this backdrop. >> i discussed the elements of western policies towards the soviet union, to safeguard our interest and protect the peace. what i'm describing is a plan and hope for the long term.

>> europe een allies were sympathetic. they were busy at the same time signing contracts request moscow to extend the transsign earian pipeline. it -- trans-siberian pipelines. for moscow it meant maintaining money and influence. the regan administration obsessed over how to thwart the deal. th this memo warned the president: >> despite regan's warning, western europe went ahead with the pipeline. three decades later russia is an energy superpower and the e.u.

depends on russia for a quarter of its national supplies through that network. so much has changed - the fall of the berlin wall, the fall of communism, the end of the cold war. yet much is the same. all these years later regan's warning that the wests' room for manoeuvre with moscow with a reliance on energy is proving true. >> we'll bring you the latest on the developments in ukraine throughout the morning. you can get up to the minute information on the website. >> with few new clues on the whereabouts of the missing malaysia airlines plane, stumped officials have asked the fbi for help. family members expressed their frustration. >> with 11 days and no answers, family members of the missing

people are angry. they confronted airline officials. >> you only mention question regarding food, direction and compensation. i don't need this. i need to know the whereabouts of my relatives, i want know where the plane is, and you can't give on answer. >> some of the relatives of chinese on the plane are threatening a hunger flight. it has come to light that the cockpit computer was reprogrammed to go off course. it takes expertise to do that. >> it's speculation. once you are in the aircraft, anything is possible. >> malaysian officials often give conflicting information. including what time the communication systems went dark. both systems clicked off at the same time. it does not point to a major

mechanical failure. >> it does not change our belief that up until the point at which the radar coverage, it's consistent with whoever is on the plane. >> it covers a massive area. the u.s. has two military planes up and looking. >> there is a northern zone, and a southern zone to search in the indian ocean. currently we have now assigned p3, a maritime patrol reconnaissance aircraft to cover the northern zone, flying out of kuala lumpur. >> the u.s. navy pa is heading to australia to help in the south. hoping to narrow down the search area, malaysia requested satellite and radar data. the thai military says its radar may have detected the plane.

thailand says it had not shared the information, because it was not specifically asked for it. once again raising questions about whether malaysia mishandled what turned into an unprecedented hunt for a missing jetliner. >> american investigators say unless floating debris from the aircraft is discovered soon, the chances of discovering the plane is unclickly. >> u.s. say they have unravelled a large pornography ring, with the arrests of 14 men running a members only website. it uncovered 250 victimized children in 39 states and five countries. most of the victims were boys, 3 to 17. >> the arrest of these individuals cannot erase the harm suffered by the more than 250 child victims we have identified in this case. but it is an action that will

prevent the victimisation of more incident children who might otherwise have been abused. >> the site had more than 27,000 subscribers, many will be charged separately. >> a woman mauled by a chimpanzee is appealing to connecticut lawmakers after being denied the chance of suing the state. she has lost two limbs, is blinded, and wants to sue the state saying they should have removed the animal from its owner, she did a video demonstrating what she has to face with. >> i'm trying to work the best i can to have my sanity and i - i just - i want to be as normal as i can be. >> the connecticut state judiciary committee meets friday

to give test moan yi. >> firefighters battled a grassfire. a criminal investigation has been launched because it appears they may have been set on purpose. the city is under a red flag warning. warm, dry, windy conditions make it easy for fires to spread. there's no rain in sight for the region. >> unfortunately the red flag warning has been dropped. conditions are improving for today. here is what we are looking at and the set up yesterday. we had the cold front coming in. ahead of that, all the dry air funnelled in from the south. two things - it drops the humidity and gusty winds, so things are drying out and wind to fuel the fire. now we are getting in on the backside of that. in the meantime places like oklahoma city, temperatures in the 70s, winds gusting over 40

miles per hour. winds are abating and will do so over the course of the day. a little on the gusty side. you can see where the front is. winds to the north-west and illinois. out of the south where the front has not gone through. temperatures dropping into the normal ranges into the '60s, improving things, the warmer it is, the more vegetation dries out. the same system moving through the north of the country producing snow in minnesota we'll see some of the moisture making its way to the east coast as well. >> the impact of california's drought is being felt at supermarkets everywhere. according to a new government report the price of food is going up nationwide. a lack of water means it costs more to grow fruit and vegetables. the cost is being passed on to

consumers. >> the worst is yet to come. that is what pete says. he runs a wholesale produce market. >> we can expect everything. the polices will be high. the volume planted will not be that great. because of the lack of water, i expect the prices to double. >> the impact of california's drought will hit this summer, when the growers haul in a fruit harvest. >> prices have been kept steady. the noticeable hike is for beef, prices jumping 4%, the most in 10 years. >> some of the cuts in the past were not as sought after, i feel. some are more braying steaks or cuts that people didn't know how to work with are a bit more popular. >> the biggest cattle shortage since the 1950s.

after years of drought in texas compounded by california's drought. in california drought farce afl afla farmers to limit the crop. limited hay led to higher costs for ranchers. that cost led to higher prices. for now, shoppers may not notice many changes. some have seen difference in the price of grain, creating a patchy prospect over the next few months. >> the cost of food could go up by 3.5% by the end of the year, and for those of you who are coffee drinkers, bad news. coffee in the futures market has gone up by 70%. melissa chan reporting. the state of california says it

no longer has enough water to give to farmers. growers say they may have to leave the fields unplanted. >> a revolutionaried in that is not sitting well. oregon's plan to pay for bridge and road repairs. $400 million in two winning mega millions tickets. two people calling sick to work this morning. nobody liked having a root canal. what happened when that tooth is six inches long.

>> there are two lucky tickets out there for last night's big mega millions lottery - sold in florida, and maryland, and the winners will split the $$400 million. the numbers were: >> if each winner chooses the lump sum option, they'll split 224 million and 112 ich, if they

take the anuty, they'll get 30 annual payments of: >> we did the maths. >> welcome back, taking a look at business news, it's decision day for the federal reserve. the central bank is to announce cuts to its bond-buying program and they'll watch for timing on when to raise the interest rates. the main event will be janet yellen's first news conference as fed chair. >> she wants to instill confidence and not throw markets for a loop. there's a risk that a remark can send the stocks up and down. she'd rather not do that, but send a message that steady as she goes at the federal reserve. >> stock futures are higher ahead of the fed meeting. the dow jones starting the day at 16, 336. the nasdaq is at 43.31.

chinese property shares under pressure after a developer defaulted on his depth. >> sony unveiling a virtual reality headset. they took the wraps off the black and white headset at the annual gathering of game designers. sensors built into the headset can track head movements. sony says it has been working on that technology for years. >> municipalities are seeing less money as people switch to energy efficient cars and a town in the north-west is considering a radical idea. >> america loves its cars, it's about freedom and the open road. fuel is cheaper. much of the cost is taxed -

national and local. most should pay for road improvements. despite the money america's roads and bridges are in a poor state. in oregon, the state that came up with the idea of a tax to fund improvements, engineers say 23% of bridges are dedifferent or worse. with more fuel efficient cars people are filling up less och. organ will run a scheme changing the way motorists are taxed. >> motorists will be charged for every kilometre they approval. there'll be a small device in every car detailing how far people are travelling. people are worrying this will be another part of their lives tracked by the government. jim spent 11 years working on an alternative to the fuel tax. >> we have learnt that the system cannot have any kind of a gps mandated box.

citizens don't like that. >> the oregon experiment starts next year. the state has more than 3 million registered cars. the sample can be grown quickly if it's a success. other states and the federal government are watching closely. >> people have been looking to oregon and other states. minnesota is another state that has been innovative in this area. de facto it has become a bit of a template. >> while the tax or charge as the politician calls it may make sense, the biggest obstacle is convincing people it's for their benefit. >> i would rather do it at the pump. >> with the use of everybody on the internet now, we are losing our privacy. in is another right to lose. once we lose it, we'll never get it back. >> oregon is proud it introduced a fuel tax and proud it's

confronting a problem that experts insist will get worse unless there's urgent action and a new approach. >> if approved oregon's new plan will replace the $0.30 a gallon tax on gasoline. >> what do you do when the king of the jungle has a tooth ache. it may sound like a joke but not for africa, a lion who spent his life in captivity in a cat sanctua sanctuary. he has a history of dental problems. so a root canal was performed by the university. the important part of the process - making sure he's properly sedated. >> the crisis in ukraine - rip affects. >> talks on iran's nuclear program. >> washington takes action against the government of syria. what syrian diplomats were ordered to do by the end of the month. >> translation: we don't know

where in india we were hemmed. it was so bad one of my friends arrested with me died there. >> they go out to sea and never come home. innocent fishermen used as importance in an international dispute.

>> welcome back to al jazeera america. i'm stephanie sy, and these are the top stories at this hour. the murder trial against oscar pistorius is now in its second week. the south african olympic athlete broke down in court. a ballistic expert testifying that oscar pistorius was likely not wearing his prosthetic legs when he fired the fatal shots gilling his girlfriend. he believed she was an intruder and pleaded not guilty. >> the search for the missing malaysia airlines plane enters a

12 day, expanding to 2 million nautical miles. stumps officials in malaysia tuesday asked the fbi. files were deleted from a flight simulator belonging to a pilot aboard the jet. >> soldiers from crimea stormed a ukraine navy. it follows an attack on tuesday in which two were killed, including a soldier. it's been called a robbery on an international scale. >> the developments in ukraine are having a ripple effect on diplomatic locations. as tim trend reports, it's impacting talks been iran's nuclear program. >> there are more challenges for iran's foreign minister and the e.u.'s foreign envoy as they focus on a final settlement on iran's nuclear activities. >> a spat and a cancelled dinner

over catherine ashton's last visit to tehran. and then the crisis in crimea. >> it was not mentioned this morning. we are here to negotiate on the ukrainian nuclear program. discussions on crimea happen elsewhere in a different forum. as i said in my earlier april, there's no indication that it's having a negative effect. >> a strong denial. the risk remains. could moscow cut a deal with iran, producing a furious rehabilitation in the united states. before the ukraine crisis erupted, vladimir putin was reported to be discussing a deal with iran, in which moscow would by iranian foil in exchange for money, goods and help in building nuclear reactors.

no one is optimistic about a quick resolution in vienna. despite an interim agreement when iran shelved higher grade uranium enrichment in exchange for moderate relief from economic sanctions. >> tim friend is joining us live. there are worrying possibilities now that russia and the u.s. have a great rift. >> what is supposed to be on the agenda for the meeting that has got underway today? >> one crucial issue on the agenda is the arac heavy water plant. it's under construction in iran. critics say it would give iran another possibility to develop nuclear weapons. now, iran, of course, rejects that. the issue is over how far this development should be allowed to

proceed. those in the west would like to see it closed down, shut completely. iran is not going to do that. negotiators are saying there may be room for manoeuvre, but they are not going to close it down. they say it's for peaceful purposes, and they have, of course, conservatives back in iran itself, who are very suspicious of these negotiations overall, and don't want to see their negotiators give away any more than they have to. equally, the hard line is in the u.s. congress who don't want to see the u.s. and their allies make further concessions. >> ukraine has been sucking a lot of the oxygen out of these important diplomatic discussions. earlier this month it overshadowed a conference on syrian rev gees in lebanon.

how serious are the tensions at this meeting, for the iran deal? >> well, it's lurking in the background. i was explaining in my story just there, all the official word is that it is not impinging on the discussions, but they are aware of the fallout from the crisis in crimea and the participation to disrupt discussions here. the possibility is, of course, if iran assistances there are differences between knows on the other side of the negotiating table, it may try to exploit them. it could play for the long game and hold out for more concessions. the risk of the talks running off the rails, as it were, remains. and when you consider that there is already talk of a possible israeli military trike against

nuclear facilities, and it may be talk to galvanise western action, but nevertheless you can see the overall threat to peace in the middle east. >> al jazeera's tim friend in vienna. >> on that topic, the israeli military says it has targeted several syrian army positions. a day after four soldiers were injured in the golan heights. israel blames the asaad government. the obama administration is taking steps against the syrian regime. documents and staff have been told to heave the u.s. by the end of the -- leave the u.s. by the end of the month, ordering the closure of the embassy and washington. three years into the syrian war, the once bus lipping city of aleppo - some refuse to leave.

>> the neighbourhood with aleppo under fire. the result - rubble across the road. smoke rising all around. badly damaged buildings. and injuries. survivors shout to others above - come down. it must be hard to know which way to turn. many other neighbourhoods here have been hit before. last month dozens of government helicopters dropped barrel bombs on the area. residen residents returned to find their homes unrecognizable. >> translation: i came to see my house. i couldn't work out where it is, there no doors or walls. i'm lost here, as if i'm in a jungle or somewhere worse.

i don't know what to say. >> the city once boasted a population of 2 million. the u.n.'s mediator said half a million people have left recently. many are determined to remain. aleppo's local council launched a campaign to help with services like clearing rubbish. they may only have one bulldozer, but it's as much about a message of strength as anything else. >> the aim of the campaign is to clean up the city and provide services for residents. it's a message from the wrebels to the government to let them know we are steadfast in aleppo. we'll never surrender, leave or pull out. >> this city of historic beauty

has been crushed under the weight of war. the strength of these people who have chosen to stay despite the violence lives on. >> before the war aleppo was considered a hub for classical music, hosting concerts and art festivals. >> the ntsb has been called in to investigate a chopper crash near the spait space needle. the two men on board were killed. photographer bill stroppin won 13 emace at komo tv. his son dan works there as a photojournalist. he said his dad will be missed. >> he was the facest man ever. he was a great photographer and

a great person. he had a kind and gentle soul. >> seattle's mayor will take a closer look at the placement of helicopter pad around seattle. >> toyota will pay off a million dollars to pay off a fine. this has to do with the recall of the 10 million vehicles, right. >> yes. toyota issued the recall in response to sudden acceleration. the deal will end a four year investigation into whether the automaker handled the complaints. toyota was found to have intentionally misled authorities. the company has paid out tens of millions in fines and civil settlements. hundreds of lawsuits are unresolved. the reason behind the problem is on the customer end, and not an

electronic issue. toyota will avoid criminal charges. >> it comes as the government is about to gear up its investigation. the justice department is examining whether executives new about a problem with the ignition switches. it has been linked to a dozen daths leading to the new c.e.o. apologise ing this week. >> erica pitzi, thanks. >> florida's child welfare agency is under fire, following an investigation into children who died of adduce or neglect. there has been nearly 900 confirmed cases of child abuse deaths, half while on the

state's radar. >> when you see this kind of thing, it's an outrage. >> slightly more than 70% of children that died were two years old or younger. more on this ahead in the next hour. alzheimer's takes a toll on women in america, twice as likely as men to develop the disease, and twice as likely to be caregivers to men that develop alzheimer's. >> alzheimer's left 66-year-old john wallace part of man it used to be. but it's the impact on your wife. >> when you are in your mid 50s, you look at retirement. john and i had a plan. all of a sudden that was not going to happen. angie is one of the more than 50 million people in the u.s. caring for someone with alice

springs -- alzheimer's. it comprises up to 70% of caregive caregivers. >> women report that they are more likely to suffer depression and suppress then men are in their care gaving role. >> angie had to change the way she sees her relationship with her husband when she was thrust into the caregiver role. >> i'm a widow, and i have a child. then it made it bearable. >> being a care giver can be lonely and a financial burden. angie had to movon out of the home and that a private care facility, costing half of her salary. this is private paid. it's on us. i don't know what will happen. the monetary value of unpaid caregivers tops $220 billion. >> women are twice as likely to develop alzheimer's compared to breast cancer.

>> the n.c.a.a. tournament got underway. jessica taff is here with more. >> big to dos on the internet. david and nc state and dayton ohio, looking for a date to the big dance. they had it going early on. a slow start by tj warren, ralston turner had it going. leading the way with 17. they scored and the player of the year stepped up late. nc state led. o pack are headed to orlando for a date with st. louis. >> i have not talked about it with the team, whether anyone else felt we should or shouldn't be in. we believe we deserve to be in. >> we believe that, players believe it. they plays their way in, earned

the right. beat good teams. it's not something we made a big point of emphasis. >> the other game featured almapy and mt st marys. not much of a battle. a 13-0 run at the start, leading 17. dj heaven, 22 points. the first tournament game won, 71-64. >> well, if they bring him, they will come. the him is phil jackson. the they is the agents. the former nick has won two titles as a player, and 11 as a head coach. they have jackson in a deal, and the hopes that the zen master can bring a title back to the big apple.

>> my prenup is important as ownership of the lakers, i don't want to be involved in that now i'm with the new york nicks. there's no doubt about carmelo being one of the top scorers, maybe the best individual isolation players in the game. >> i have no problems with committing to saying carmelos in the future plans. >> happy wife, happy life, very smart. >> tiger woods, for the second time, withdraw from the earl of palmer classic due to back pain. it's weeks for the master, and it's the least amount of golf woods played heading into august a, where he's taken home the green jacket four times, the last in 2005. >> the spring training game delayed because of bees.

yes, a swarm of bees innovating left field. no one wanted to go near them - understandably. >> help offered up, but the bug spray would do the strip. that is a look at sports. >> was there a hive there. >> i guess, i don't know what is going on. >> interesting. >> i like how everyone backed up. >> thank you jessica taff. >> fishermen sailing the arabian sea between pakistan and india find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. hundreds are arrested for trespassing. tensions between the two countries made the relief diff. >> ever sips he was a boy, this man has been fishing in the waters, and knows the sea off the south-eastern coast like the back of his hand. in late 2010 a day at work turned into a 3-year ordeal.

>> translation: we were putting our nets out in the area we had fish in before, when the indian coast card came and arrested us. we don't know where in india we were held. one of my friend arrested with me died there. >> sultan of sulu was released after politicians in islamabad and new delhi agreed to an exchange. >> not everyone is lucky. around 200 pakistani fishermen are held by india, and 230 indians are held in the pakistani gaol. >> this woman's son was one month old when his father was arrested. earlier this year his body was returned to family.

he was 41. >> we were poor to begin with, now we have nothing. i appeal to the government of india and pakistan not to arrest more fishermen. they are only doing their jobs. let them return to their families. >> in a show of solidarity fisher me in pakistan appealed to the supreme court to release all imprisoned fishermen. avid sea groups are lobbying mohdi, the front runner for prime minister. people want him to include a ban on arresting fisherman. the long-standing tensions between the two countries, and a shift in policy by either government is unlikely. >> that leaves people like this with little hope that others will be spared the same suffering. >> just this week india arrested

15 pakistani fishermen accused of fishing in indian water. >> it sells more goods than amazon and ebay combined. you probably no little about it. now you will be able to invest in it even though you can't use it. >> a teacher gives his children beer but there's a twist - saying it's not a big deal.

>> so an aquarium at a disney restaurant sprung a leak as people were sitting to eat. water gushed out. restaurant employees climbed in the tank to try to save the fish. they were able to rescue all the little guys. >> welcome back to al jazeera america.

investing in a popular company in a minute. first meteorologist nicole mitchell checks the forecast. >> there's a frontal system moving through the country. not a lot of moisture. it came from the pacific, so it's not as cold as it moves through as some of the systems we have seen. definitely snow in places like northern parts of wisconsin was it tracks to the east coast. a lot of this is rain, although northern parts of new england, watch for that. temperatures in a few minutes. >> imagine an ecommerce company handling more goods than ebay and amazon. that company economists in china and plans to go public. it's ali baba. it has a value of $140 billion, and that initial public offering

could reach $15 billion. they raised $16 billion. the company announced it would hold its ipos. mr keith blitz is joining us to talk about more in the digital drill-down. let's start with what is ali baba. it's called the chinese amazon. >> it is, and it's more than that. think amazon and ebay combined, but larger. there's a splash of google, a whitegoods retailer, a pay-pal system. it's a massive, massive company that has been created in 15 years. >> in 15 years it's become huge. why is it so successful. >> he capitalized on the electronic comers binge. china the largest market in the

world. accuracy where it's been operating. the ipo, expanding to other markets. the future is bright. >> why did it decide to hold the ipo in the u.s. there is a front runner. i get to why they decided to come to the u.s. most of our operations is apparently the front runner. it's the largest market, liquidated market. the technical malt-junctions that maybe -- malfunctions that maybe they had. hong kong has a peculiar rule about ownership. companies that list are not allowed have control over the board of directors. given the ownership of ali baba that was not going to fit. over the past few years there's

problems with chinese companies listing on hong kong. transparency is not there. there has been fraud. here in the u.s. it's an open book. investors around the world will know what they are buying and how much money the company is making and the shareholders earning. >> how excited is wall street about this. >> extremely exciting. it could be the largest ipo. k, the wall street is hungry for new i po product, and working on the new york stock change will be an exciting day. customers will demand to play in that stock. >> let's dig deeper into the company. ali baba was founded by jack marr, an english teacher. it was head quartered in china, they have more than 70 offices.

who is jack marx. >> he's an ecommerce entrepreneur. like apple, google - started in a garage, in an apartment. it could be worth $150 billion. jack maher's is more than that. he's a maverick inside the chinese business and has democracy on his find. he's the first chinese national to serve on the board. he has grand visions for where he'll take the company. >> this is an interesting one to watch. the senior vice president for kutone and company with the digital drill-down. parents are criticising a michigan teacher for allowing fifth grade students to drink beer. they sampled non-alcoholic ale common in colonial type of.

it's non-alcoholic, the school learnt after the fact that there are traces of alcohol in it. school officials say it was an honest mistake and parents were sent a letter. >> del walters is here with a look at what we are following. >> more on the russian forces storming the ukrainian navy base in crimea, raising the russian flag over the strategic destination. >> files from deleted from the flight simulator in the apartment of the pilot of malaysia airlines. >> a pornography ring busted, one of the biggest in history. some of the children three years old. >> and slipping through the cracks - what a judge says is the solution to a deadly program. >> a long-overdue honour for a group it of overlooked veterans. >> snow is melting and rivers

rising. i'll explain why this is the deadliest type of weather. >> al jazeera america continues. dell and i are back with you in 2.5 minutes.

>> a confrontation in crimea, heavily armed forces storm a ukrainian naval base and raise the russian flag. >> a new revelation in the missing airlines flight, authorities saying files connected to the captain's flight simulator were deleted. >> are these just throw away children and throw away families that nobody cares about? >> the failures of one state's

child welfare system being blamed for the deaths of hundreds of children. >> some soldiers fought and died for a country that did not always see them as equal. >> the long overdo honor from military heroes who went above and beyond but overlooked because of their race and religion. >> good morning. welcome to aljazeera america. >> one day after russia signed a treaty making crimea a part of the russian federation, pro russian forces stormed the ukrainian navy base in the city of sevastopol. >> for more, we go to jennifer glasse by phone there. what can you tell us? there was a brief standoff at the ukrainian base. what happened? >> early this morning, armed

civilians surrounded the base, and then they literary ripped the gates off the hinges, taking the ukrainian emblem off the gates of this military headquarters, the naval headquarters here and then they went in. behind them came russian forces. they went into the offices, the head of the russian black sea fleet arrived. as they tried to have negotiations, they couldn't find the commander. it went on for about two hours. we saw young men go into the building. ransack the headquarters. they ripped the military emblem off the wall and threw it out the window to the cheers of the crowd and started evicting ukrainian sailors telling them to leave, as they left the building, they cheered them, record. >> them on, said go home, go to the train station, you don't belong here. they searched them. they were chanting russia.

they raised the russian flag over the gates of the base, inside the base and now they forced us to leave. not clear who's in charge, but certainly armed civilians there earlier this morning and at the base now. >> this is exactly what russian penalty vladimir putin said would not happen. do we know why these men stormed that ukrainian naval headquarters? >> yes, they did because we were told by one of the men, one of the ukrainian solers he was told they came in this morning because the ukrainian minister of defense authorized ukrainian forces to use force, authorized sailors and soldiers here to use force in self defense and that came after yesterday ukrainian military officer was killed in the crimean capitol by a sniper. that's why the ukrainian defense

ministry authorized them to use force. most of these guys don't have weapon honest them. the weapons have been locked up for about three weeks since the standoff began because their commanders didn't want there to be any problems, any military encounter, any armed encounter between ukrainian and russian forces, who have been in a standoff since the russian forces came in here at the end of last month and in this base takeover of the naval headquarters here, not a shot fired, del. >> jennifer glass joining us live from sevastopol, thank you very much. >> phil ittner is in the capitol of kiev. you heard jennifer, events are moving rapidly there, part of russia now. what is ukraine's government doing about losing crimea? >> first and foremost, they held that cabinet meeting and began with a moment of silence for

that ukrainian officer killed in crimea yesterday. allegedly by a 17-year-old with ties to the far right. they're deeply concerned about the far right elements, the government here saying they are going to try to control it. as far as crimea is concerned, following that shooting and the incident that jennifer's reporting, they have sent a vice prime minister and defense minister to crimea, but the crimean authorities announced that they would not be allowed to land in crimea. there's no word whether or not those two authorities--officials will run to kiev or keep going. if they keep going, they will have to make a decision and it could be a very sharp confrontation there. again, we're checking on whether or not that mission is being turned back or whether or not they are going to try and continue to get to crimea. >> the u.s. and e.u. are talking

about further sanctions and pushing for more international monitors in southern and eastern ukraine, is the impact of those actions being felt in kiev? >> they are being felt in kiev but they want more, stronger sanctions. the international observers being sent to the east of this country, we do know president obama and german chancellor angela merkel decided to send them. where are they sending them? they can't send them to crimean, the russians and crimeans won't send them in, but are sending them out to the east of this country because there's a strong suspicion that there are agent provocateurs sent by moscow to stir up instability between communities that are pro western and those that are pro russian. that's what those international observers will be going to check, whether or not there are some sub versive elements sent by the russians to try to

destabilize the situation further beyond crimea. >> phil ittner, thank you. >> stay with aljazeera for continuing coverage of the situation in crimea. in 25 minutes, we'll focus on a decades old agreement that ukraine says makes it mandatory for the international community to intervene in this conflict. >> the cries having a diplomatic effect on relationships with other countries. talks with iran over the nuclear program is underway. >> there are yet more challenges for the iran's foreign minister and the chief envoy trying to focus on a final settlement on iran's nuclear activities. first, a spat and a canceled dinner over catherine ashton's meeting with human rights activists during her last tehran visit. then the crisis in crimea, and its threat to these talks because of a potential split between moscow and washington.

>> it was not mentioned this morning we're here to negotiate on the iranian nuclear program. discussions on crimea happen elsewhere in different forum. as i said, there is no indication that it's having a negative effect. >> a strong denial, but the risk remains. could moscow cut a separate deal with iran? that will produce a furious reaction in the united states. even before the ukraine crisis erupted, president putin was reported to be discussing a deal with iran in which moscow would buy iranian oil in exchange for money, goods and help in building new nuclear reactors. no one is optimistic about a quick resolution here in vienna, despite an interim agreement reached lately last year when iran shelved higher uranium enrichment in exchange for

sanctions relief. >> tim friend in vienna. bring us up to date on what is going on and how this rocky relationship we have with russia is affecting those talks. it appears that we have lost tim friend, we were having difficulty with that signal. we gave it a egg. >> we'll move on. new documents released by edward snowden reveal a top secret nsa program allowing agents to save 100% of a countries phone calls. the program called mystic was formed in 2009 and was reportedly used against at least one country. it allows agents to play back phone conversations for 30 days, even from people not convicted of wrongdoing. the report says it was not used in the u.s. and the nsa considered expanding it.

>> with few clues about the missing malaysian airlines plane, the malaysian transport minister saying files were deleted follow a plane simulator owned by the captain. it's unclear what were on those files. families are demanding more information. lisa stark is live in washington. good morning. >> good morning, del, investigators are very, very interested in those files that were recently deleted off the flight simulator taken from the home of the captain. they are now trying to do what they can to retrieve that data. >> 12 days into the disappearance of malaysia flight 370 investigators remain focused on the pilot. tuesday the airline was asked about a new york times report that the flight computer was reprogrammed to take the plane off course. >> as far as we're concerned, the aircraft was programmed to

fly. it could be speculation. anything is possible. >> new reports give that theory a time line, saying the u turn may have been programmed by someone 12 minutes before the co pilot's last words of all right, good night. that suggests the turn was premeditated and not done manually at the controls. a maneuver like that would take expertise. many pilots will fall under a greater microscope. >> i just can't imagine with his character and what we knew of him. it just wouldn't make any sense that he would have anything to do with any sort of deliberate action on his part. >> families of the missing remain devastated at the conflicting information who may have missed another piece of information from thailand, which

now says its military radar may have detected the jetliner and initial turns off course. thailand had not shared the information because it wasn't specifically asked for it and that the plane was never a threat to its air space. the search for the missing jet now covers a massive area including 2.24 million square nautical miles, roughly two thirds the size of the continental u.s. the u.s. has two military aircraft looking, including in australia to help search in the south. >> those are really, really treacherous, deep seas, winter is coming, the rescue effort just continues to get difficult by the day. it's not even a needle in a haystack. it's a needle in thousands of fields of haystacks. >> very, very tough. malaysian officials saying "we will persevere." the family members especially those in china where the bulk of the passengers were from, they

have been so frustrated, devastated, feeling they are not getting the information that they need. today, malaysian officials saying they are going to send a high level delegation to add to the officials already in beijing to try to keep those family members appraised as everything that investigators are finding out. del. >> lisa, thank you very much. >> poor communication may have slowed the response to the deadly shooting at los angeles international airport. a gunman opened fire with an assault rifle in the terminal. a new report suggestion airport police had trouble coordinating with emergency responders and showed up not nothing where to go. officials will be working to implement safety recommendations. >> a new internal review of the mass shooting at the washington navy yard says the attack could have been prevented. 12 were killed when a navy

reservist opened fire. there were missed opportunities to strip alexis of his security clearance and access to military facilities. threats to defense democratic personnel and facilities are increasingly coming from within. >> open and free societies are always vulnerable, but together, we're going to do everything possible to provide our people as safe and secure workplace at possible. >> the pentagon will review people with access to information and secure facility. >> a gop nomination for illinois governor promises to run the democratic strong hold like a business, limiting the influence of unions. his democratic opponent governor pat quick said he will wind up raising the minimum wage. >> this is about snaking up springfield, ripping out the corruption by getting term limits on everybody in

springfield. >> we respect our workers. we understand that there are some who do the hardest jobs in our society and that's why we intend to raise the minimum wage in illinois this year. >> democrats have held the governor's office in illinois since 2003, but this could be a serious threat with $6 million of his own money in his war chest. they have done that in the senate raise. that led to the rise of barack obama. >> florida has seen 872 child abuse deaths. >> half of those cases were actually known to the state's welfare agency. >> it is certainly especially a teacher who calls in, something that we should take very seriously. >> what some are saying and why there needs to be an overhaul of the system to keep the children safe. >> an american veteran of world war ii shares his personal story as he's honored by france and president obama for his role at

nor mandy. >> our big number of the day is $1.2 billion. >> what it has to do with major recall, coming up. >> here's a live look at the nation's capitol this wednesday morning, where it is 38 degrees, almost spring. >> tomorrow, the spring will come out tomorrow.

>> good morning, welcome to al jazeera america. i'm stephanie sy. >> i'm del walters. >> up next, investigating floridas child welfare system. >> first, temperatures across the nation today with nicole mitchell. >> we are seeing cooler temperatures where the front is going through, pretty significantly easy to see towards nashville, little rock into the 50's, just a little bit behind the front, lincoln, wichita into the 30's this morning. a lot of the country, not too far off average for this time of year. this is what's happened. this front isn't bringing down that colder arctic air from canada. it's been sliding across from the pacific northwest, not a lot of colder air with it.

it will nudge things back down to normal, places in the midwest, denver 75, 55 is more typical this time of year, it's not the arctic stuff. up and down the east coast, staying in the 40's. tomorrow, very quick recovery, even with all of that going through, the midwest shoots back up into the 60's in some cases, and up and down the coastline, a lot of temperatures into the 60's and 50's, back to you. >> nicole mitchell, thank you. >> every year, more than 3 million confirmed reports of child abuse happen in the u.s. soap workers have to decide how to keep the children safe. america tonight correspondent investigates one state where hundreds of children died from abuse, even though many were on the radar of child services. >> this was cold, calculated, and this was evil. >> in a florida courtroom,

sharon glass faces sentencing for child abuse. a boy locked in this tiny bathroom for months, the window boarded up, sleeping on the bare floor, and starved. this was a case florida's department of children and families d.c.f. knew about, in fact had been warned about for years. teachers and principals from two schools called again and again. they reported bruises, black eyes and that he was always hungry. the boy was rescued 17 months later, only after a chance encounter resulted in the police being called to his home in titusville florida. the sharon glass case is not isolated. florida's department of children and families has been under fire for years for letting child abuse cases slip through the cracks, often with deadly results. according to the agencies own figures, in the past five and a

half years to june 2013, there were 872 confirmed child abuse deaths. in 437 of those cases, the families were known to d.c.f. >> i don't want any child to die, whether they were seen by d.c.f. or not. >> esther runs the department of children and families in florida. >> many cases, people stepped up, teachers or somebody else who have access to that family say they were ignored and nothing done. >> an investigation occurred. these are isolated cases where protective investigators are dealt with individually, but it is certainly especially a teacher who calls in, something that we should take very seriously always. >> when she took over last officer, she inherited an agency that suffered from deep budget cuts, $179 million in 2011 and troubling personnel problems. the d.c.f. in investigator general reported 99

investigators and supervisors were fired or resigned in 2012. most of them for falsifying reports. >> when you see this kind of thing, it's just an outrage. >> this judge handled child abuse cases, an outspoken critic of the department of children and families. >> we should pay for their education and you pay them better so that there's not this scan stand turnover. >> all of this takes money. >> the question is are these just three away children and throw away families that nobody cares about or do you understand that this is really important work and that the state of florida has an obligation to take care of its most vulnerable children. >> on the next america tonight, part two of the investigation into florida's troubled child welfare system looks at the practice of warehousing children

in nursing homes. that airs at 9:00 eastern tonight. >> $1.2 billion is the amount of money toyota is expected to dole out into a massive recall probe. >> it could be announced today. investigators were looking into whether toyota tried to hide knowledge of acceleration problems in that car. >> the company paying $7 million for failing to recall the defective cars on time. >> they paid $29 million after it was alleged they tried to hide it. >> in other business news, it is decision day for the federal reserve, expected to announce further cuts to bond buying programs. investors will watch for new guidance about the time of on raising interest rates. one fed watcher saying the fed is likely to down play the effect of the bad weather on its policy decisions. >> we've had a mixed recovery, gradual study expansion for five years now, almost, and looks

like we continued having that through the first quarter of 2014. i think the evidence points that direction, that's what the fed is seeing and that's what they're going to respond to as they set policies. >> the main event will be janet yellen's first news conference at 2:30 eastern time. >> dow futures she up 12 points, starting the day at 16336, the s&p at 1872, the nasdaq 4331. the asian markets ending mostly lower. chinese property shares under pressure after a default on real estate date. european markets are mixed. >> applications for mortgages fell last week, applications for home loans dropping 1.2%, including purchases and refinancing. at the same time, the interest rates on 30 year fixed fell to an average 4.5%. >> head set for play station

four was premiered. sensors built in can track head movements. it has been working on the technology for more than three years. >> it seems to date all all the way back to the old most of series. >> yeah, matrix, right? >> matrix. >> vladimir putin signing that treaty making crimea a part of russia. >> now russian forces have stormed the ukrainian naval base in crimea. what we can expect the russian president to do next. >> three years into syria's bloody civil war, who are the rebel groups fighting of the government and why they may be splintering. >> a world war ii veteran remembers the friends he's lost as he's honored for his efforts on the battlefield. >> coming up in sports, the georgia team from an unlikely conference hopes to be the

cinderella story in the ncaa tournament.

>> welcome to al jazeera america, i'm stephanie sy. >> i'm del walters. >> easy taken control of crimea, what some believe vladimir putin is up to next. >> world war ii veterans finally being rewarded after their heroics on the battlefield. a lot of people saying it's about time. >> i watched that story yesterday. it was fascinating. >> what is behind the number of measles cases that have actually tripled in the u.s. it has to do with vaccinations. >> one day after russia signed a treaty making crimea a part of

the russian federation, pro russian forces stormed the ukrainian navy base in the city of sevastopol and raised the russian flag. >> word leaders including the u.s. and russia are meeting in vienna trying to negotiate a final settlement concerning iran's nuclear program. >> frustrated family members of the malaysian airline passengers lashing out, one woman tried to interrupt today's bailey press briefing and others calling for a hunger strike. information was deleted from the flight simulator at the home of the captain. >> when the soviet union collapsed in the 1990's, ukraine found itself holding an enormous nuclear arsenal. it got rid of them only after the u.s. and russia promised to maintain ukraine's territorial integrity. >> in 1991 when the soviet union collapsed, ukraine was holding the third largest nuclear

arsenal president war, 2,000 warheads aimed at the west. as part of the deal to turn that over to russia for decommissioning, ukraine got something in return, security, a promise that russia, the u.s. and its allies would respect ukraine's borders and refrain from using military force against it. that promise is called the budapest memorandum on security assurances, signed in december, 1994 by russia, the u.s., u.k. and ukraine, it was until recently a largely forgotten footnote at the end of the cold war. not anymore. on tuesday, after ukrainian officer was killed at a base in crimea, allegedly by a russian, ukraine's prime minister kited the memorandum, calling on the u.s., the u.k. and france to help "prevent an escalation of the conflict." >> former prime minister made specific mention of the memorandum in a recent interview. >> is there any point at which

the world should react with military force? >> i cannot give advice to the countries that signed the budapest memorandum with ukraine leading to ukraine giving up nuclear arms voluntarily. i can be offer advice. i just ask them to honor their guarantees. >> the key word is guarantees, a word which does not appear in the memorandum. what does appear are affirmations and commitments and in diplomatic terms that makes the difference. it is two pages long and sport on specifics, saying only that all sides will consult with questions come up. >> there's a reason that it's the budapest memorandum and not the treaty. this administration, also the british, french, europeans have the challenge of showing that we meant what we said, that we take it very seriously, that we're not going to release the pressure on russia and we won't be baited into mill at her gestures that won't work. >> ukraine's prime minister is

warning of potential ripple effects. if you don't secure those guarantees that were signed in the budapest memorandum, then please explain how you will convince iran or north korea to dispose of their status as nuclear states if the necessary guarantees are not upheld by the world. >> a notion that as high as the stakes are right now in ukraine, they could still get even higher. >> the deputy director of the institute for advanced russian stoods at woodrow wilson joins us. did russian president vladimir putin renege on that agreement? >> well, he did renege on the agreement, but as the reporter mentioned, there are no immediate military consequences that result from it in the sense that it does not obligate france, britain or the united

states to intervene militarily to enforce the budapest memorandum, so we have clearly a violation of that memorandum, but as the report mentioned, it's really hard to see what the immediate consequences for russia are in terms of those three nations acting on a memorandum. if i am poland, lithuania and latvia, how do i feel? >> if you're part of the baltic states or poland, you feel better in that you are already a member of nato and the guarantees are much more concrete than what was put in the budapest memorandum, so that if a nato country is threatened or attacked, all the nate know nations will respond as one force -- yes? >> yesterday, russian president vladimir putin addressed the russian parliament and this is what he had to say:

>> prefer to be guided not by international law but by the right of the force. they believe in that force and exclusivity in their right to resolve the fate of the world, that they're always righted. they do whatever they feel is just. they use force against sovereign states. they built colleges under force that are not with us, they are against us. >> you are either for us or against us. is this blow back? >> well, it is blow back and what was very interesting about the speech is that it's blow back for the last 25 years, essentially. it's blow back in the sense that putin still feels the regret of the collapse of the soviet union and he wants to today show that that was not only a mistake, but that are you sure shis back and that it's annal player and that it will use force to defend

itself interests. what we saw yesterday and what we see in crimea is in many ways the russian reaction to what they see as what has occurred over the last 25 years since essentially the collapse of the soviet union. >> as we see these soldiers, putin putting russian soldiers en masse along the border, how concerned should there be that it's just the beginning? >> there's real concern about that. a ukrainian soldier has now been shot which will escalate the crisis. there's the threat that russia could intervene in the further provinces, although he said that is not part of the plan today. there is genuine concern that this crisis is not over, it just takes a stray shot, a stay bullet that can escalate the cries and lead to a bigger military confrontation between ukraine and russia which would

have catastrophic results for the region and international community. >> do you believe that russian penalty vladimir putin sees the west as weak? i go back to george w. bush saying he looked into his eyes, and clearly there is what, contempt would be the best word to describe the relationship between putin and obama? does he not pay any attention to what the white house has to say? >> i think he does pay attention. i think he's decided that russia was aggrieved in the process of the collapse of the yanukovych government. he does perceive the u.s. as weak in the sense that he thinks that there won't be a reaction to what he's doing. that has to be his calculus as he moves into crimea and potentially acts in ukraine. so, i think he believes that militarily, this is all taking place in his back yard and he can get away with it. i think he hasn't really calculated in the consequences for russia economically and in terms of its potential for real

national isolation. no country has rallied to you the support of russia and agreed that crimea is a part of the russian federation now. >> the deputy director of the koenen institute for advanced russian studied at the woodrow wilson center, thank you very much. >> a syrian official says bashar al assad may bow out of peace talks if the west keeps pushing for his removal. syria deputy foreign minister said asses regime sees no point in discussions this western leaders keep insisting assad steps down. he plans to run for reelection. >> the obama administration is taking steps against the syrian regime. staff were told to leave the country by the end of the month and ordered the closure of syrians embassy in d.c., not yet cutting diplomatic relations

despite failed initiatives to end the war. >> israel war planes carried out air strikes overnight against syrian army target in retaliation for a road side bombing that injured israeli soldiers. syria is affecting the entire region. we talk about to international relations and middle east studies professor, ben meyer. it's always great to have you. >> thank you, pleasure. >> is the world neglecting syria? >> i think so. it's horrible what's taking place there. for all in tents and purposes, nerve abandoned almost completely by the international community and that's nothing less than tragic. >> you have called for more intervention to stop what's happening in syria, often citing the terrible humanitarian cases especially rewarding children that is taking place there. what do you make of these latest israeli air strikes, is this

israeli playing the police when the west is not? >> not interested in any kind of military escalation with syria. it is not in israel's interest and certainly not in bashar al assad's interest to engage israel militarily, because this could spell his own demise, but if israel is attacked and has human losses, it will react proportionately. >> it's not interested in real escalation. the syrian army and hezbollah were able to take the last rebel strong hold, the city of yabrud. >> no matter what gains at this point bashar al assad acquires, this war is not going to end unless there is significant international intervention. without united states leadership, this war will

continue for two, three, four more years. >> what would you like to see the united states do? >> the united states is going to ever to intervene militarily, not by sending troops but establishing no fly zones. >> sort of like libya? >> well, even more directly. no fly zone needs to be part of western strategy, destroy his military installations and runways so he will stop bombing his own cities and village. that's going to have to happen. he needs to change his calculation. that won't happen without american leadership. >> that brings the issue of whether or not assad is the only bad guy on the battle field. netanyahu said the border was filling with jihadists and hezbollah. supporting assad is the syrian army backed by hess blah, iran and russia. the opposition includes the free syrian army backed by the u.s.

and gulf states. it also includes the al-qaeda associate operating in syria and the syrian islamic front. now the latest news, another leader of a major rebel grube is saying he is al-qaeda. who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? >> it is extremely difficult to extinguish, but we know one thing, the syrian fray army and a couple of other grooms are the so-called good guys. the united states knows exactly who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. we obviously have the means and the ability to vet who are they and be able to support them much mr. directly. that's not going to be enough. supporting the rebels in themselves would not work anymore. we are going to need much more robust american involvement to end this tragedy that we have not seen since world war ii, so time has come. >> we're going into the fourth year of the syrian civil war now, the humanitarian

disaster, has it peaked or will it get worse? >> i think it can get considerably worse. i'm terribly fearful of that. moreover, it's going to spill further into neighboring countries, so if we don't act now, syria is disintegrating and we're going to see considerably more troubles, disasters and tragedies, specifically affecting the children of syria. >> professor, thanks so much. >> my pleasure, thank you. >> the ntsb called in to investigate a fatal crash involving a news helicopter near seattle's space needle. it happened after a chopper took off tuesday morning from a landing pad in downtown seattle. two men onboard were killed. two cars and a pickup truck caught fire, one driver hospitalized in critical

condition. photographer ben straufman won 13 emmys, his son said his father will be missed. >> he was one of the nicest men ever, and is so loved and respected, because he was, i mean he was a great photographer, but he was just a great person. i mean that's the thing about him that everyone that met him, he touched them. he just had a very kind and gentle soul. >> meanwhile, seattle's mayor is going to take a closer look at the placement of helicopter landing pads around the city. >> a gas main leak has been found near the site that have deadly building collapse in new york city. eight people were killed when two apartments were leveled in east harlem last week. the ntsb said the leaking main was found beneath one of the buildings. >> it is national flood safety awareness week. >> we turn to nicole mitchell for more on what we need to know

about the dangers of flooding. >> this can happen anytime of year, but spring especially when we get that snow melt and sometimes ice jams. you can get the dramatic scenes like we've seen earlier in this week, not just the wide spread flooding areas. this has been a concern in parts of the northwest and hit west with snow melt. people go into this, as well, drive into it. we saw that dramatic water rescue in washington state earlier in the week. this person was rescued, but then you also have to get the rescuers out in this water, a dangerous situation for more people. we're talking about this this time of year, del loves trivia. i'll let you all think for a minute about what types of weather are most likely to cause loss of life. you can think for a second. just in terms of flooding, people driving into it thinking they can make it through it, that is the number one thing

that causes fatalities during flooding and then people walk into it. the midwest, the new moisture has already gone through, behind that, we've had areas of snow melt, so you can start to see greens popping up. as more snow melts, ice is coming down, john mccain the rivers and flood areas. it only takes six inches of running water to knock a person off their feet and cause problems. for a car, that's one foot. how does that rank? flooding especially once you consider that in hurricanes, inland flooding causing a loss of life number one, then tornadoes and lightning for different weather events. >> great knowledge, nicole. >> is there going to be a test after this? >> right after the show. >> the ncaa march madness, two more games on tap. >> jessica taft is here a with

look at a team who hopes to make waves this year. >> they really do. it's a david versus goliath story. that's going to be when duke and mercer faceoff in their first game of the ncaa permanent where the blue devils are a fixture, mercer's last appearance was 1985. i sat down with the bears in macon, georgia to talk about their journey to the big dance. >> just how long has it been since the mercer bears have been to the ncaa tournament? >> i was the only one on the team born in the 1980's. i might be the last college basketball still playing born in the 1980's. >> for anyone who's ever played college basketball, getting to the big dance is the ultimate dream in my it becomes the ultimate nightmare, which happened to mercer university last year. >> last year was the most difficult. we won the regular season, thought it was our chance and we had to watch them beat us on home court in the championship and we thought it was our turn

to do it. >> what does it feel like watching them through the tournament? >> bitter sweet. we knew it was good for the conference and letting the nation know we are in the conference with you at the same time, we wanted that success they were having badly. >> sometimes we were happy for them, other times like man, that should be us. >> fast forward to the same florida gulf coast team standing in the way of the elusive golden ticket to college basketball's grand prize. >> we are getting ready to have an eight hour bus ride, and i said but the thing i want you to do every time you fall asleep today on the bus, i want you to dream of who you're going to hug when we win and think about cutting those nets down. >> this time, they flipped the script and won the atlantic sun conference championship game. >> we find a way to get to the finish line and for them to be successful. i've had a lot of special groups and been blessed a coach a long

time, but to see them accomplish that, that might be as good as i've ever been a part of. >> for jacob, visions of the tourney were beginning to look more like a mirage. >> at the free-throw line, i realized that there was no way they could come back and i just started bawling. coach talked about who you think you're going to run and hug. i had to gather myself, oh, my gosh, this just happened. when i saw the coach, i looked at him and i was already crying. it got worse. it's been such an emotional journey, when i saw him and we embraced, it was literally, man, i couldn't help it. >> what has this journey been like for you? >> just elation, a thrill for him and those guys, and we'd had tough moments, tough trips,

exciting trips, thrilling victories, and all those things come rushes out when that happens, and you just let it go, and when we embraced, it was just like a moment i'll never forget. >> now this team is determined to write their own fairy tale ending. >> when we play high major schools, we all felt like we should have been recruited more by them and we have something to prove against them. >> i believe these guys aren't done. i believe those were special days, but now we ever amazing things in front of us that could still be accomplished. >> mercer's the 14th season midwest region. they will face duke on friday. ultimate student athletes, all a, about students. >> mercer on the map now. put that down in my brackets. >> you forget how young they are, you see them and say wow. >> i'm reminded every week when

i go see these guys. >> remembering the horrors of war. >> we'll talk to a war world two veteran who shares his memories of d-day. >> from here down and the water will be red. >> we're going to talk about the honor he just received from the country he helped save. >> say it ain't so, the last day of winter, at least the last full day and we have more snow in that fact. i'll have the complete forecast, coming up.

>> good morning, welcome to al jazeera america. i'm del walters. >> i'm stephanie sy. let's look at rain and snow across the u.s. today. >> we keep talking about spring is tomorrow officially, just one day away.

follow mother nature on that one. this system has brought some banding of significant amounts of moisture to minnesota, wisconsin, but at this moves along, the south edge of this, there is enough warm air that more will be rain, including much of the east coast, what moves through today and tomorrow is rain northward it is snow. back to you. >> president obama presented 24 medals of honor tuesday for acts of bravery the government overlooked, recipients his panic, african. african. african, jewish who fought in vietnam. >> this is an enduring quality that makes america great, exceptional. no nation is perfect, but here in america, we confront our

imperfections and face the sometimes painful past. some of these soldiers fought and died for a country that did not always see them at equal. >> only three of the servicemen honored are still alive. as aljazeera reports, the military's treatment of minorities in the past is an issue the u.s. and other allies are working to fix. >> becoming an american soldier was johnny marino's boyhood dream. born to mexican parents who crossed the rio grande, he recalls how determined he was to serve his family's new country, the united states. he says as a latino, he was classified below anglos, taunted and beaten. >> what i had to go through, it's awful. i don't know how i made it through. >> the discrimination disappeared after his infantry

unit saw combat. an d-day, he and his band of brothers crossed the english channel knowing death awaited any one of them. the allies would have to fight uphill, their only advantage, their numbers, 160,000 allied soldiers landed in normandy that day, 73,000 americans. he jumped off the boat under heavy fire. >> my thought was i wasn't going to make it to the beach. i wasn't going to stay in the water. >> he said the sand was littered with carnage. >> you couldn't help but maybe see a head go by or an arm or from here down and the water would be red. >> 14 of the 25 men from his boat died. that day, a total of 2,499

american soldiers perished. >> what did they die for? >> freedom. free dam. >> he went on to liberate the german concentration camp. >> all we saw was dead people. we didn't see anything else. >> the memories are almost 70 years old, but they were fresh in his mind sunday, as a french delegation paid tribute to the d-day veterans for the war that contains sand from utah beach. >> we transport this memory of their sacrifice, why they died in our beaches. >> i feel maybe it's a crazy thing to say, but i feel they're still alive. that's my hope. maybe i'll see them later on. >> he dislikes being called a hero. that term, he says is reserved

for the friends who never came back. aljazeera, houston. >> one of the men who received the medal of honor is leonard kravitz, the uncle and namesake of actor and rock store lenny kravitz. >> russian forces storming that ukrainian navy base in crimea, raising the russian flag over that strategic military base. >> the investigation into the missing malaysian airlines flight, files deleted from a flight simulator at the pilot's home. >> department of homeland security busting a child pornography ring. >> why decisions made during the reagan era are playing out today in the situation between russia and ukraine. >> with snow melting and rivers rising in some places, we're getting into flood season.

this is the deadliest type of weather. >> the aljazeera morning news continues, del walters is back to you in two and a half minutes. i'm stephanie sy. have a great morning.

>> the crisis in crimea intensifies, a day after the region is annexted by russia, a crimean naval base seeds by russian forces. >> mounting grief from the family from missing flight at new details are released about what was found inside one of the homes of the pilot.

>> fighting intensifies in the syrian city of aleppo, shelling coming when u.s. dep low mats are being told to stay in syria, but get out of america. >> we are all losing our privacy. this is just another right to lose. >> the unique way one state is trying to fix its roads and bridges. some drivers worry their every move is going to be tracked. >> welcome to aljazeera america. i'm del walters. the internal conflict in crimea is escalating, russian president vladimir putin signing that treaty yesterday making the region a part of russia. hes he has no intentions of dividing other parts of ukraine. the annexation of crimea brought cheers from pro russians living in that region, many with historic ties to the much larger

and more powerful nation. this morning, crimea self defense forces storming a navy base in sevastopol follows tuesdays attack in crimea in wimp two ukrainians were killed, one a soldier. we have team coverage tracking the crisis but grin .

>> two men shot and killed yesterday in sevastopol. what do we know about that? >> that happened at a military base in sevastopol.

a ukrainian officer is definitely one of the dead. we're not exactly sure who did the shooting. there was a sniper involved, and after that incident, the ukrainian military headquarters in kiev gave military officers here permission to use weapons in self defense. that's what i'm told was the reason they stormed the russian forces and civil defense forces stormed this naval headquarters here in sevastopol this morning and that's what they told ukrainian officers there, that now that they have the right to fight, they have the right to use their weapons, that's why they stormed the base. basically, what has been going on for the past couple weeks is in this standoff, most of the ukrainian forces locked away their weapons, their guns into armories so there wouldn't be some sort of in at vert end shooting. russian forces we saw come in, not only had bullets in their guns, as well, but now a very, very different time, things happening quickly. the question is now what happens to the sailors on the naval

ships in the days behind me and bays around sevastopol. though don't have a commander or direction. they were told in the last 24 hours to stand their ground but now are not exactly sure what the russian forces will do. >> jennifer, thank you very much. we turn to phil ittner in kiev now. tougher talk out of kiev this morning, ukrainians acting prime minister has been meeting with his cabinet today. what is that government doing now 24 hours after it lost crimea? >> they had this cabinet meeting this morning. it started off with a moment of silence for that ukrainian officer killed in crimea that we just heard jeb i have reporting about. one of the things they said they would do on the orders of the acting prime minister yatsenyuk,

they have sent a vice prime minister and defense minister to crimea. we are hearing from the authorities in crimea that they will not be allowed to land on the peninsula. we are trying to seek word whether or not that delegation is still going to crimea or whether or not they have turned back. yes, in deed, they are very concerned about the escalating situation in crimea. they have as jennifer reported authorized the use of live rounds in their self defense. there is a sense here that the tenses out in crimea could very easily bubble over into an open conflict. >> the u.s. and e.u. now talking about tougher sanctions, and also pushing for international monitors right now in southern and eastern ukraine. >> that's right. that's a very interesting development. they have actually asked for international observers. we do know that president obama and german chancellor angela

merkel have been discussing sending observers, but they are not sending them to crimea because of course the russians or the crimean authorities are unlikely to allow them on that territory. they are sending them out into areas of this mainland ukraine, out where there are split communities, tensions between those who are pro western and pro russian, and there has been a long-standing accusation by the government here in kiev, del, that there are actually agent provocateurs out there, agents of moscow sowing the seeds of tensions and instability. that's what kiev wants those international observers to go and check, whether or not the russians have sent people out there to destabilize the situation, perhaps to create a pretext for the russians to come in and grab more territory than simply crimea. that accusation, that there are

agents out there is something that russia refutes, saying they are not sending anybody out there, but we have seen growing groups of acknowledge taters, protestors who say that they want to follow in crimea's footsteps and think about seceding and going towards russia. the government here in kiev saying that is not a natural curbs, that is cork straighted by russia. that's why they want those observers. >> phil ittner, thank you very much. >> coming up in our next half hour, the diplomatic dance of enacting sanctions, why ronald reagan era policies will have an impact on how quickly european leaders get onboard. >> the obama administration is taking steps against the syrian regime telling diplomats and staff who aren't citizens to leave by the end of the month, ordering the close of the syrian embassy in washington, calling it worry be and disappointing, saying the u.s. is not cutting

diplomatic ties despite failed peace initiatives to end the war, now in year three. the once bustling city of aleppo is gone. there are some who stayed behind, saying they're not ready to give up. >> the neighborhood of aleppo under heavy government fire. the result, rubble across the road. smoke rising all around. badly damaged buildings and injuries. survivors shout to others above, come down! it must be hard to know which way to turn. many of the neighborhoods here have been hit before. last month, dozens of government helicopters dropped barrel bombs on the area. residents have returned to find

their homes unrecognizable. >> i came to see my house, but i couldn't even work out where it is. there are no doors and no walls. i feel lost here. it's as if i'm in a juggle or somewhere worse. i don't know what to say. >> the city once boasted a population of more than 2 million, but the u.n.'s arab league made 80or said last week that about half a million people have left recently. main are determined to remain. aleppos local council launched a campaign to help with basic services like clearing rubbish. it's as much about a message of strength than anything else. >> the aim of this campaign is to clean up the city and provide services for residents, despite the governments barbaric bombardment of the city. it's a message to let them know

that we remain steadfast and will remain so in aleppo. we will never leave. we will never pull out from here. >> the campaign was launched to mark three years since the conflict started. this city has been crushed under the weight of war, but the strength of these people who have chosen to stay despite the violence lives on. aljazeera. >> israel war planes have bombed a series of syrian military strikes on monday. the strikes were in response to a road side bombing the day before that wounded four troops. this is the latest in a string of strikes along israel's borders. last week a road side bomb exploded near a israeli military patrol. >> aljazeera is in vienna where talks concerning iran's nuclear

program is taking place. much of the success depends on the solidarity with the u.s., russia and u.n. how does events in crimea affect the talks? >> they are treading very, very carefully, because everyone is aware that that big issue in crimea and ukraine could make itself felt. the condition certain is that if iran senses splits between the people it's negotiating with over this crucial issue, then it could start playing the long game, perhaps holds out for more concessions. so far, everyone officially at least is saying that is not the case, they are staying focused on the job in hand, but the chief negotiators here having to tread their way through pretty complex and delicate issues. >> there are yet more challenges for iran's foreign minister and

the e.u.'s chief foreign envoy as they focus on a final settlement on iran's nuclear activities. first, a spat and a canceled dinner over catherine ashton's meeting with human rights activists during her last visit to tehran. then, the crisis in crimea and its threat to these talks because of a potential split between moscow and washington. >> it was not mentioned this morning we're here to negotiate on the iranian nuclear program, discussions on crimea happen elsewhere in different forum, so, and, you know, as i said in my earlier answer, there is no indication that it's having a negative effect. >> a strong denial, but the risk remains, could moscow cut a separate deal with iran? that will produce a furious reaction in the united states. >> even before the ukraine crisis erupted, president putin was reported to be discussing a

deal with iran in which moscow would buy iranian oil in exchange for money, goods and help in building new nuclear reactors. no one is optimistic about a quick resolution here in vienna, despite an interim agreement reached late last year when iran shelved higher grade uranium enrichment in exchange for modest relief from punitive economic sakes. >> the latest we're getting is that this discussion, this round of discussion at least will wrap in about an hour's time. we're going to have a press conference at the end and learn more about what progress they are making. these talks are a long way from being over. they'll be back here in april in vienna. del. >> tim friend in vienna this morning, thank you very much. >> 26 countries searching for the missing malaysian airlines plane. officials in malaysia asking the

f.b.i. for help and chaos breaking out at the daily press briefing as families are demanding more information. some like this woman who traveled from china had to be dragged away. others are calling for a hunger strike. malaysian officials are doing everything they can. lisa, what are they now looking into at this hour? >> first of all, malaysian officials released a statement saying they regret what happened at that press conference. that woman has a relative onboard the plane and they say they understand the family's anguish. they are looking at the pilot, particularly that flight simulator they took from the captain's home and revealed this morning they found some data files have recently been deleted. >> 12 days into the disappearance of malaysia flight 370, investigators remain focused on the actions of the

pilot. tuesday, the airline was asked about a new york times report that the flight computer was reprogrammed to take the plane off course. >> as far as we are concerned, the aircraft was programmed to fly to beijing. it could be speculation. once in the aircraft, anything is possible. >> new reports give that theory an exact time line, saying the plane's sharp u-turn may have been programmed by someone 12 minutes before the co pilot's last words of all right, good night, suggesting the turn was premet tated and not done manually at the controls. a maneuver like that would take expertise. many pilots will fall under a greater microscope. >> local and international expertise have examined the pilot's flight simulator. some data has been deleted from the simulator and forensic work to retrieve this data is on

going. >> families of the missing remain devastated at the conflicting information from malaysian investigators, who now may have missed another piece of information from thailand which now says its military radar may have detected the jetliner and initial turns off course. thailand had not shared the information because it wasn't specifically asked for it and that the plane was never a threat to its air space. the search for the missing jet now covers a massive area, including 2.2 million square nautical miles, roughly two thirds the size of the continental u.s. the u.s. has two military aircraft looking including in australia to help search in the south. >> those are really, really treacherous, deep seas, the winter coming. the rescue effort continues to get more difficult by the day. it's a needle in thousands of fields of haystacks.

>> australian military planes also up, searching that area werth of perth, the area that they think motor likely that the plane may have ended up in the water there. australian officials say it could take weeks just to search that small part of the ocean, and as you can imagine, del, the longer it goes on without finding any wreckage on the surface, folks are getting concerned they may never find this aircraft. >> lisa, thank you very much. >> an apology from the top, general motors k.e.o. marry barra taking responsibility for the vehicles, saying she only recently learned of the problems. >> a history lesson that went terribly wrong. >> a state trooper lucky to be alive after that close call. what sent that pickup truck flying by.

>> this near close call caught

on a dash cam video, the pickup truck tears straight through the scene of an accident in iowa, just missing the two officers and clipping a car. the pickup was rear ended by a semi hurling it off the road, a reminder that always when you see police on the side of the road, slow down, switch lanes. >> welcome to al jazeera america, i'm del walters. >> the expensive price tag of automotive recalls. first, we'll talk about flooding. >> it can happen anytime of the year but in spring, the snow melts, the rivers start rising. sometimes even after the moisture is through, you can have more flooding concerns, because everything's saturated, starts to run off into the rivers, so the little areas of green that you start to see in portions of the midwest, that is some of that, the combination of warm air melting all the snow and it can be one of our biggest problems. you take general flooding in general and add in flooding from work hurricanes, because that's

the biggest loss of life with hurricanes, flooding i guess definitely our largest weather fatality creator of all the elements. things like snowstorms might be troublesome, but low on that list. within that, driving into it is the number one risk and trying to walk through water that you don't know. it can only take a foot or two to float a car, so one foot for a car, two to actually carry something as big as a truck away and just a few inches to knock a person off their feet, so very dangerous especially if you see anything and you don't know how deep the water is, turn around, don't drown is the expression we use. these warm temperatures will add to this, so much snow, 48 in billings will continue to melt away at that snow pack and milder for other portions of midwest, chicago, which has had record snow this season, 48 degrees into tomorrow. back to you. >> the state of oklahoma has

been forced to postpone executions set for later this month, not because of new evidence in the case, the state hasn't, able to get the two of three drugs used to perform the heatal injections. an oklahoma court moved the execution to next month to give the prison more time to find the drugs. toyota now set to shell out more than a billion dollars to settle claims with the federal government. it is one of the largest fines ever imposed on an automakers. this has to do with a 10 million vehicle recall. >> it was issued in 2010 in response to sudden acceleration complaints. this deal, which is reportedly $1.2 billion, would end a four year federal investigation into whether the automakers handled those complaints properly. the justice department supposedly found toyota intentionally misled authorities after concerns surfaced. the company has already paid out tens of millions of dollars in fines and civil settlements, but

hundreds of lawsuits are still unresolved. the carmaker said the reason behind the problem is on the driver end and not a factory flaw. under the settlement, toyota will avoid criminal charges. this settlement comes as the government is about to gear up its investigation of general motors. the justice department is examining whether the company executives knew about a problem with the ignition switch on more than a million vehicles, yet failed to quickly issue a recall. the faulty switch which turned off engines and disabled airbags has been linked to at least a dozen deaths, prompting c.e.o. to publicly apologize. >> something went wrong with our process and terrible things happen. as a mom with a family of my own, this really hits momentum for me. we have apologized but that is one step in the journey to resolve this. >> general motors named jeff

boyer to the newly created position of global vehicle safety chief. as for the toyota settlement, it's not a done deal until we hear from attorney general eric holder expected to make the announcement in new york later today. >> in other business news, the federal reserve rolling out its policy decision today at the very first meeting led by the new chair janet yellen. investors watching for new guidance about the timing about when it will begin to raise interest rates. >> she's been in the camp saying the fed should do more, do everything it can to restore the economy to health, put people back to work. she's going to be reluctant to move too taft to pull away aid, but figuring out when to do that is her big challenge. >> it will be her first news conference coming at 2:30 p.m. eastern time. >> wall street, do you futures up,ing at 16336, the s&p standing at 1872 and the nasdaq

composite at 4333 employee over seas, markets ending mostly lower. chinese property shares under pressure after a default an debt. european markets at this hour are higher. >> the harsh winter weather taking a toll on fedex. their profit were below estimates. the bad weather decreased shipping volume and increased costs during that quarter. >> the bad weather blamed for a drop in sales at general mills, the food maker reporting quarterly sales declined and adjusted profits fell. general mills saying the entire food industry being hurt by the cold weather and the snow. >> enacting sanctions on russia could be a double-edged sword. decisions made during the reagan years could sway european nations. that's a problem ronald reagan warned of more than two decades ago. >> we don't look at it as

tracking. >> big brother concerns as one state looks to change its aging infrastructure. >> a disease once thought eradicated is back. what is behind the measles coming back? >> you've got until noon before official tip off, lately additions to the big dance, ahead in sports.

>> welcome to al jazeera america, i'm del walters. once a hub for art and music, now rubble. syria's largest city is a ghost town now, many residents refusing to leave. >> family members of a missing airlines flight lashing out, demanding more information. files were recently deleted from the flight simulator at the home of the captain. it is unclear what were on those

files. >> pro russian crimeans stormed the ukrainian navy base in sevastopol following an attack in which two people were killed, including a soldier, the annexation called a robbery on an international scale. >> e.u. lieders gathering in brussels to discuss additional economic sanctions against russia, ahead of a meeting with president obama. european leaders are divided over how to punish moscow because of close economic ties. europe's dependence on russian energy limits just however they can go. >> a lot can change in three decades, then again a lot stays the same. when president ragen took office, the united states and soviet union were nuclear super powers confronting each other. popular unrest against moscows iron grip was stirring in communist poland. moscow amassed troops on poland border and threatened to invade.

reagan sounded the alarm bells in european capitals over soviet aggressiveness in the world. >> i have discussed the elements of western policies toward the soviet union to safeguard our interests and protect the peace. what i'm describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term, the march of freedom and democracy which will leave maxism lennonism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies wimp stifled and muzzled the self respect of the people. >> they were busy at the same time signing contracts with moscow to extend the siberian pipeline into western europe. the deals meant new energy source to say fuel economies. this c.i.a. memo warned the

president: >> despite reagan's warnings, western europe went ahead with the pipeline contracts and a web grew across europe. russia is an energy super power three decades later, the european union depends on russia for a quar quarter of its naturs supplies through that pipeline network. the fall of the berlin wall, the fall of communism, the end of the cold war, yet so much remains the same, all these years later, reagan's warning that the west's room for maneuver with moscow would be hamstring by its reliance an russian energy is now proving true. >> japan's prime minister today condemning the move by russia to

annex crimea, tokyo imposing limited sanctions against moscow. you penned an article in which you said the cold war never really ended, it just took a black sea vacation. some might be wondering right now what happened to that reset between the u.s. and russia. >> there never really was a reset, like there was never really an end to the cold war. in order for the cold war to end, two sides had to embrace each other. the europeans opened their markets, provided the russians with technology, most of the russian economy is sorely democrat on europe for goods and technology, but the russians had to give up on basically empire, the notion of putting around them a buffer state, asquaring essentially border countries incorporating them into russia, recreating the soviet union. this is the third such

encorings, it was chechnya, georgia and now the ukraine. the russians are still the same authoritarian state, the country is an oligarchy run by thugs and president has behaved as he can negotiate. look where the russian troops are standing this morning, and look at the weak and hopeless american response. >> one of the reasons people say there is no weak and hopeless american response is that unlike the cold war days when there were solid economic embargoes against the old soviet union, now there are american businesses that pick up the white house and call the chief of staff and say if you impose sanctions, you are going to hurt this business in iowa, georgia, or wyoming. >> that's absolutely correct. we've permitted ourselves to become vulnerable.

the notion that we can hilt a restart but the on to know and on one side say the cold war is over and we want to be friends, that the other guy isn't going to punch you in the nose. you have to remember, though, the russians depend on the west much more than the west depends on the russians. customers can be replaced and the natural gas that flows into europe can be replaced. the russians cannot replace the natural gas revenues. 75%, three quarters of russian export revenues are from petroleum and guess and that sector of state ownership provides half of the revenues that supply moscow. take it away, and mr. putin is denied what he needs and that's the money to buy arms from the west. remember, the french build the russian war ships. the french, not the russians,

the russians buy arms in the west, deny them those gas revenues over time and russia simply will to have stand down. >> in fact, let's look at russia by the numbers. oil and gas, its top export totaling $372 billion followed by $41 billion in metals and chemical products bringing in just over $30 billion. if you want to hit russia in the wallet, what time of sanctions should web talking about and which americans companies are going to hurt the most? >> well, the first thing we need to do is get the europeans unified, because the sanctions will hilt across the board in the united states. they'll hit banking to some extent, orders, food processing and the like. they will not loom large on the balance sheets of american cross, because our relationship with russia is small relative to our total global relations. in europe, it's banking in the

u.k., it's machinery in germany and motor vehicles. it's the arms business in france, so they each have a different interest and if you only pick one sanction, only one country bears the burden, so they're having difficulty reaching consensus. more importantly, the europeans have been outsourcing the environmental risk associated with developing energy. we develop shale gas, they have france germany and other companies to develop shale gas and instead gets russian gas and are offering on the altar of energy dependence ukrainian freedom. what i find particularly alarming in the united states is for americans to say and in particular democrats to be frank, that well, the ukraine is far away, our national interests aren't at play. do you know who would suffer the most in this is barack obama, because he would lose credibility, and what's more,

his whole economic policy has been based on building out the welfare state. hold on -- building out the welfare state and shrinking the military to pay for it and increasing samples to pay for it. we don't have money to counter soviet russian aggression unless we make sacrifices ourselves in terms of the budget, which we still have this going for us. >> i know there is going to be somebody knocking on the door of the white house saying if you want to come up with the money, why don't you sign off on the key stone xl pipeline. do you see this crisis in russia being advantageous to the petro dollars saying we told you so and this is all the way you can solve two problems at one time? >> i like the key stone pipeline, but wouldn't approve it on that basis. that's just a very small amount of money. if we're going to spend $600 billion a year on the military as in the past so that we can adequately defend europe

and if the europeans are willing to do the same for themselves, then we're going to have to do much more than sign off on the key stone pipeline. why should we expect general motors to take a hit on its factory in russia if barack obama won't take a political hit and say there's a guns and butter trade-off. if we want to be secure, then i can't do everything i would like to do, just as we're going to have to say to the germans, the germans have a marvelous welfare state but you can only afford that if you neglect your defenses. the germans have an army, but it never takes any rivers. all those are assigned to the united states. in having a, in iraq, germans are never in harm's way, it's only americans. frankly, angela merkel has to belly up to the bar before barack obama has to. the first step is to get tough with her allies and tell them to stand united, take economic hits, rearm and challenge the

russians. if you think that we can put our heads in the sand, then you're back in 1936. >> i don't think there's ever been a time that i've known you not to have a strong opinion. peter, thank you very much for being with us this morning. >> a reminder that tomorrow morning on aljazeera america morning news with today's escalation of the crisis in ukraine, what can we expect from our western allies as you heard the professor indicating there, that will be right here at 8:30, nato's role, the military option on the aljazeera america morning news. >> egypt now trying to secure the release of our colleagues. the interim president making that pledge in a letter to the family of peter gresta, they are all accused of having links to a terrorist organization and spreading false news. we report on their detention. >> for the parents and brother

of aljazeera correspondent peter, a positive sign from cairo with a letter read from the egyptian interim president. >> notwithstanding the independence of the judiciary authority and fullness of all the rights guaranteed by the law, i would like to assure you in my capacity as president of egypt that i will spare no effort to work towards the speedy resolution of the case in a fashion consistent with the law and that guarantees the resumption of the family in the near future. >> the hopes have been raised before, but this appeared to be a strong hint at a desire for resolution by the egyptian government. peter along with his aljazeera english colleagues all deny charges of conspires with the banned muslim brotherhood.

they have been held in prison for three months while aljazeera arabic journalist in detention since august of last year. peter's brother said he was prepared for the long haul, but remains strong. >> each time i visited him, i was astounded by his strength that he's showing. obviously, it's extremely tough conditions there, but i guess he's had to prepare himself mentally to get through this, and he's in a mental state where he doesn't really know where it's going to end. >> with the egyptian president seemingly taking a personal interest, the ending might not be far away. >> the next trial for our three aljazeera colleagues is march 24. >> a history less on a michigan teacher won't soon forget, he allowed fifth graders to sample

odouhl's. it does have owe .5% challenge. officials didn't say how many drank the beer, but at least three took home a bottle. the local paper inquired about the incident, forcing school officials to send home a letter. police have not received any complaints about any of the incidents. >> march madness finally underway and here is jessica taft, my brackets still intact. >> weaver got teams considered on the bubble trying to get their way into getting their ticket for the big dance. they can win even if their best player is slow out of the gate, xavier a slow start, got the lead early and all nine players who logged minutes, pumping in 17, ward in foul trouble early got hot late, leading all scorers with 25 points.

the route over xavier, 74-59. waffle pack head to orlando for a date on thursday with st. louis. >> i've not talked about it one time with our team, whether or not anybody else felt like we should or shouldn't be in. we believed in hour hearts we believed to be in. that's really all that matters. we believe that, our players believe that. they played their way in, earned the right. we played a great schedule, boat good teams on the road. really, it's not something that we've made a big point of emphasis with our team. >> meanwhile, tuesday night's other game battling for the right to take on top-seeded florida. it wasn't much of a battle. albany getting started with a 13-0 run led by as many as 17 in the first half. d.j. evans leading with 22. great danes win 71-64. >> if you bring him, they will

come, the him is phil jackson, the they, the knicks introduced him as the new president. the former nick won two titles as a head player, 11 as a coach. $60 million over five years in the hopes he can bring another title back to the big apple. >> i have a five year contract. my prenup with jeannie obviously is important, because as ownership of the lakers, i certainly don't want to be involved with that. there's no doubt about carmelo being maybe the best individual isolation player in the game. i have no problem witness committing to saying he is in the future plans. >> a little message for mellow. here's something you don't see every day, tuesdays spring training game in tampa, delayed

because of bees. not normally the buzz you get with these two teams facing off. mike carp said he heard them before he saw them. yankees first baseman mark teixeira offered up honey to attract them away, but eventually stadium employees armed with bug spray got the swarm to vacate. the boston manager said that's the first time i've ever seen that. >> creating a lot of buzz down there. >> are you the king of puns? i know you got to. >> it wasn't that long ago that you rarely heard of anyone catching measles, but that's changed. we're going to look at what's causing the resurgence of this highly contagious virus that was at one time almost wiped out. mea

your global news leader. >> you're looking live at one

word trade center in new york city. welcome to al jazeera america, i'm del walters. just ahead from nearly rad indicated, back with a vengeance, a return of the measles. first, your forecast around the country with nicole mitchell. >> we do have another system moving across the country. the west coast, a little more moisture. the system has snow with it and it is march, so some people are a little sick of that. it's not as cold as previous systems and not a lot of snow or moisture in general with this. places getting it as it continues to move through the great lakes today, a lot of places three to six inches, then later today, it will impact the east coast more as it moves on and possibly lingering into tomorrow. watch for that to be more rain. it would be the northern parts

of new england that have those chances for snow. back to you. >> states have long used gas taxes to pay for roads and construction, but some cities are seeing their coffers empty because we fill up less. one northwest state is trying something new and radical. >> america loves its cars, it's about freedom and the open road. fuel here is less expensive than many places, although people complain about rising prices. much of the cost is tax, both national and local, and most of that should pay for road improvements. despite the money, america's roads and bridges are in a poor state and not getting any better. in oregon, the state that came up with the idea to sample fund improvements, 23% of bridges are deficient or worse. with more fuel efficient cars, people are filling up less often. oregon is about to run a pilot scheme changing the way

motorists are taxed. >> the idea is motorists will be charged for every kilometer they travel, in the region of 12 to cents. there will be a small device in every car detailing however people are traveling. >> people are korid this will be another part of their lives tracked by the government. jim worked on an alternative to the fuel tax. >> we don't look at it as tracking. we've learned that the system cannot have any kind of a g.p.s. mandated box. citizens don't like that. >> the oregon experiment will start next year with just 5,000 drivers. the state has more than 3 million registered cars. the small sample could growing quickly if it's a success. the other states and federal government be watching closely. >> people have been looking to oregon and other states, minnesota has been another state kind of innovative in this area. i think it has become a bit of a

template. >> the charge may make perfect sense. the biggest obstacle may be convincing people it's for their benefit. >> i'd rather do it at the pump so i wouldn't have to track my mileage. >> with the use of everybody on the internet now, we're all losing our privacy and this is just another right to lose, and once we lose it, we'll never get it back. >> oregon's proud it introduced the tax and experts and politicians says the roads will only get worse unless there is action and a new approach. >> remember the measles? there are now 20 confirmed cases in new york city. health officials believe they were infected at hospitals and clinics because the staff failed to act quickly. the city health democratic is investigating. health officials are also warn to go fewer people are getting vaccinations. the numbers point to a disturbing trend. a measles vaccine was introduced

in 1963. after that, the case is fell by 99%. the country saw an average of just 63 measles cases per year but last year there were close to 200 cases, tripling the number of infections. in the u.s., 90% of the people here are vaccinated, but in the u.k., it's just 80%. the director of the national institutes of allergy and infectious diseases in the national institute of health, good morning. is there a direct cause and affect when it comes to the increase in cases and those vaccinations that we looked at just a second ago? >> absolutely, there's no doubt about it. that's one of the things that one is concerned about when you have parents who are reluctant to get their children vaccinated. the measles vaccine is truly one of the most effective vaccines

that you can imagine, close to 99% effective. when you're rate goes down, seemingly by not that much to 90%, you have what we're seeing now, these mini outbreaks of measles. in the u.k. and england, it's much more serious. they have significant outbreaks because they decreased their vaccination rate among young kids to now 80%, wimp is very dangerous, because measles can be a serious disease and it's highly contagious. >> one of the reasons we see increases is because the further we get from vaccinations and this was the case with the polio vaccine, the more people think i don't need the vaccination. take us back to prior to to 1963. what was it like in the u.s.? >> it was actually really quite serious. if you look prior to the vaccinations that were available in 1963, you would have anywhere from three to four or more million cases of measles in the

united states per year, which would lead to about 500 deaths among children, about 50,000 hospitallations and at least a thousand per year of children who have serious chronic illnesses like mental retardation or neurological issues due to enreceive lights. when you go decades down the peek and people don't see the disease, they forget how serious it is. you have that small number of parents, relatively small, but number wise, kind of a lot. if you go down 90% now instead of 99 or 100% compliance with vaccination, meme misinterpret and say the risk of a vaccine is

really pretty much i don't want my children to get vaccinated when it is relatively speaking a very, very safe vaccine whereas measles is a very safe vaccine. >> it passes through direct personal contact and droplets. could we be looking at a massive outbreak? >> i don't think we'll see a massive country wide outbreak. we still have 90% of the people who are vaccinated now. we want it to be closer to 100%. what we'll see is the unfortunate types of outbreaks that we've seen in new york city most recently, where you have 20 cases of measles related to people who don't get vaccinated. i don't see a country wide outbreak on the basis that we're 90% protected, but you worry about those small numbers of people as in new york, many of whom did not get vaccinated who were vulnerable to measles.

>> this is one of the questions that a lot of people ask. if you know your vaccination history, should you get vaccinated again? >> if you know your vaccination history and you know you were vaccinated or had a physician do a blood level to show you had antibodies against it, you don't need to get vaccinated as an adult, because one of the positive interesting things about measles vaccine i guess that the protection lasts decades and essentially indefinitely. that's really very unusual for vaccines, but it's very, very good for measles, because once you get your usually component of two vaccinations, you usually give it a 12 months of age, and then about four to six years of age as the children are getting ready to go into school. if you get that component of measles vaccine, you're protected for life essentially.

>> thank you very much. >> that will do it for this edition of aljazeera america. i'm del walters in new york. thanks for watching.

... this is al jazeera. ♪ >> welcome to the news hour with the world's top news stories. pro-russian forces in the crimean port city of sevastopol. protests and clashes at egyptian universities as students voice anger against the interim military government. >> angry.