until next time, we'll see you online. >> ♪ ♪ >> hello and welcome to al jazeera america. i'm richelle carey in new york. john siegenthaler has the night over. the takeover is complete. vladimir putin reclaims a part of ukraine for russia. moscow celebrates tonight with fireworks. military moves. one by one russia's forces are taking over ukraine's naval ships in crimea and the white house says it's skeptical about troop movements along the border. two weeks. that's how long malaysia flight 370 is missing.

search planes are back in the air over the coast of australia. plus. >> spit it out. >> poison in the ground. the legacy of an automotive plant and the poisons in the ground. >> bracket-busters and march madness. >> tonight, russia is calling crimea its own. president putin signed a law making that official earlier today. but ukraine's leaders say they will never accept it. they accuse moscow of trying to destroy their country. in crimea, russian forces are removing all trace of ukrainian are authority. jennifer glasse, how is ukraine coping with this changing of the

guard? >> richelle, things have moved here at a blistering pace. this time last week, there hadn't even been a upping refer. in the last 24 hours we have seen russian forces consolidating their power here and for the past 24 hours it's been a very, very tense time for the ukrainian navy. with little fanfare, they raised a flag over a ship that was as of yesterday ukrainian. she is sitting alongside russian ships in a new berth at sebastopol. siting the past two years of

naval glory here. there is not much glory for the departing ukrainian navy. the united states described what's happened to crimea is a land grab. but a sea grab, the one ship behind us still flying the ukrainian flag. >> the passing pedestrian says it's not good that's the last ukrainian flag flying in the bay. not everyone is happy the russian he are here. in nearby strelotzka bay the takeover is complete. once, they flew side by side, now only the russian flags fly here. he was one of the dozens of naval officers thrown out on wednesday. he says there's no military honor in russia's action he. >> we have clearly seen in the last two weeks you can't believe russia.

putin says his troops aren't here. i'm a military man. i see perfectly these are military men. >> he says all deals they have made the russians have broken including the promise not to take the base. >> in my opinion, the blockaded ships should be shot at or sunk. god forbid they start shooting. >> at the naval school handover a last show of independence. ukrainians sing their national anthem trying to drown out those of the russians. forces still here some of them thrown off their bases on boats, some of them holding out, they are waiting for orders as to what to do next and what to happen to their families. there is supposed to be an evacuation plan in place, and to add insult to injury, the russian president dimitri

medvedev, that's $11 billion, richelle. >> jennifer glasse, thank you so much. president obama is expected to underscore russia's isolation over crimea as he meets with key allies last week, mike viqueria has more. >> it's a long scheduled series of summits. first in netherlands, next 53 nations will be representmany by their heads of state. then for president obama it's on to brussels, belgium. the crisis in crimea is going to dominate. he's going to have bilaterals with the chinese, japanese and other leaders. susan rice appeared in the warehouse pressroom.

she was asked, russian troops, massed inside crimea border. susan rice says the united states is still watching that development very carefully. >> it is not clear what that signals. the russians have stated that they are intending military exercises, obviously given their past practice and the gap between what they have said and what they have done, we are watching it with skepticism. >> reporter: one head of state that is not coming, vladimir putin. sergey lavrov will have a bilateral meeting with john kerry. president obama goes on to the vatican in roam. he does some touring, he'll meet with the italian prime minister then to saudi arabia. he'll end this trip trying to soothe saudi feelings. no doubt about it, iran is a

regional rival of saudi arabia. the saudis were very upset, in favor ever going to congress and asking for congressional permission to begin that campaign, obviously that hasn't happened and a deal was brokered by russia to remove those chemical weapons. the president has handled that. a long and crucial trip for the president coming up through the course of next week. mike viqueria, al jazeera, the white house. right now search crews in the southern indian ocean are starting their third day trying to find evidence of the plane. there's been no luck finding anything throirchgd this missing plane. -- anything linked to this missing plane. alan deihl, the author of air safety investigators, using science to save lives, one crash

at a time. mr. diehl, thank you very much very much for your time. transcripts of the pilot's communications with the ground has now been published. you've had a chance to look at some of that. what stands out to you if anything? >> well, first of all, we really don't know if these are actually the transcripts. i believe they probably are. about the only thing we can tell from the transcripts -- >> let me stop you there. let me stop through. why are you -- >> sure. >> why do you say that we don't know that? >> well, the malasians have not confirmed at least that i know that these are actually the transcripts and the time line is right and so on. i believe they're probably accurate. but so i'd like to know for sure. i'd like the malasian authorities to say verily they are the accurate transcripts. but to answer your question, what can we tell if these are correct?

we can tell the pilots are answering promptly at first and then things started slowing down like they were distracted. and that of course could mean they had a minor problem they were troubleshooting or there could be some other nefarious situation in the cockpit. >> or could it be absolutely nothing as well? >> richelle would you repeat that? go ahead say that again. >> absolutely. i said could it also mean nothing the fact that the communication slowed down just a little bit? >> well, yeah. we know that over those minutes they didn't get fatigued, that's true they may have been just distracted about ordering dinner, who knows what. but to mean, that's unusual. but the key thing and the thing that happens in the states that after ten days, the ntsb releases not the transcripts but the actual recordings to the public. so that's critical because you can hear voice inflections, the

human performance group at the ntsb can make a lot out of the recordings, the transcription are valuable, the recordings are invaluable. >> at what point do you think that we will actually finally hear their voices? >> ha, richelle, i have no idea. the malasians have been awfully guarded with their information. as far as i know they don't even have an ntsb human performance expert on scene. that person should have been there on day one. your guess is as good as mine on that. we'll have to wait and see. the real key is finding those black boxes, the so-called recorders with the pingers. and i know they're putting more assets into the search. but to my way of thinking, these are still pretty piecemeal efforts, two airplanes from japan, two or three from america, a couple from the

australians, we've got a big ocean to search through and if we don't find those recorders it could be a long long look. >> mr. diehl you say you don't think this search is expansive enough. >> you're talking about the search for the pingers, yeah, the locators. i think we need a lot more assets and real quick. i've compared this situation in my own mind to the rescue of the apollo 13 astronauts. they put a problem out and came up with a solution. they made it happen. the united states navy is capable of running a major sea search like this. but there seems to be nobody telling them to do it. and while the australians and the others and the u.s. navy are all doing a valiant effort with the limited resources they have,

we need a lot of resources quickly. we have 150 of these p-3 aircraft at least on paper, and to send two or three is fine but we need dozens of them in my opinion. >> okay, allen diehl thank you for your perspective on this. we certainly appreciate it. joining us on the phone, brendan nicholson in canberra, australia. we appreciate your time sir. what are your sources telling you about the search for had debris? >> what the people around the world should understand, a firm grasp is the scale of the task. this is like the marine equivalent of the world's biggest desert. it is just an absolutely enormous area. and what we're actually -- what's being searched for are some objects that appeared on

satellite imagery, nearly a week ago. now it took an awful long time for people to go through the vast amount of data that was actually available and identify what they thought were a couple of floating objects. this has led the authorities in australia to believe that they're by no means certain, they're parts of the missing aircraft, that there's enough of a possibility to make it worth searching. now, a week ago, they were, as was described by our search people, they were awash. they were just on the surface, with waves breaking over them. it's possible they could have sunk. it's possible they may not have been wreckage. and as your previous, the person you were interviewing a moment ago was explaining, it's an enormous task that still confronts the searchers even if

they do find this wreckage. it's floated, it's driftover a week. our search aircraft have so far not been able to find it. and the royal awfn ai royal ausr force is a very skilled air force. but the scale is absolutely enormous and the ocean in that area is something like between 1,000 meters deep and 3,000 meters deep. so if they do find the wreckage then they've got to work out where it actually -- where the aircraft crashed and where the main body might be lying. and then, the search would begin for the black box. and that would take the technology that only countries like the united states would have to get down to those levels. >> brendan, let me ask you this and i very much appreciate you putting into perspective how large otask this is, how large a body of water this is and what

they're actually dealing with. have you heard any frustration from your sources about needing more resources or is it simply a matter of how huge this task is? and more resources wouldn't necessarily make a difference? >> are look, a certain -- look a certain amount of extra resource he will certainly make a difference. the answer to finding first of all these objects that were floating low is a sort of detective-work by the search coordinators, and they've done a remarkable job in work out which ways currents are going, which way the winds are blowing and where these objects might have come from. that's probably the key to it. now china is talking about sending a couple of additional maritime search planes and so is japan. the united states has sent one of its poseidons and possibly more. i have no doubt that if our

people say more aircraft is the answer the united states seventh fleet would have them there in no time. >> brendan if the prime minister made this announcement, he would not have done so without some amount of -- i don't know if certainty is the right word. but maybe you could put in some sort of perspective your prime minister making this announcement, what he thinks about the possibility that that was somehow connected to the plane? >> well, look, what the situation is, our search and rescue people just working backwards on that, as of last night, their official position was that they were still searching for survivors. that's the absolute bottom line. once these objects were found and once there was a possibility that they might be from the aircraft, that left open the possibility that they might be survivors floating around there. we've had the miracle on the potomac where an amazingly

skilled pilot was able to put down an aircraft on the body of water. an aircraft on a southern ocean is fairly slim. the pilot was getting across the idea that the nation had to launch its biggest possible effort in case there were people out there still alive. and i think that's what's decided them to put this effort in. and it's possibly been construed even though the search coordinators have been stressing that it's only a possibility, by no means certain, that it's created the impression in some quarters that you know, we found it. well, we haven't. it is possibly part of the aircraft. it's possibly still afloat and they may find it. and then, they've got to go searching for rest of the aircraft. >> i think you made a really

good point. this is not just a matter of searching. there is a huge amount of detective work as well. brendan thank you so much. rough seas and poor visibility are making this more difficult for the search crews. kevin corriveau has more. >> we had a frontal boundary that wet through, from wednesday to thursday. that's where we saw the rough seas and the poor visibility. the frontal boundary is here, that is underneat an area of high pressure. high pressure is known for very good weather and that's what we have seen here. that is moved into the area. they really need to take advantage of that while they have it. we tend to have some very calm winds in that area. what we are watching is our next weather system, which is here, madagascar, not far from

antarctiantarctica, really good, flat surface seas in that area, before this next system comes and that's probably going to be sunday evening into monday. that's going to be the cycle, we are going from the summertime, consume from the fall into the winter time here, back to you. >> kevin, thank you so much. this hour, a federal judge struck down the same sex marriage ban. bisi onile-ere has the story. bisi. >> 31 page ruling on this bernard killman issued on this, just because they approved a ban on gay marriage doesn't mean it's right. the judge said also today's decision is a step in the right

direction. clearly a victory for gay rights activists. i want you to take a look at a are map. including michigan right now there are 18 states that allow same sex marriage. 21 or 28 outright ban same sex marriage. four states, oklahoma, texas, virginia, and utah, have stay, unlegalizing these bans. a gay couple brought this case into the forefront after learning they couldn't adopt each other's children because of the ban on gay marriage. one of them spoke out to the media. >> this is what we wanted for families and families like ours and we are so happy. and you know, now that michigan is on the right side of history and that you know, we were able to stand up and say this wasn't fair. >> reporter: clearly, a lot of emotions, the judge on this case did not issue a stay, which

isn't something that we see a lot in other cases across the country. and because of this the state attorney general bill schute here in michigan he filed an emergency stay hoping to prevent couples from getting married or getting marriage license at least on monday. and the state also plans to appeal. richelle. >> bisi onile-ere live from droit. pardodetroit. coming up next, indian tribes blame one of the big 6 for making them sick. plus overcrowded classrooms. there's a new school where you can study the circus. can br

>> for decades, the ford motor

company produced cars in new jersey. but also produced hundreds of tons of toxic pollution. >> chuck has called the mountains his home his entire life. >> there were four foxes here this morning. >> 30 miles northwest of new york city. >> i trapped all in here, i skinned all these animals, i was exposed to whatever they were exposed to, we ate a lot of the game. years later i got my intestinal cancer and liver cancer. >> found in automobile paints and solvents. from 1955 to 1980, ford motor company built more than six million cars in hi in its plantn mawah new jersey. >> they would dump the paint into these drums and they stockpiled the drums into they

had too many of them in the late '50s and they carted them up to here. you get $100 to make six, 55 gallon drums intear. >> more than -- disappear. >> more than 40 years later the paint is still here. >> right in this limb notch -- little notch, it continues to flow down into the creek. >> dozens of years of polluted water has taken its toll on people. none harder than the ramapo indians. >> the contamination has hit most of our family members. >> we used to play on the sludge, do we not? you remember the part you enjoyed the most? >> up here. >> on that nice hard pretty color lava. we made the woods a playground. >> other children billy and his

brothers chewed the swed sweet d paint like it was gun. she lost her battle with cancer as well. >> they know me like i was a neighbor. there was five funerals in a seven daytime period and it really got to the point where i couldn't do the whole five that week. >> the environmental protection agency said the ringwood site had been cleaned up in 1994 but it has since found much more contamination. the latest environmental protection agency plan involves capping some of the dumps rather than excavating them. but environmental scientists say this won't keep the contamination from seeping into the groundwater. >> i can perfectly understand why their reaction would be, get it out of my community.

make it go away. i understand that. if i were living there i'd want that as well. but my task, as the superfund director here is to select a remedy that is fully protective, so that going forward, people will not be exposed to the same chemicals that these poor people were exposed to in the past. >> for its part ford said in the statement that it takes environmental responsibility seriously. it's working with the epa for a final remediation plan. but many of this tribe's members die young. >> if they get to their 60s they're lucky. >> about chuck it's about pushing for a complete cleanup of a toxic legacy. he says ford is not taking responsibility for the health problems. >> it's hard to get that out of them. what we can get out of them is

full extraction and removal. >> to are allow these hills to be as pristine as they once were. we talked about how north dakota's shale oil boom is creating thousands of jobs but all of those workers are creating a burden in if communities. in tonight's installment, how the overcrowded classrooms are the problem. >> pam mowen has watched a stead flow of new students come into her kindergarten class. most of them are children of workers in the oil fields. >> we get to a certain point in our learning and then we have to kind of backtrack depending on where they're coming in from different areas. >> in the past few years enrollment in wat ford city has doubled from about 500 students

to more than a thousand. overcrowding forced the district to build an addition onto the element school recently and add a modular classroom. but superintendent steve holman says that hasn't helped much because more and more kids keep coming. >> we reconfigured, repurposed, and both buildings are truly maxed out. >> holman says the best solution is turning the elementary int into -- high school into an elementary school and building a new high school. many of the new residents are renters not homeowners. >> still voters overwhelmingly approved a $27 million bond referendum last week to help fund the new high school. >> in order for us to continue to grow and keep people, we need a good school system. >> i firmly believe if the town is not growing it's dying.

>> you're still 23 million mil or so short. >> we are. >> where is that money going to come from? >> it's going to be a real challenge. we indebted ourselves to the max. our commitment is the best it can be. we're going to really pull for some loan opportunities and ask the state for help. >> if the state opts to pour more oil revenues to counties pulling crude. the counties only receive a quarter of that money with the state getting the rest. it may be addressed in a special alleviate session later this week. if watford doesn't get further funding it may have to go further into debt or find a way to squeeze more students into its schools. al jazeera, north dakota.

next the richest who they are and why the u.s. is targeting them. suspended from school. credit a warning about racial disparity even among preschoolers.

>> welcome back to al jazeera america. i'm richelle carey. we have a lot to get to this half hour, including arrividerci, italy? venice votes for its independence. and why turkey is banning the social network. you could not only climb robes but get an actual degree. a search off of australia's west coast, tonight marks exactly two weeks since flight 370 has disappeared from radar. celebration he in russia hours after president putin signed a law annexing crimea. land grab that violates

international law. u.s. sanction he against russia are starting to have an impact. visa and mastercard have banned transactions from that country. rating agencies are considering whether to down grade russia's credit status. washington is also targeting individuals close to president putin. the latest sanctions include travel bans and asset freezes, keith darden joins us from washington, d.c. we appreciate it. who are these people? tell me the names that jump out at you the people on the this list. >> okay these are people who are very close to vladimir putin personally, personally and financially. the big names that jump out are

yuri kararchuk, people refer to him as putin's banker, chief of bank russea, the seventh largest bank in russia. there is some question whether putin's personal holdings are in that bank. the rottenberg brothers, putin's former jud judo partners, thosee some of the big ones that really jump out. most of the people on that list are on that list because they are personally tied to putin. it is not like there is a common denominator on that list of people other than that. >> what is the strategy? is the strategy to make it

personal? is the strategy to get to these people's money and make them feel it? what is the strategy? >> i think that's right. i think the strategy is to make vladimir putin feel it personally. these aren't going oget the russian government to walk back from crimea. they are not likely to impede any further incursions into the ukraine. a wider set of sanctions might do that and part of the executive order is that it threatensages againsens action e in that country. the lits of names and companies could certainly be lengthened and i think that's what obama is kind of holding in reserve in case we need it if the russian he move further into ukrainian territory. >> so do you think that will happen? >> i think it's about a 50-50 chance at this point. part of the are -- part of what's impeding it is, the rest

of eastern ukraine and southern ukraine is not like crimea. crimea was a majority russian and they were very closely tied to russia historically. it wasn't as if the population had a strong incentive to stay in ukraine, they didn't have strong ties with ukraine, they were easily broken. part of the eastern parts of ukraine which are russian-speaking and have close ties to russia also have very close ties to ukraine and want to remain part of the ukrainian state. so i think the russians don't know what would happen if they moved troops into those territories. it's been a long time since the soviet union broke apart and those populations are not necessarily going to be happy about the arrival of russian troops. they have some reasons the do it, if they do it they would do it big, going to the nepa river, but they won't take a step that's that radical, not likely.

>> any sanctions from the european union? >> the european union is preparing sanctions. they're likely to be milder than the sanctions that come from the united states if nor no other reason than the fact that europe has much closer ties to russia, cutting off the market that's important to them. they get about 30% of their energy from the russian federation. the u.s. can put people on the black list with a certain degree of impunity because we really don't have a strong economic relationship with russia. >> before i let you go i have to ask if it's about making it personal with vladimir putin, it's not as if he is going to show weakness. i'm a little perplexed actually by that strategy. vladimir putin is not going to show weakness, his friends are not going to show weakness. they've been kind of nonchalant, haven't they? >> they have. many of the sur names of people

on that list are not -- surnames are not can really -- many of them are ukrainian sur names. surnames,ive,ive putin has a lot of personal assets and because he can't necessarily hold them in his personal accounts they're often held by the accounts or companies of close associates like the people on that list. so he had another -- >> they know a lot? >> these people know a lot, have close associations both financial and personal of him. it's obama's way of saying we know where your money is we know who your friends are and we're going to punish you directly. that might have some chilling effect but it's certainly not going to be a deterrent effect of further russian aggression.

>> we appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> given hope to other secession votes. in venice people have been holding an unofficial referendum from breaking away from italy. claudio has the story. >> his ancestors have lived here for more than 500 years. yes chooses to fly the flag of the former venetian republic. >> our wealth is in the hands of the state and is distributed unequally. >> he's one of hundreds of thousands of residents of venice and the surrounding region of veneto who voted in an unofficial referendum to break away from italy and going back to being an independent state. venice was heart of a powerful republic that lasted for a

thousand years, since it became part of italy in 1866, resentment of italy has grown strongly. >> the network of independent movements that organized the vote say they are tired of seeing their taxpayers' money being washed away. >> we are victims of an open air robbery. every year veneto pays $70 billion in taxes, $20 billion are stolen by the italian states because they don't come back in any shape or form. >> not everyone in venice wants to break free from italy. >> it's senseless. we live in the european union. why do we want independence? >> my family is asking me to vote for independence. i'm not sure it's the right thing to do. >> the privately funded vote is not binding and is not recognized by the italian

government. they will appeal for self determination and keep the lion's share of their wealthy. claudio lovango, al jazeera, venice. zero tolerance, inequality starts in preschool. attorney general eric holder says it needs to disrupt the so-called school to prison pipeline. >> every data point represents a life impacted or derailed in a young man or woman who was placed at increased likelihood of becoming involved with the criminal justice system. >> the study tracked education through preschool and high school and includes data representing 49 million students. david shuster breaks down some of those numbers. >> this report on inequality comes from the u.s. department of education and it's based on 2012 data from every school district in the country.

let's start with suspensions. according to the survey, 5% of white students were suspended in 2012, compared to 16% ever black students. black girls were suspended at the rate of 12%. the results are stark when it comes to preschool, that is under five years old. account for 42% of preschoolers who were suspended once. and look at this: 48% of preschool students who were suspended twice or more. report also details some intriguing facts about access. about 40% of all public school districts do not have any preschool. none. and where it is available, it's mostly just part-day only. now regarding access to math and science opportunities in high school, 81% of asian american students and 71% of white students attend high schools where the full range of math and science courses are offered.

this means algebra 1 geometrical gentleman 2 chemicals and physics. however 67% of latino students have access to the full range. data does not explain why these disparities, whether it's course work or preschool differences, it does underscore when it comes to equal opportunities for education success our nation still has a way to go. >> david shuster reporting there. one of the most exciting sports weekends of the year is living up to the hype. michael eaves joins us with more on march madness. this is the time of the year when employers will notice productivity dropping a little. >> the building here in our studio in new york i'm just saying. since the time duke won back to back ncaa tournaments 1991, 1992, the blue devils have pretty much been the march

madness team you love or you hate. either way, when it comes to a cinderella team, there's no bigger target than duke. little known and 14 seeded mercer university, the bears met in ra raleigh, north carolina. if you want to know how the mercer players felt about their upset, he was dancing, it was way better than looking at me, trust me. kevin carnaveri, was on the money. mercer's first tournament appearance since 1975. duke gets bounced from the tournament in the first round. >> there was no doubt in my mind that we were going to be had there and have an opportunity. i didn't know if we were going to be able to finish the game. everybody was telling us underdogs. i told them, let's be superdogs,

everybody calls us underdogs. let's go like it. >> everybody looking at each other smiling, man we still got these last ten seconds. it's definitely surreal feeling, that's what march madness is all about. >> history will be made eight hours from now when the los angeles can dodgers face the diamondbacks in the first game ever. >> the two game series against dodgers will be the first regular season game played in australia which has players from both teams excited. >> i'm excited once we get there. the flight's going to be a little challenging but we're extremely exciteto bring the first major league game to the country with great people. >> both teams are excited to represent mlb, going down to

australia and giving them the chance to see major league baseball for the first time, you know firsthand there in that country. so it's a great honor. >> i just like the idea of just getting outside of the little box that we're in especially as the game keeps expanding internationally. i like to go there and playing more games so people can see the product firsthand. i'm excited where this goes in ten, 15, 20 years, where we can do this, eastern europe, where this can go. >> in opening days, the league has played mechanism coe puerto rico and four times in japan. internationally and to take on some sites. >> it's a place i want to go for a long long time. haven't had a chance to go down there yet and i've heard great things about it, it's a beautiful place, get to play some baseball while we're down there too. >> i'm not a fan of doing touristy things, i like to walk

around, see what people do, what life is like. >> they are creatures of habit and strictio trick to strict to. it will present lots of challenges. >> not only challenging to us and our coaching staff but to figure out the right balance of rest and reps when we get back. >> usually when spring training is done, you kind of lull back down and you kind of find the team goes to sleep a little bit fighting jet lag and fighting their emotions, it's important that you take shart and don't -- stay sharp and don't let your feelings get down. >> since the dodgers won the division on the diamondbacks turf. jumping on the pool beyond center field. at the time, diamondback players took exception.

now they are saying, it's water under the bridge. >> if there was water somewhere i'd probably jump in it too. they got caught up in the moment. going to the playoffs is something to be cher ished. you never -- cherished, you don't know how you'll feel getting that one game out. >> you see the guys all the time, it always ends up being a little bit of irritation back and forth. >> when we win, we'll celebrate the way we want to celebrate and they'll celebrate the way they want to celebrate. >> i'm sure they feel the railway against couples you are never supposed to like the team you're playing. may the best team win. >> now baseball is played in australia, richelle, there is not a big enough stadium for major league baseball. so they had to convert a cricket stadium just for this game. two games down in australia.

>> you going oset your clock up to get up and watch it? >> i have a dvr for that. >> i knew the answer. turkey's twitter ban back fires it will the prime minister cuts off access, but users still find a way to tweet. getting a real education.

>> turkey's prime minister has blocked access to at which

timer. the censorship is being condemned by turkish citizens and also by the international community including the white house. >> we urge turkish authorities to respect the freedom of the press to permit media of all kinds and support turkey to their calls to submit to blocked technologies. >> on turkey's says sore ship of the site, jacob ward. give us a quick history of the company. >> so richelle, jack dorsey one of the four founders of twitter, got interested in dispatch, the system on which ambulances tell them here i am, he thought everyone should have that way, of keeping track of where they are and what they're doing. it's all about data, you can

tell all kinds of things about what they're doing. you can see the difference between tourists in new york and people who actually live there. here's a map that shows the kinds of technology that people are using when they tweet. it's this kind of incredible data that makes twitter so valuable and of course has made it so contentious and useful in times of political crisis which we're seeing in turkey right now. >> it is really a remarkable communication tool in moments of political crisis. what are your thoughts on turkey's ban? >> it is an and waited response to the -- antiquated response to the internet, but turkey has joined a weird group of countries who decided to ban it. venezuela banned it in 2013. and turkey is joining china and north korea and other countries,

the users are not really down in turkey and people are finding a way around the ban. >> obviously, twitter is used for political came, bu activisms a selfie, jake? >> it's funny that turkey would ban what ellen used at the osks, oscars, that samsung actually paid for. these mass use he of centsment, something that turkey pm would ban, it's just an amazing thing. >> it really is, @jacobward, thanks jake. >> thank you. >> we like the take a little time away from the news to enjoy

art. there is a new university in britain offering students to step right up and earn a degree in circus. simon mcgregor wood reports. >> today it's more an infusion of dance, acrobatics balance and strength. it's also now a big business. this building was once a power station. today it's a space for turning out young people destined for careers in circus. been doing it here for 25 years. this is a sir wheel. >> how is that a real thing? just found out that it most certainly is. >> on tuesday, the center was renamed the national center for circus arts. a boost for its image of what it does. >> this is a recognition that circus is an art form just as

much as ballet or opera or theater, and we're coming out from the sidelines and to center stage, and gaining a sense of legitimacy that circus might not have had before in this country. >> modern circus was invented in london over 200 years ago. the hope is, this place will once again put the u.k. at the center of the circus business. it is the only place in the u.k. that offers a full degree in circus arts. for society concerned about the fitness levels of its internet-obsessed youth this place also offers an antedote. national center for circus arts raising its profile but also about recognition of the commercial potential of the circus art form. the u.k.'s creative industries earn this a lot of money. and the government hopes once up and running places like this

will make it possible for children of the future to tell their parents they're going to run away and join the circus and that will sound like a good id idea. whoof! sy non-mcgregor wood, al jazeera, london. coming up, the controversial practice of fracking how it's done and the communities now banning it. it's the largest saltwater lake on earth. and tonight, not just an image, but a tweet that caused our tearntion. our freeze frame came from vladimir putin, his first tweet back o november, 2012, he sent congratulations to president obama on his reelection.

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weekdays at 5 eastern only on al jazeera america >> al jazeera america is a straight-forward news channel. >> its the most exciting thing to happen to american journalism in decades. >> we believe in digging deep. >> its unbiased, fact-based, in-depth journalism. >> you give them the facts, dispense with the fluff and get straight to the point. >> i'm on the ground every day finding stories that matter to you. >> in new orleans... >> seattle bureau... >> washington... >> detroit... >> chicago... >> nashville... >> los angeles... >> san francisco... >> al jazeera america, take a new look at news. >> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm richelle carey. here are tonight's top stories. a proud display in the russian capital, earlier today president

putin signed an order annexing the region. international monitors to ukraine have no mandate in crimea. , ukraine has signed a pack with the european union to deepen ties. the move led to the protest that eventually brought down his government. exactly two weeks ago malaysia airlines flight 370 fell off the radar. search efforts are underway again in the southern indian ocean. so far nothing has been found. the pentagon says the u.s. has spent $2.5 million on this search. twitter corruption, of turkey. the country's prime minister threatened to, this is a quote, rip out the roof of the website. a major upset on the second day of march madness, duke lost

to mercer university. mercer went to a 20-to-8 run in the final minutes. these are the headlines. i'm are ricialg. richelle carey. check out our website, aljazeera.com. is hospital. i need them to stitch it up. it needs to be closed. a botched execution. >> when you strap somebody to a board, deprive them of oxygen for 25 minutes as they slowly die in front of their family.