>> unfortunately we didn't find any signs of life and didn't locate anyone alive. that's the disappointing part. >> the death toll climbs as the search effort becomes more bleak. friends and families affected by one of the deadliest mudslides come together for support. >> there may be clues in the search for malaysia airlines flight mh370. 100 new images from a french satellite. >> oh, god. oh, my god. >> raging flames leave a

construction worker trapped on the top floor - the amazing rescue and what happened seconds after he was pulled to safety. >> he looked like a bum, someone you wouldn't give attention. now he's proud of himself. >> treating alcoholics with beer - one city's radical approach to taking addicts off the streets. . >> i will just ask all americans to send their thoughts and prayers to washington state and the community of oso and the families and friends of those who continue to be missing. we hope for the best, but we recognise that it's a tough situation. >> president obama addressing the devastating mud slide in washington state from belgium on tuesday. >> welcome to al jazeera america, i'm stephanie sy.

it's called one of the worst land slides in history. in a momentous swoop a wave of mud and debris barrelled over oso, demolishing dozens of homes, and killing 16 people. officials say more than 170 people are unaccounted for. hundreds of search and rescue workers have been combing the rubble for signs of life. time is not on their side. >> as every hour pass, the hope for survivors in this square mile site dwindles. >> it's devastating. we know a lot down there. with no sign, it's frustrating. >> everyone in the small town knows someone that is missing. >> this is transition into recovery for my sister.

regardless, we want to bring her home. mum wants to hold her. i want to make sure it happiness. >> five days and the death toll is rising. two more bodies were found, and several located put not recovered. >> healing and grieving has to take place community wide. >> hundreds volunteered in the search. >> there's always hope. you have to keep hope. the reality is different. >> so many came out, most were turned away. more than 200 responders were on the ground. >> these are to help patient out, or remains. >> including the 70-person fema team setting up in the fairground. to help with annest -- an effort that looks bleak. >> i still consider it a rescue. we haven't lost hope that there's a possibility of

founding someone alive. >> abby gibbins us from arlington, washington. what time is the search rescue in oso expected to begin. >> we are expected to have the search and rescue effort begin at daylight, 6 chl chl 30 our -- 6:30 our time. it's a huge area they have to reach and try to find something of hope to look for. it will be about 200 crews who will be on the debris film, looking for anything that they can. >> what about the weather. i know these are tough conditions, are there concerns rain could complicate the search today. >> absolutely. we have seen a heavy amount of rain yesterday and this morning.

there's a road that leads to the search area. when we had so much rain, it made the road into mud. it makes it difficult for the crews to shuttle out there. we are dealing with mud in the debris field itself. it makes it heavier and more difficult. it will be tedious and slow. they are not giving up hope, they'll be out there and hold out hope that someone is alive. >> abby gibb with the latest, thank you. you are taking a live look at president obama, who is visiting flanders in belgium, flanders field, he is with king felipe and the belgium prime minister. president obama is in brussels to meet with the european union and n.a.t.o. the president flew in on tuesday after the security summit in the

netherlands. mike viqueira is travelling with the president. ukraine's crisis and russia's annexation of crimea was a hot topic at the hague on tuesday. what is on the president's agenda at the e.u. capital today. >> certainly ukraine will dominate the agenda. you were correct. the security summit was tuesday and wednesday, dominated by ukraine, trying to come up with a coordinated response to make russia pay a price for the takeover of crimea, and detearing russia with threats of draconian sanctions across the broad spectrum of the russian economy if they were to go further into ukraine. the president arrived tuesday night in brussels, belgium for the summit. it's the first trip to brussels. the town here, wherever the

president goes, as you can imagine, a lot of preparations have been made and the president starting off with a ceremonial event. at flanneders field, 370 war dead from world war i, a series of battles in flanders, and the president appearing with the king and the prime minister on the centenary of the outbreak of world war i. but you are correct, he will have a press conference later, expected to be dominated again by the situation in ukraine. he'll be with e.u. leaders. their concerns go there as well as the areas of trade. it will be a number of issues that the president discusses. a major speech later today. >> we'll have this live in about three hours. another big issue, the e.u. is expected to press the president on reducing europe's reliance on russian energy. what alternatives will it

recommend? >> well, you nope, the key issue, and it comes up over and over as the united states and president obama try to get europe on board is sanctions. europe has a lot more at take. they are more dependent than the united states on, in particular, russia's energy exports - natural gas and oil, particularly in eastern europe. the united states has a moratorium on exporting oil. a lot are calling for that to be lifted as the united states set to pass saudi arabia as the largest oil producer. the europeans want liquified natural gas coming from the united states. the united states will have the fracking, which is controversial, to have an excess. it's dangerous, it's regulated but won't happen in the short term. that's the problem as europe ponders the sanctions. >> the u.s. has to build the

terminals to ship the liquified natural gas. >> we seem to be seeing a united front when it comes to russia and sanctions against its involvement in crimea. it has not been long since the obama administration spied on urine allies, is it creating friction? >> it's never far from the background. it's true. it's a sore point. i can't say that it's at the forefront of what is transpi transpiring. the president when he arrived had a bilateral meeting with china's president. as both accuse each other as spying on each other, the government and defense apparatus, and the united states accuses china of commercial espionage, siber espionage. this is an another international meeting.

you recall the g20 meeting in st. petersburg russia, that was fresh on the munds of leaders there. fresh off the revelations that many of the leaders who were there in person were civiled by the united states. >> one last question - the president is travelling with a contingency of 900 people. he's three short because three secret service men were sent home after spending a fight out drinking in amsterdam. what can you tell us about that? >> we can confirm they were september home for disciplinary reasons. we are told on background from government officials that one of the agents was found in a hotel, before the president arrived. agents that belong to an elite group. the secret service itself very elite. these are the folks that travel in the motorcade, heavily armed. they are a counterassault team, cat. one of them, again before the

president arrived, but in violation of their own rules of behaviour was found passed out drunk, evidently in a hallway in a netherlands hotel. the hotel authorities alerted the u.s. embassy, one thing led to another and they've been sent home, reminiscent of the scandal in columbia a few years ago when the president visited and there was a run-in with columbian prostitutes resulting in a major blow-up with the secret service. mike viqueira travelling with the president in brussels belgium this morning. president obama is expected to speak live at a news conference this morning, after 9am. we'll have special coverage at nine on al jazeera america. >> while the president is threatening sanctions against russia, the military is getting out of crimea. jennifer glasse is in sevastopol. let's begin with the military

situation. on tuesday ukraine's parliament took action regarding losing crimea. what did they do? >> that's right. the acting defence minister, he tendered his resignation for parliament, they voted and accepted it. they brought in a new man. he was serving here in crimea as part of his experience. he's a lieutenant general and is the new defence minister, and it comes as the last ship fell. the cat and mouse game between the ukrainian and russian navy went on for a book. they've been 120 miles north, driving the ship up and down in a bay where they were blockaded in. they made a run for it. the they were blockaded. the commander made a deal that they could fly the ukrainian flag until he and his crew could

disembark so the last of the ukrainian fleet in russian hands. >> ukrainian troops are withdrawing from crimea, is that going smoothly so far? >> it seems to be a stop and start situation. there was information that there was news from kiev that things were being organised and they said people are not leaving today, they'll leave tomorrow, they have been taking forces in asking if people want to be part of the ukrainian or russian force. we haven't had too many evacuations where the black sea fleet from based. the submarine is a little to the north-east. some have left. now everybody seems to be waiting for more organization figuring how to get out of here.

we understand train cars have been put aside for them. >> what about life under russian rule. are there pro-ukrainian crimeans facing reprisal there in. >> we saw repraisals when things were questionable. now that it's under russian control the pro-ukrainians are keeping their head back. not everything is in place. you see lines at banks as people try to get money out. the russian ruble will run in parallel, but not take over until 2016. that's plenty of time to figure everything out. people can't buy or sell apartments. if you lived here and want to move to ukraine, because ukraine hasn't handed over the registries, you can't by or sell. it makes it complicated and delaying things.

>> thank you jennifer glasse in sevastopol. >> new details in the search for the missing malaysian airliner. new images showing the jet. and a partial ping after the last transmission. they hope it can pinpoint a path, more than two weeks ago. on wednesday, australian prime minister tony abbott put forward a measure offering condolences to the families of the missing passengers and are confident they'll get their owns. >> australia will do all it can to recover what we con from the southern indian ocean, so they can have the closure and eventually the peace that comes with understanding more of what happened. >> the search is focussed 1500 miles off the australian coast. abbott says australian crews have spotted a commercial amount of debris in the area.

crews are working against the clock. the black box is expected to go quiet in two weeks. >> in the sea of japan some missiles were launched local time. north korea's state media have not commented on the launch. the missile launch represented a troubling and provocative escalation that the united states takes seriously. : >> new details from the shooting at a navy base in norfolk virginia. two were killed on the base of a ship. a civilian grabbed a weapon from a soldier and killed a sailor who tried to help his colleague. the suspects was gunned down by police. the suspect was authorised to be on the base, but they are investigating whether he had permission to be on the ship.

the norfolk base is the largest in the world. >> facebook - mark zuckerberg spending $2 billion on something that doesn't exist. when it does, it could be a revelation for gamers. >> and information from the poison control center. >> blasting off on a mission to the international space station, the firry launch and a snag that has the spacecraft running late.

(countdown). >> we have a lift-off. >> a rocket carrying an american astronaut and two russian cosmonauts is making its way to the international space station. it blasted off and hit a snag with engine booster launches, it will dock on thursday. n.a.s.a. used russian spacecraft to ferry crew to the iss since retiring its last shuttle in

2011. >> this time lapse image captures the rocket's tail, and a group of spectators bundled up watching the lunch. >> welcome back to al jazeera america. i'm stephanie sy. a city's radical program to treat alcoholics with alcohol - but first nicole mitchell with the winter weather. >> we have a snow storm off the east, more of that later. on the backside there's a northerly flow. there are freeze warnings up. you do that, it's late in the season. things are growing. the plan, the crops - it's a problem. temperatures in atlanta, 30 degrees. some of the windchills are below zero. warmer temperatures in the plains. more on the snow storm in a little bit. >> a live look at brussels.

president obama, as you can see, is preparing to speak from an american cemetery honouring american war dead, 370 minister died and are buried there. we'll dip in to hear him speak in a moment. first business news. facebook is making a big acquisition and stepping into the world of virtual reality. c.e.o. mark zuckerberg is spending $6 billion in cash and stock to by opulus behind a headset for gamers. it will unlock new worlds. this a month after facebook scooped up whatsapp. >> bitcoin can't avoid the ira. they say they'll tax it and apply the same rules that govern barter transactions. if you get paid in bitcoin you

have to pay taxes. if you are an investor who made profits, you'll be taxed at the capital gains rate. the irs says it can't be used to pay taxes because it's not a legal form of payment. >> liquid used in e-cigarettes - parents have been warned to keep it away from children. there were 1400 calls in 2013, and 650 this year. half the exposure happened in children under the age of six. symptoms include nausea and vomiting. >> amsterdam is using an approach to help alcoholics, using a barter system to help them get back to work. it is lori jane glooe ha reports, they get beer in change

to keep the city clean. >> this is a former postman. he walked the same streets delivering male. he is an alcohol irk, and is cleaning the streets and trying to get clean. he's part of an unlikely crew of garbage collectors, all addict spending half a day on the streets picking up cash. in exchange the city offers them beer - five cans throughout the day and a warm meal, tobacco. it's part of a dutch program that keeps addict working instead of loitering in the park where many get drunk, start fights and yell at passers-by. >> have you been one of the those people that yell and get drunk because of alcohol while you were waiting to start of the program. >> to be honest, yes. >> janet oversees a total of 18

people. she distributes the beer. two of the in morning, two in the afternoon, and one when the project is complete. she's a supervisor, but a support system, helping those who relapse, need outside assistance or struggle to stay on track. >> the goal is they have more self-respect because they have something to do. >> this man has been in and out of clinics and detox. his progress with this project is what the mayor hoped for when she agreed her district would fund it in 2012. this woman says problems in the park had gotten bad. even they giving alcoholics more alcohol is controversial, she was willing to try everything. >> we threw everything we had at them.

every project, law, opportunity to fine them for disturbances. fining them is not curing the problem. it's target the symptoms. >> this woman has witnessed changes in the personalities of participates. like a man named fred. she remembers visiting him. >> he looked like a bum, someone you wouldn't give attention. nowadays he walks around. he's proud of himself. >> do you think the program is helping you? >> it's not easy. i fight every day. every day i wake up and i extend for the mirror, every day i tell myself do not make this day. only time will tell if the men can kick the habits.

it's enough to bring them a nuisance of self respect. >> and we go back to belgium with president obama is speaking live from an american cemetery. let's listen to what he has to say. >> i'm told this is one of more than 100 cemeteries tucked into the corner of this beautiful country. beneath the square miles lie hundreds and thousands much men, belgium, north american, french, canadian, british, australian and others. we talked about how many americans fought on the belgium soil did so under the command of his majesty king albert. while they didn't always share a common loanguage, the men were joined by something - the

willingness to fight for freedom that we enjoy. >> long after the guns were silent, the bond endured. belgians and americans stood shoulder to shoulder with our european allies in world war ii and through a long cold war than from afghanistan to libya, and today belgium is a close partner in the world, a strong and capable ally. thanks to the alliance... >> president obama speaking at flankeders cemetery. he is expected to speak at a news conference after 9am eastern. we'll have special coverage beginning at nine at al jazeera america. >> 24 people have lost their lives, but this mud slide is not the most dangerous we have seen. >> an extension on the affordable care act, but not

everywhere is getting a free pass. >> if i'm given the opportunity to lead the senate, i won't pout you down. >> an adputing mitch mcconnell on the hot seat in his home state, revolving around basketball. >> change is coming to the basketball league. what the league taketh and what the league take eth away.

>> welcome back. i'm stephanie sy, and these are the top stories at this hour - live pictures from brussels belgium. president obama is in brussels to meet with members of the european union and n.a.t.o. on the agenda russia's role in ukraine and crimea. the president flew in on tuesday after the nuclear security summit in the netherlands. >> the coast guard is partially opening the houston channel. a cruise ship was the first to

travel in. >> hundreds of search and rescue workers are combing through rubble looking for survivors from the washington mud slide. the death toll is 16 and climbing. it could jump to 24 as eight bodies were found, but not yet recovered. 177 are unaccounted for. >> while the magnitude is extraordinary, it's far from being the deadly yet. natural disasters like this have impacted the country for years. >> you are looking at the moment a massive land slide levelled part of area. a canadian group were on the scene. deadly landslides are not uncommon. in the u.s. the worse was 100 years ago with the collapse of the st. francis damn sent

12 million gallons of water down the valley. in 1969 a category 5 hurricane slammed into nelson county virginia, sparking flooding and a land slide leaving 150 dead. >> 30 years ago in 1985 a landslide in puerto rico triggered by a tropical storm killed 129 people. years earlier in sierra sansaver, heavy rain lead to a series of landslides. 18,000. killing more than 30. shutting down the golden gate bridge for a time. a fierce earthquake in 1959 broke loose and buried canyons. more that two doze n people reportedly died. >> landslides occur in all 50 states, causing $1-2 billion of

damage. >> malaysia says new satellite has spotted hundreds of items in the o. new data can help to pinpoint the jet when it disappeared. more than a dozen international crews are searching by air and sea. officials say they are doing everything they can. >> randall pinkston, what can you tell us about the images? >> well, it is another good sign that they are narrowing down the search zone. the images were captured by a french satellite. about 120 items, according to malaysian authorities, raping in size from three feet to 70 in length, strewn over an area of 150 square miles into southern indian ocean. malaysian officials say it's the

forth lead from satellite data. all images are showing debris in the southern indian ocean. and the goal is to retrieve something from the ocean to see if it is connected to flight mh370. so far nothing has been retrieved from the ocean. but there has been many spottings of debris. >> what about the other new information. how much do investigators understand about the last ping transmission, and could it change the scope of the search efforts? >> the last ping was released yesterday. recall that when the malaysian prime minister announced that all hope was lost, he was basing that on a mathematical formulation of where the plane apparently went into the ocean, based on pings. the communication between the plane and the satellite, after

the plane's communication gear was turned off, it communicated once an hour with the satellite, and they tracked the pings to the southern indian ocean. what we are talking about is a partial pige -- ping that may define where the plane went into the ocean. they don't give you the speed or the altitude. they had to extrapolate that using first-same analysis, by mr sat and england's version of the ntsb. >> randall pinkston reporting to us from washington. >> the deadly political standoff in venezuelan is getting worse by the day. angry anti-government protesters clashing with riot police in

caracas. 32 people died, including a soldier and a pregnant woman. it comes as three air force generals were arrested. the latest crackdown by nicolas maduro against the uprising. less than two weeks ago venezuela's army and national guard swore allegiance to nicolas maduro, vowing to crush all enemies of the revolution. nicolas maduro insisted that the street protests and calls for his resignation are part of a coup attempt against him. >> now the political crisis has been raised a significant notch. >> translation: we captured three air force generals that we were investigating thanks to the powerful morals of the armed forces. the three generals intended to raise the air force against legitimate constitutional government.

>> nicolas maduro alleges the generals were conspiring with the opposition. there's a lot of unanswered questions. for example - how widespread are the descent, was it members of the army as well, or as one retired general who opposes the government suggests, is it a smokescreen, as a coup against the government. the president chose to break the news surrounded by foreign ministers, those here trying to mediate between the government and their opponents. some question whether either side is interested in negotiations. >> translation: it's a funny thing here. when president nicolas maduro invite the opposition they said "you party of thieves" come here to negotiate. it's crazy. at the same time their position - i don't think they

want to do it. >> nevertheless the high-level delegation plans to try to keep getting both sides to the negotiating table amid the fears that violence could reach the point of no return. >> demonstrators say they are protesting high inflation, a shortage of basic goods and the highest rate of violent crime in the world. >> the white house is giving americans extra time to pay up for affordable care act, specifically for those unable to enrol before march the 31st, those that started to apply but can't finish in time. white house are stopping short of calling it an extension, but letting people vote if they are already in line. >> parents and students in newtown connecticut are getting a first look at what a

distinguish sandy hook elementary school might look like. the design is paced on input from the community. those that sustained were impressed with what they saw. >> it's what sandy hook is. it's newtown, but sandy hook is a special part. they are incorporating what we are. >> as far as architecturally, making it more open, and incorporating nature into the school. >> the plans include open-space learning areas, surrounded with stone walls to create stability for those inside. >> there's a blast of winter weather creeping up the coast of new england. this is a live shot op cape cod, sandwiched by snow. meteorologist nicole mitchell has a look at what is in store for the region and the country. >> mather nature doesn't always go by the calendar especially as you get to the coastline, and

places like cape cod. the system is into the ocean. the closer you get to the ocean, the more likely you see the high winds and snow. you get interior, and conditions change dramatically for the better. looking at the blowing snow, even places where a lot is not coming down, it's falling significantly. down to long i would, coastal maine and places like barr harbour. here is a look at that and what we are looking for. it's along the coastline, but heavy amounts like cape cod could get over half a food. isolated spots in the coast of maine could get a foot of this. we are concerned that there's so much wind. we have the potential for blizzard conditions. to get a blizzard you need the

wind to sustain it. reducing visibility for three hours. at least blizzard-like conditions, if we don't hit the 3-hour mark. here is how the system is. well off the coastline, but a dramatic wind cleaning with a low pressure. i see winds in nan tuck et gusting to 60 miles per hour. we get to the cost of maine, some of the wind gusts going over 60 miles per hour. up and down the east coast, watch for the winds. that's going be the significant element for today. it's not the only system. we watch is winter system grewing and into tomorrow, a chance for stronger spring storms. so that's something we are monitoring as well. back to you. >> thank you. kentucky senator mitch mcconnell is stumping hard to retain his

seat is this november. >> we'll renew our promise to the next generation of americans, and their future is defined by the person they can become rather than the conditions they are born into. a clip mistakenly shows duke university celebrating, not the university of kentucky. these are duke players. mcconnell said the error was made by the editors of the campaign video. >> changes for the n.f.l. is a change to the way controversial calls are reviewed. john henry smith is here. >> mitch should have consulted with me. clearly duke university. if you wondered how could that replay see the replay i saw and make ta call - you may like the new wrinkle the league threw into the replay system. at the owners' meetings, field

officials will be allowed to consult with officials in the new york officers to make the right call. they had this to say. . >> i'm confident fans will like the next rule change. i know jimmy graham won't, the man that made dunking over the goalpost after scores his trademark. he'll have to find a new way of expressing goal house joy. the league has banned goal huhs

dunking. twice he has knocked the goalpost over. mutual respect and sportsmanship is the reasons. >> dallas has the third best record behind the paces and the heat. in the woolly west they were taking on second-best in the west. 45 seconds left. kevin durant nail the three. thunder open. shouldn't have done that, hit the three, sending the game into ot. mavs. backs down, fade away. mavs up five. nabiski provide a 3-point dagger. mavericks win. >> phil jackson won five championships and many were

disappointed he wasn't hired to be the team president. the new york nix did that. with jack on looking on in the staple center the lakers showed him how far they are from winning a championship. >> they are not in the play-offs. the nix threw them further out. the nix giving up a team record and assured themselves of a losing record. by the way. the 51 point in the quarter was a lakers record. across the pond another proud franchise that seems to have lost its way. tuesday, nerp in danger of -- they were in danger are of losing three in a row. it didn't take things throng go south. >> it was a path to edden

jeckyl. mann city up 1-0. jackal striking. down 2-0. mann city wraps it up with a ground-hugging goal by choya. mann u finish with its lowest points total of 51. >> coast guard officials are looking into what caused an underwater gas line to burst off the coast of tech as. flames and smoke could be seen for miles. flames burning n o top of the water. natural gas is bubbling up. voters are asked to avoid the area. >> if you think that was wild check this out. [ screaming ] . >> oh, no, my dodd. >> a construction worker trapped on the top floor. the amazing rescue and why he had seconds to spare. and a live look at the

washington stock exchange. pros and cons of investing in candy crush. it's spraying, but winter is not done yet.

>> amazing video shot on a cell phone shows a worker rescued from a raging fire in houston. you see the man dangling and dropping to a ledge on the floor below. that's when firefighters grabbed him. moments later the top floor collapsed. >> the apartment building was under construction at the time of the fire. despite the flames and debris, no injuries were reported. >> king digital entertainment, the makers of candy crush will

trade under the symbol king. the developer offering 22.2 million shares priced at 22.50 much the numbers placing the value at 7.1 billion. gaming experts realise it could be tied to the popularity of candy crush. >> people could get bored. that's a problem. purely because if they get bored of the game, do they go on to another king game, or somewhere else. that's the finingleness of mobile gamers. they are happy to move on else were. >> zinga rod the popularity of farm bill. it dropped more than 80% between march and november. >> here to offer his take is jim

edwards, deputy editor of the business insider. digital drill-down. i have never played it, how does candy rush work. >> it's like bejewelled, you have to match three candies to get them off the board. it's progressive and addictive. it sounds stupid when you describe it. it's a cleefr game, more -- clever game, more injeanous than you think. >> how does it make money. >> the game is difficult. to advance you have to spend weeks playing it. or if you jump ahead you can pay for boosts and power ups. in-game payments made it

essential. >> king did something last year, controversial, they removed ads from candy crush. there's no ads, and they rel on in-game payments, because they were more lucrative to the company than advertising. >> the game was free. >> it's the most downloaded game of 2013. let's look at king digital adds revenue. the game had 1.1 bullion game plays, and accounts for 78% of company sales. analysts have reserve variations as to how long the company can ride this. >> the company is a one hit wonder. candy crush is 80%.

it's in decline. they are fads, trends, people get bored with then. >> can i challenge you. i played scrab le, t, trus and monopoly. how much do you pay to play those? i'm guessing little >> true. >> you could spend $100 a week on cappedy crush. >> the maker of the form bill game lost half its value. are there lessons to be learnt that that example for investors. >> yes, king thought it had nailed this. before it wept into the ipo it has a slate of 180 games. king believes because its fortunes were spread, it wouldn't suffer huge ups and downs like zinga. they didn't realise how huge candy crush became and how

dependent on it it became. next year and the years beyond it will go away and king will go back to normalment >> what else do they have? >> a bunch of names with "saga" in the title, like pet rescue saga and so forth. >> none like candy crush. >> some have been big, in the top 10 of the app stores, which is huge. candy crush was like king kong next to a mouth. >> does king have to worry about mobile gaming. >> it will stay huge in part. we are 60-70% through the global production. particularly in asia and developing countries, a huge number of people don't have iphones, so on and so forth. a lot of people are on feature

phones and to play the high-end games, you need an iphone, high-end antroids. so we are 60-70% into the process. >> there are potentially a billion people in china that could get addicted. >> and something else, facebook's $2 billion acquisition of oculus. they are working op a headset, it could be a game change are. >> will this change the landscape in gaming? >> it will. anyone who tries the headset sees that it is a completely mind blowing experience. it's unusual, difficult to describe it in words. you put the headset on, what you see is a real natural but artificial world that you can interact with.

for games it's excellent. as soon as you put the headset on anyone that tries it knows playing a game on tv with your console, it's dead in the water. oculus headset is out at retail level. >> thank you jim. >> there is a major storm tearing up the coast of new england. you are looking at cape codd. meteorologist nicole mitchell looks at the forecast. >> causing problems with wind and snow. you can see it blowing out there. it's not getting a lot of snow. there's more as it gets near the coastline. here is the broad picture. we are getting needed rain in texas, and this is part of what will brew, and more rain where we don't need it, where we had

the mud slide in the north west coast. >> a japanese architect that built shelters out of cardboard tubes has been awarded high hon you ares, the pritsca produce. he was recognised for his work. his work appeared in haiti, japan, rwanda and the philippines. >> del walters is looking at what we are following at the end of the first hour. >> hundreds of rescue workers combing through the rubble looking for survivors in washington state. the death toll is at 16 and following. >> president obama is holding a conference in nato. >> an oil spill off the coast of texas, 100 ships have been waiting on both sides to do their jobs. >> in the next hour - whether switching from oil to gas is

cost effective giving the ageing infrastructure. >> we have a snow storm this morning. and a spring form with severe weather. i'll have the forecast. >> al jazeera continues. dell and i will be back in 2.5 minutes. >> these people have chased a president from power, they've torn down a state... >> what's clear is that people don't just need protection, they need assistance.

consider this. the news of the day plus so much more. answers to the questions no one else will ask. >> it seems like they can't agree to anything in washington no matter what.

the stream is uniquely interactive television. we depend on you, >> you are one of the voices of this show. >> so join the conversation and make it your own. >> the stream. on al jazeera america and join the conversation online @ajamstream. >> we haven't lost hope that there's a possibility that we could any kind somebody alive. >> holding out hope in washington state as the frustration grows in the search for survivors of the mud slide. >> president obama speaks about further sanctions on russia. >> oh god! oh, my god! >> raging flames trapping a construction worker on the top floor o, the amazing rescue and

the man pulled to safety. >> we just waited it out and then made the decision to go at u.n. compound, because the fighting was obviously on our doorstep. >> missionaries who fled the south sudan violence finally reunited to the orphan's they had a leave behind. >> welcome to al jazeera america. i'm stephanie sy. >> i'm del walters. >> this is called one of the worst landslides in u.s. history. a wave of dirt, mud and debris roared through the small washington town of oso, creating destruction destroying homes and killing 16. >> the death toll could rise to 24 after eight more bodies were found tuesday. 170 people are unaccounted for, but there could be duplicates on

the missing list. hundreds of workers have been combing the rubble looking for signs of life. >> 12 miles south of oso we have a correspondent. officials say 170 people are still missing. >> good morning, del, very difficult news, as no one was found alive on tuesday. more than 200 search and rescue personnel will be right back out here at daylight this morning, comb that go area. that includes helicopters and search dogs, as well as international relief, but no one wants to give up hope. >> as every hour passes, the hope for survivors in this square mile site dwindles. >> it's devastating. we knew a lot of people down there and with no sign of them, it's very frustrating. >> everyone here in the small down knows someone that is missing. >> that has transitioned into a

recovery for my sister, versus a rescue, but regardless, we want to bring her home. my mom wants to hold her one last time and i'm going to make sure that happens. >> five days of the search and the death toll keeps rising. two more bodies were pulled from the devastation and several others located but not recovered. >> healing has to take place, grieving has to take place and that's community wide. >> hundreds of gathering in derrington vowing to help in the search. >> there's always hope, you have to keep hope, real estate is somewhat different. >> some came out, most turned away. more than 200 responders are now on the ground. >> these are litters to haul patients out or remains if we need to. >> including the 70 person fema team who set up camp in the nearby fairgrounds to help with the effort that is now looking ever more bleak. >> i consider it still a rescue operation, a rescue and recovery

operation. we haven't lost hope that there's a possibility that we could find somebody alive. >> again, it's still don't want to give up hope that they will find someone alive here. with all of this high tech equipment that they have, they say that these rescue dogs along with their bare hands are really making the difference in finding some of these bodies. >> still bark in arlington at this hour. what time with him the search and rescue effort begin today? >> at first light, del is when they plan on getting up and gathering together, so about 6:30 or so they hope to be out at that site about 7:00 a.m. >> weather at this time, are there more concerns for rain today? >> we've already seen some rain this morning and we saw a lot of rain yesterday, so that is a huge concern. there's this small stretch of road, very rural, of course, that leads to this site. that's all just made of gravel.

so when we had so much of this rain and more expected today, it's going to make it more difficult for crews to get out there. the search area itself already full of mud. when we see more rain expected this afternoon, that could major even more difficult, but again, no one wants to give up hope that they'll still find someone alive. >> abby, thank you very much. >> president barack obama is in brussels today to meet with members of the european union and nato, flying in tuesday after the nuclear security summit in the netherlands. aljazeera's mike viqueira is traveling with the president and joins us live now from brussels. we're seeing images of the president with the belgian king at the cemetery. can you tell us the significance of that location? >> well, certainly, and good day to you, stephanie. the president arrived in brussels last night, three crucial days in northern europe, yesterday in the netherlands, talking about nuclear security,

talks dominated by the ukraine crisis. that is expected to carry over here, very crucial talks, the president expected to give a press conference with e.u. and later a speech on ukraine. he started with a solemn ceremony. many of us in a certain age remembers the poem 370 americans died in flanders field over the course of several battles in word war one, the president paying tribute today. >> belgian and americans stood shoulder to shoulder with our european allies in world war ii and through a long, cold war, then from afghanistan to libya. today, belgium is one of our closest partners in the world, a strong and capable ally. >> the president note that go this is the 100 year anniversary

of the beginning of world war i. >> michael, the president is expected to speak in a few hours at a larger press conference. what's on his agenda there? >> well, remember, this is a prescheduled press conference with the e.u. leaders with a number of concerns, but ukraine is going to dominate, the president trying to come up with a unionified cohesive front against russia's aggression in the g7 in a couple of days ago, the president getting the leaders of industrial nations to impose or threaten sanctions if russia were to go further than crimea, if he were to go into eastern and southern ukraine. that will dominate talks today. there are long standing trade agreements that have been on the table between the united states and european community, the t.p.p. that is also high on the agenda. they will be talking about iran's nuclear program, of course those talks are underway, as well as the on going situation in syria. >> just a side story quickly

here, the president is traveling with 900 people, but he's three short today because three secret service agents were sent home after spending a night out drinking in amsterdam. what can you tell us about that? >> this is before the president arrived in amsterdam. let's keep that in mind. these are members of a very elite unit within the secret service, the secret service itself an elite unit, a counter assault team. they travel in the president's motorcade heavily armed. they're essentially the last line of defense that the president might have in any perspective assault on his motorcade. these individuals, at least one found inebriated in the hallway of a hotel before the president arrived. is hearkens back to a scandal involving prostitutes in columbia, the secret service sensitive about that put forth new guidelines prohibiting drinking up to 10 hours before a shift. evidently, these individuals

were in violation, they have been sent home for disciplinary reasons. >> ok, mike viqueira traveling with the president in brussels right now. stay with aljazeera for continuing coverage of president obama's meetings with european leaders. in 25 minutes, we'll be joined by a member of the european parliament and chairman to nato to discuss the ukraine crisis. we'll bring you president obama's news conference with the heads of the european commission and council. >> while the president threatens more sanctions against russia, ukraine's military is getting out of crimea. tuesday, ukraine's parliament respond the to the loss of crimea by voting to replace the acting defense minister. tell us about tuesdays action in parliament and what is next for ukraine's military. >> good morning, dell. in parliament in kiev yesterday, they accepted the resignation of igor, the defense minister. he was in for about a month.

he said because of what happened here in crimea he had to tender his resignation. the parliament accepted it. there is a new defense minister. his experience is here in crimea. he served in yalta, 80 miles up the road here in sevastapol. last night, we saw the last ship taken over by russian forces. that withdrawal is go again, stop again. they were organized to get out of here by train, then i got information saying it's not going to be today, it's going to be tomorrow and people are waiting here. there are families here of the sailors thrown off of their ships sitting in their amounts, many with children in school, trying to make a plan about how to get out of here waiting for guidance from kiev. it's been very frustrating.

former crimea bases are now russian bases. they are registering who wants to stay and who wants to leave. it's not necessary clear for those who want to go back to ukraine how that is going to happen. >> so safe to say things not going smoothly as those troops try to withdraw. >> i think there's a lot of confusion, waiting for orders. there was talk that many were waiting for the united nations general assembly to meet tomorrow because ukraine asked that crimea be made a demilitarized zone and all troops leave. some people are holding out hope against hope they might be able to stay here. this is a coveted part of the world to stay in, equivalent to florida. many have lived here for very many years and don't want to leave but also don't want to leave the ukrainian military. nothing very organized in terms of a departure here in sevastapol, del. >> jennifer glass, thank you very much. >> the state department says

north korea launched missiles without warning in the sea of japan. the two medium range ballistic missiles were fired 2:00 this morning local time. media has not commented on the launch. in a statement, the u.s. state democratic said it is a troubling and provocative escalation that the u.s. takes seriously. >> a powerful winter storm making its way across the east coast. we want to show you live images right now of the snow falling in massachusetts. a blizzard warning issued for the area with heavy snow and strong winds expected into the afternoon. some areas including cape cod could be looking at as much as a foot of snow. >> i believe they call it a nor'easter in that part of the country. meteorologist nicole mitchell is tracking the storm. there she is. let's check in with her, nicole. >> definitely a potent system out here. as we move across the country,

we lucked out a little bit, because the brunt, the system itself is well off the coastline. if it had been a little closer, a lot more people would have been getting snow, new york that just had a couple of flakes slide by, so it's cape cod that are really going to see the brunt of this. as you just saw in that video, the winds are going to be significant, even a little more interior. even if you're getting light amounts of snow, it's going to blow and reduce that visibility. you get to the coastal areas, easily over a half foot of snow. you get interior a couple of inches. same thing for maine, passing more closely. these are areas that could get a foot of snow near the coastline. the places in the hot pink are the blizzard warnings because you need the high winds and low visibilities for three hours to be a blizzard. might not get the whole three hours, but conditions at times within that period. this is a system that we have. you can see all the different

pressure changes, that's what we're showing with the black lines, the more dramatic the pressure change, the more the winds crank up. even if you're not getting the snow, you're going to get the high winds making it colder through the day. some of those wind gusts have gusted 60 miles an hour, sustained winds in the 30-40-mile per hour range. that's one of our concerns. another concern we're watching, texas needs this rain. that developing system into tomorrow could cause severe weather for kansas city, so we'll watch for that. back to you guys. >> a malaysian authorities released new details in the search for flight 370, saying satellite images spotted more than a hundred objects in the indian ocean and new data could pinpoint the disappearance of the jet. officials say they are doing everything they can in the search.

>> our determination to find malaysia airlines flight 370 are as we have said all along, we will never give up trying to find it. >> for more, let's go to washington. randall, what can he tell us about these new images. >> we'd like to say they've pinpointed the location of the plane but can't say that yet, however it appears they are getting closer. let's first take a look at the map showing the latest images in terms of the land mass from period, australia, 1500 miles southwest of perth, you will notice three lines of information, the line on the right, the yellow line, if you have color t.v., that is the location of the latest satellite image from france, the other two are the locations where satellite data from china, australia and and earlier report

from france. this is consistent with all of the previous reports. now the next image shows pictures of more than 100 objects, some 120 objects ranging from about three feet in length to more than 70 feet in length. the french satellite picked up these photographs, transmitted those to the malaysian authorities to australia where they will focus the search today. that's approximately 154 square miles of debris that they are going to be looking for. the third map is showing the latitude and longitude allocations which were recorded when the images were taken. with the ocean currents, they've moved, but they're looking at an area of 30,000 square miles of ocean today, 12 planes and three ships. >> how much do investigators understand about this last ping transmission and could that change the scope of the search

efforts at all? >> well, i think with the last ping information, what it will do is clarify with more consistency, the final track of the plane. recall that when they announced that the plane had gone into the southern indian ocean, they based that on pings that had been received by a satellite as the plane continued to fly after its transponder was turned off. this final ping, this partial ping may help them identify exactly where the indian ocean, the plane went into the water. they are continuing the analysis on that. of course, the search for the black box continues as the battery wears down. >> even with the best of technology, they are still searching. randall pinkston reporting to us from washington, thank you. >> the natural gas business is getting a boom from people switching from oil. >> the switch might involve a crumbling infrastructure, the hidden danger below cities and

the billions it could take to fix the problem. >> parts of that shipping channel reopening today in houston. the next 24 hours are crucial to the cleanup. >> $235 million is our big number of the day. >> we'll tell you how this ended a 15 year streak for major league baseball. you're taking a live look right now at rough seas off of massachusetts, where there is a blizzard this morning on this 26th day of march. >> blizzard warning.

>> good morning, welcome to al jazeera america. >> the cost of updating the countries aging natural gas infrastructure. >> it's not cheap. first, temperatures across the nation today with meteorologist nicole mitchell. >> the system off the coast, even though that is off the coast, the wind behind it has come down from the north, dropping temperatures. into the midwest, still dealing with teens, still breezy, a lot of wind chills in the single digits and in the negatives places to the south, atlanta in

the 30's, some places in the 20's this morning and enough vegetation has started growing that puts us in a freeze warning this morning for some of those crops. rest of the day, warmer air into the midsection of the country, but that's going to be part of the set up for possible severe weather tomorrow. >> at least it's spring somewhere, nicole, thank you. >> a fatal gas leak in new york city earlier this month led to an explosion leveling two apartment buildings, killing eight people. it put a spotlight on old gas lines prone to leaks. as we report, fixing the problem will cost tens of billions of dollars and could take decades. >> fred donnelly, a real estate executive in manhattan, the choice of whether to convert this upper east side apartment building from oil to natural gas seemed obvious. lower fuel prices and operating costs, along with the promise of cleaner energy sealed the deal. he made the switch last year at a cost of nearly $3 million. >> so far, this building has

achieved a 47% savings by converting from number six fuel oil to natural gas. >> with america's recent energy boom that's driven down the commercial price of natural gas, many businesses and city governments are looking to make the switch. >> from what we're seeing and the request that we've gotten to convert buildings, this seems to be the wave of the future. >> while ed's decision to convert his building was largely a financial one, his ability to do so depended on infrastructure, and switching can at times pose problems in older cities, like boston, philadelphia, and new york, where many pipe lines date back to the turn of the last century. >> new york city has a lot of hundred-year-old cast iron pipes, much more likely to leak than newer, plastic piping is. that's one safety concern in the conversion to natural gas. >> one spark is all it takes for an explosion during a leak. after the surrounding air is filled with at least 5% natural gas and more than 6,000 miles of

pipe lines run beneath new york city, nearly half of them installed between 1940 when cast iron and unprotected steel were the order of the day. >> if we're going to invest in natural gas in this country, we've got to reduce the leaks that happen through the pipeline system. >> the big problem is cost. in big cities like new york, you've got layers of underground pipeline from water phones to electric that make an expensive process of removing and replacing natural gas lines. here in manhattan, they cost about $2,000 a foot, rural areas like west chester, that price drops to about $300. utility giant con edison said replacing gas mains accounted take decades and cost $10 billion. other cities may be in worse shape. at they are current pace, effortses to replace all leak prone pipe lines could take as many as 80 years. according to analysis by rob jet

jackson at stanford and duke university, in baltimore, it could take twice that time. without those upgrades soon, the nation's emphasis on gas may bring more incidents like what happened in east harlem. investigators there say the add vase sent gas main was 125 years old. >> there are more than 1.2 million miles of gas pipe lines across the u.s. an average of 12 leaks per 100 miles of those pipes were reported last year. >> mark zuckerberg spending $2 million to buy oculus, a company behind a virtual reality head set for gamers. he said the new technology will unlock new worlds for all of us and have a lot of uses. last month, facebook bought the messages service what's app for $19 billion. candy crush developer cashing in on its popularity, di debuting n

the new york stock exchange, selling went to 2.2 million shares at $22.50 apiece in its initial public offering, valuing the company at $7.1 billion. king digital relies on candy crush for 78% of sales. one industry watchers say it's not just a one trick pony. >> there are a lot of games in development, a huge user base. it's interesting that the company has worked for almost a decade or decade now, they have not made any money and suddenly, they found a way to monetize mobile. >> sandy crush was the most downloaded free app, 97 million people play candy crush every day. >> i heard it's really detective. dow futures up 53 points, markets bouncing back after two days of losses. the dow jones industrial average starting the day at 17367.

the nasdaq is at 4234. overseas, asia ending the day mostly higher on hopes china and europe will provide stimulus measures. european markets in the green on top of more stimulus there. bit coin can't avoid uncle sam, it will tack like property, not currency. if you get paid in bit coin, you still to have pay taxes. if you were an investor who made profit trading the currency, you will be taxed at the capital gains rate. people can't use it to pay taxes, because it's not a legal form of payment. >> $235 million, that is the 2014 projected payroll for the los angeles dodgers. they became the first team to unseat the new york yankees in payroll costs since 1999. >> yanukovych payroll dropped to $204 million, followed by the

philadelphia phillies, red sox and detroit tigers. the lowest is houston astros at $45 million. >> those are numbers we can't even dream of. my mom said i should play baseball. ukraine giving up the defense of crimea. >> changes in full swing to switch from ukrainian law to russian law. why that's leaving some industries in limbo. >> it's a race against time for that cleanup of that oil spill in the houston channel. the timing of the spill could make it worse for wildlife. >> if you think you're too old to be the athlete you once were, you might feel differently after meeting these very experienced track stars.

>> in our next hour, the new nsa guidelines and whether they go far enough. >> a couple bills in the work. our top stories, 16 people are confirmed dead in the washington state mud slide, rescue workers believe they have found another eight bodies, 176 people are unaccounted for in the oso area. that list could include repeat reports of the same people. >> president obama meeting with nato and european union in brussels this morning, expected to question efforts to reduce elions on energy. >> the ukrainian parliament

dismissed the acts defense minister and appointed a new one. >> russiad takeover of crimea is complete, controlling most of the military bases and borders. there's still a lot of work to be done at crimea finds itself having to transition to russia. we have the story from sevastopol. >> igor is looking for a buyer for his two floor, two bedroom apartment. he spent eight months renovating it. how much will it be, i asked. >> sadly right now, i can't really put a price on it, he says, because with the change between russia and ukraine, the rules aren't clear yet. >> that could mean a difference of $25,000 or more on his asking price, which is around $200,000. real estate agent said the changes mean all she can do right now is look at properties to sell, and wait for things to become clear.

>> we still don't know what the russian rules are yet, sadly, but i think we will know soon. she doesn't know what the interest rate will be. it's just a waiting game, she says. russia wasted no time in taking control of crimea. on the streets of sevastopol, sign says we are one russia. >> it doesn't feel as though a lot has changed since crimea came under russian control, the shops open and people going about their daily lives. there's work to be done for the transition to be completed. >> much falls on officials like a member of sevastopol's legislature, people ask her about pensions, property, new passports. >> no one, not one person from sevastopol or crimea wants to stay. we're thrown off the crimean

peninsula and called outcast. she talked about international sanctions imposed on russia. >> i thank them for the sanctions. you know why? it will force us to take care of ourselves faster. >> this man says making the move should be smoother. >> we are tab tad by the on you craneian government. they won't give us access to records. they just won't give them to us. >> he said ukraine is also withholding health and court records, proof, he claims ukraine doesn't care about the people of crimea. as officials here work to bring sevastopol in line with russia, a new generation is practicing old traditions here. jennifer glasse, aljazeera,

sevastopol, crimea. >> with us i guess a member of the european parliament and chairman of the delegation to nato, joining us from brussels. thanks for being with us. what do you think of washington and brussels response to russia's annexation of crimea? >> the response was proper in the sense that it defined rightly that it is an invasion and breaching all the international principles and laws, so lighting territory integrity of the country. then, sanctions were applied, some of them were quicker, others slightly later, but now, i think that the line taken by united states and europe is very much the same, that any further escalation on the russian side will be met with the tougher sanctions, block indicate going towards the kind of sanctions which were to apply towards iran. >> president obama said this at the nuclear security summit at hague tuesday, let's listen. >> what we can bring to bear are

the legal arguments, the diplomatic arguments, political pressure, economic sanctions that are already in place to try to make sure that there's a cost to that process. >> some say, sir, that president obama seemed to down play nato's role in this conflict. do you think that's the right move? >> well, nato is important to assure the members of nato of the eastern flank of the european union like baltics and finland and romania and others that nato stands behind them and the washington treaty stands behind them. nato is a factor in stabilizing this region at the moment, including sending a strong signal to russians that there's a red line behind which nato will respond dip lematically,

politically. >> do you think the point should be made to putin. >> i think the troops and military of nato should be moved towards the eastern borders of nato to make this message more credible to russians. >> move close tort eastern borders, but not within ukraine. >> no. i mean, eastern borders of nato countries, three baltic countries, and poland, slovakia, hungary, romania and bulgaria. >> how big a threat do you think president putin is given that he has expounded on a doctrine of protecting russians, wherever russians are. how big a threat is that to world and european security? >> first of all, it's in breach of the very fundamental principles of european security since the second world war that

borders are not changed by force and the doctrine is very much reminding us with the doctrine of nazi germany, russia gives itself the right to intervene wherever it wants, where the russians are, whether they produced the russian protest. it is very dangerous a threat to upon european security and also now because of nato, to nato itself. >> you are making that comparison to hitler's incursion into czechoslovakia, others have made that comparison. do you believe that is president putin's intention? >> well, i think he will go as far as we allow him to go, and he is testingette west on however he can go, threats toward finland, baltics, towards poland, and there's very probably takeover of moldova,

starting with georgia in 2008. the weak response on the nato will encourage putin to go further. we should be prepared for him to continue and in order to stop him doing that, we should take very decisive and tough measures against. >> something interesting happened yesterday, sir, the deputy chairman of the russian state duma sent letters to the heads of poland, romania and hungary urging them to hold referendums on taking control of territories in modern day ukraine. historically, some of the regions, and you're looking at this map, some of the regions used to belong to poland, and hungary, is this a russian lawmaker trying to stir up more division in europe? >> this is first absurd, second grotesque, third, provocation, and all our countries stand on

the position of invadability and this is just provocation which has nothing to do with real policy and should be treated either as a joke or just a provocation and the statement on our side should be no way. >> finally, sir, i want to ask you about lithuania's foreign minister appealing to the u.s. senate to open up exports of natural gas to europe and the world market to counter russia's power in this reward. in his letter, he wrote at present, we are completely 100% democrat upon a single supplier of natural gas and as a result forced to pay a political price for this vital energy resource. lithuania is at the only one saying the u.s. should open its liquefied natural gas market to europe as soon as possible. what is your stance on that? >> well, it is a move on the united states to deblock its gas exports to europe.

it is said by brussels, lithuania and my country poland and many others that would obviously help those countries wimp are so much exposed to gas imports from russia and also to ukraine, so it should be taken out of dtap, this necessary and very important negotiations and done immediately, and the necessary infrastructure, terminals for it to be sent to europe should be accelerated. >> a member of the european parliament and chairman of the delegate to nato joining us from brussels this morning, thanks for your insights. >> there are fears of a growing al-qaeda presence in syria, c.i.a. director john brennan saying dozens of al-qaeda fighters traveling from syria to pakistan. intelligence officials fear it is an effort to launch strikes against the such as, coming together in the east and western sections of syria.

>> flee generals injections under arrested, part of a widening government crackdown, accused of trying to use the air force to rise up against the president. that country has been gripped by weeks of protest over high crime, inflation and shortages of basic goods. 34 people have been killed. >> federal charges are filed against the men accused of holding dozens of immigrants hostage inside a stash house, the five suspects charged with hostage taking, unlawful possession of firearms and conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens. more than 115 men, women a understand children found inside this houston house last week, living in deplorable conditions and some were held for ransom. >> tar balls are washing ashore near galveston, texas after that oil spill over the weekend and the houston shipping channel will partially repope to allow 100 ships that have been wait to go pass through to galveston

bay. crews are working to clean the spill. >> we have the latest on these efforts. that is a mess out there. >> absolutely, the coast guard laying down oil boom to say catch the crude and there is a lot of it, 170,000 gallons days later and still plenty of work to do. gulf businesses say they are losing money every minute and now are taking action. >> clean up crews are in a race against time to keep the oil slick away from the coastline. right now, most of the oil is about 10 miles offshore, but it's moving quickly, nearly two miles a day toward land. officials say the next 24 hours are critical in the clean up operation that has nearly 700 people involved. >> we will continue to monitor it constantly with overflights. >> four days later and miles of containment booms and dozens of ships skimming the water, the tar like oil is seeping into an important bird refuge. >> we have something like 100,000 birds that migrate

through here at any one time. >> this spill comes at a sensitive time, mating season. at least 10 birds have died from the spill, survivors being cleaned from their beaks to their feet. >> they do need to be cleaned, they don't want to be held by people. some struggle, the stronger ones struggle a lot more. >> limited travel is being allowed in the houston shipping channel from cargo to cruise ships that have been docked and anchored for days. while that is still progress, there is still a lot of work ahead. >> we were here at the beginning, will be here until the end when the last booms are removed and last bird recovered. >> the best case scenario is the rest of the oil continue to go turn into tar balls that wash up further down the texas coast where they can be more easily picked up and raffed. as for those businesses, some charter fishing bolt captain have been losing work ever since the spill, plus still can't go

out there. they're pushing for compensation. the houston chronicle report that go they are filing a class action lawsuit against the owner of the oil barge, saying their suffering because of the spill. >> at least they're opening up that channel this morning. >> cleanup efforts underway after a b.p. refinery spilled crude into lake michigan monday, not saying how much spilled from it's whiting refinery before it stopped the leak. the company just finished a $4 million upgrade. it is the source of drinking water in chicago. environmental protection agency say the water is safe. >> dramatic cell phone video shores a worker rescued from a fire, you can see the man dangling and then dropping to a ledge on the floor below right there. that's when firefighters grabbed him. moments later, the top floor collapsed. >> oh, my god!

[ screaming ] >> the apartment building was under construction at the time of tuesday's fire, despite the flames and debris. no injuries reported. no word on what and you said the fire. >> an extension for those who have not been able to sign up for the affordable care act, the enrollment deadline next monday, but the washington post reporting the white house will grant the extension to people who started to apply for coverage on health care dot.gov but can't complete applications on time. they can check a box on the website to indicate they attempted to enroll before that march 31 deadline. >> when you think senior citizen, you might not think athlete. >> don't look at me. john henry smith has the story of seniors, people younger than me who are still competitive. good morning, john. >> i think stephanie will here. if you think that competitive sports are only north young, del, it may surprise you to

learn that some people in their 70's and 80's are still competing at a very high level in track and field. i recently traveled to boston to meet competitors in the u.s.a. track and field masters championships, and they share their secrets to competing and winning at any age. >> >> what is your advice to people on how to live a good life, to live as long as you have, as well as you have? >> well, they have to like with what they're doing and being active is what i've always been, as active and i like challenges that is one of the reasons i keep running and especially if somebody tells me, you can't do that, then it motivates me a little bit more. >> this motivation has earned 80-year-old irene world records in the 200-meter dash, but it's about more than that for her. >> my father always told me that

don't let race, age or sex, you know, stop you from doing what you want to do. >> for others, the usa masters championship event is about the benefits of fitness. this 64-year-old that played jazz trumpet for many famous players. >> i started running better, faster, my trumpet player started getting better. the better i ran, the better i played the trumpet. >> it takes a certain amount of luck to live as long as these athletes have lived, plus to live as well as they are living in their golden years. they'll all tell you that takes strategy. >> 100-year-old leland mcfee served in world war ii and spent 29 years as a san diego sheriff. he set the mark for oldest competitor in the high jump. he has a more important reason for being here. >> exercise will keep you young, but besides that, you keep associating with younger people

and you know some of their habits, developing better habits. >> i am completelying 90 and starting 91 in july. what a paradise. >> raul rodriguez shared his key to a long and healthy life. >> the human body was not built for tobacco, alcohol, or drugs. never in my life have i ever done any of those things. the body has not anything toxic in it, except what it gets from the air. i never put it there. >> words to live and age gracefully by. >> well, you had to be at least 35 years old to compete at the masters championship. some athletes from this event, including nolan are in hungary to compete in the 2014 world masters indoor championships.

inspirations to us all. >> have you seen del play tennis? >> you whipper snappers, the aljazeera tennis challenge is on. >> for an 80-year-old, you're pretty good. a denmark zoo faced a lot of criticism. >> i set myself up for that, didn't i? >> you did. >> for euthanizing a healthy giraffe. >> that zoo is putting more animals to death. >> how missionaries were able to reunite with the orphans they cared for. >> we have a couple weather systems we're watching. details coming up. >> you are looking at the snow blowing in sandwich, massachusetts where i wish i was right now. it's cold there, even colder, though, in the studio. >> ajazee,

take a new look at news. ajazee, >> good morning, welcome to al jazeera america.

i'm del walters. >> same stephanie sy. >> american missionaries reunited to the or fans they were forced to leave behind in a refugee camp. >> it is snowing, lets find out where it's snowing and how much they are going to get. >> we are looking at that's the snowstorm that's actually well off the coastline but maine could get a foot of snow. i'll have more on that, but i want to get to a couple other parts of the country, like texas where we desperately need the rain coming down. this is a developing system, tomorrow with the cold air coming in and warm air mass colliding gives us the potential for a set up of strong storms. we'll watch as that develops. the northwest, we just had the mud slide, more moisture is in this same area, not just today. this is the next couple days. more rain in that forecast after the brief break.

>> poison control centers across the adjustment warn parents to keep the liquid used in e cigarettes away from their kids, children be getting sick after swallowing the liquid nicotine. the centers report a surge in calls over the last few years, 1400 calls in 2013. more than 650 so far this year, half of the reported exposures happened in children under the age of six and symptoms include nausea and vomiting. >> taking a look at headlines around the world, the i.r.s. going after bit coin users. they knew it was only a matter of time, the agency treating bit coins as property rather than currency for tax purposes. a lot of people like bit coins because it's sort of like the virtual currency without rules. >> one analyst thinks this is a positive step, because it gives legitimacy to bit coin. it could be the next step to it being accepted as a currency.

>> apparently shooting and dismembering a giraffe wasn't enough for a danish zoo, euthanizing two lions and their cubs. zoos have to control their animal populations. in the u.s., they give their animals birth control, basically. in copenhagen, they euthanize the animals, causing an uproar. >> they say it's a way of letting nature take its course. they want it to be natural but some believe that is a little too natural. >> a cookie selling machine, sixth grade phenom katey francis breaking the national record, selling more than 18,000 boxes of girl scout cookies to stephanie sy alone. >> i only bought three boxes. what's interesting about this story is the last girl scout to win the record last year was also from oklahoma city. something's going on there. >> she said she did it in the rain, the snow, i wonder how many boxes of thin minutes. >> i bet it was a pretty big

percentage. >> coming up, two american missionaries back in the u.s. after fleeing war-torn south sudan, but not without helping orphans make it to safety along all the way. as we report, their journey back to the u.s. has been long and risky. >> a video from happier times, brad campbell and his wife, kim, with orphans who lost their parents to conflict and illness. they sold everything they owned and moved here to set up an orphanage with their two american daughters. this peace was shattered last december. fighting broke out, pitting armed sanctions against each other struggling for political power. one morning, the cam bells got caught in the crossfire. hiding in their home, under their beds from a firefight of artillery and gunfire. they survived that morning but left this afternoon. >> we waited it out and then made the decision to go to the

u.n. compound, because the fighting was obviously on our doorstep. >> we gathered everyone together, we gathered up a few things to carry, and we left the house. >> they took 10 of the orphans with them and settled in in a crowded u.n. camp, reactions cashews and beef jerky to get by, eventually running out of options, making the hard decision to leave the orphans behind. they made it to a safe haven in kenya and began searching for ways to get the kids out. >> for the area, there's been no way for anyone to get in touch, so we would have been just kind of sitting there, waiting it out. they're without email, phones, without any way to kind of move ahead with things. >> earlier this month, they arranged for the children to be moved to a safe, undisclosed location where they were reunited. >> several thousand people have been killed since fighting broke

out in december, nearly a million more have been displaced. >> at the end of our second hour, we are following these stories, 18 people, 16 confirmed dead in that washington state mud slide, but rescue workers believe they are located another eight bodies. >> president obama meeting with european union and nato. we'll tell you about his news conference from brussels, bring it live at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. >> the coast guard is powerballly reopening the channel today after that oil spill off the coast of texas, 100 ships waiting alongside the water way. >> the president unveiling changes to the n.s.a. whether it will be enough to satisfactory the critics of the agency. >> police in albuquerque facing backlash for shooting a homeless man. whether the percent went too far in the way they handled that incident. >> i'm meteorologist nicole mitchell, we have a snowstorm making some places feel like winter and a spring storm with severe potential weather brewing.

>> the aljazeera morning news continues, dell is back with you in two minutes. we leave you with a live picture of chatham, massachusetts where there is a belied a road warning right now and tough conditions in the water, you can see.

>> keeping the pressure on putin, president obama and belgium hope to go unify allies against russia over the crisis in ukraine. >> hoar arriving, it's a horrific thing to say, when you recognize that there are so many people missing, it's horrific. >> crews discover more bodies as rescue efforts turn to recovery and grieving. >> oh, god, oh, god, oh, god, oh, my god. >> raging flames leave a construction worker trapped on

the top floor. the rescue and what happened just seconds after this man was pulled to safety. >> albuquerque p.d., you are guilty! >> anger over a string of deadly police shootings in albuquerque, new mexico come to a head as people take frustrations right to police headquarters. >> so this visit, this hallowed ground, reminds us that we must never, ever take our progress for granted. we must commit to peace which binds us across oceans. >> president obama pushing for a united front against russia as he meets with european leaders. hello and welcome to al jazeera america. i'm del walters. the president taking has hard line in brussels.

in netherlands, the president and allies casting russia out of the g8, warning vladimir putin of further isolation if russia continues to destabilize ukraine and move deeper into crimea. russia is defiant, unseemingly unfazed by western threats. mike viqueira traveling with the president, speaking in belgium a short while ago. >> all that on hold, the president making that stop. this is the 100 year anniversary of the beginning of world war i. he visited an american cemetery there, several battles where americans lost their lives, 370 in all interred there in planters field. many of us of a certain age may remember that poem from our school days. the president toured the grounds, toured the cemetery

with the king of belgium and the prime might bester and talked about what happened those many years ago. >> belgians and americans stood shoulder to shoulder with our american allies and through a long cold war, then from afghanistan to libya, and today, belgium is one of our closest partners in the world, a strong and capable ally. >> and that ceremony has concluded, del, i'm looking up above me here. i see citizens of brussels hanging out of office windows, the president arriving behind me at this moment. >> mike, the president set to speak in a news conference about 9:00 a.m. eastern time. do we have any idea what he will be talking about? >> just one hour's time from now. this is a prescheduled meeting, the first time here that the european union for the summit in

the presidency of president obama. this is something that has been long scheduled and yet ukraine, much like what happened over the course of the last two days in the nexter land is going to dominate the agenda. certainly there are going to be questions about ukraine, thure pine union, there's a long standing trade agreement negotiated for a while now. they are very interested in this bilateral trade agreement between the united states and european union. other front burner issues will be discussed including syria and iran, dell. >> mike vick with us from brussels belgium, this morning. thank you very much. >> as the president threatens more sanctions against russia, ukraine is making very big military changes. we are joined live from sevastopol. jennifer, on tuesday, ukraine's parliament held a vote in response to the fall in crimea. what happened? >> that's right, dell, the acting defense minister was only for about a month or so,

tendered his resignation because of the takeover here. the parliament accepted it. there is a new defense minister who has experience here. he last served about 70 miles from here in sevastopol. ukraine's last ships have come to the cat and mouse game it's been playing with the russian navy for the past few weeks in a back and forth overnight. it had been driving up and down the bay, tried to make a run for it, bumped back by a russian ship. the russians got onboard to take it over, the captain negotiation r. negotiate be being able to fly his flag until this morning until his crew disembarks from the last ship to come to the russian forces. >> what about life under russian rule in crimea right now? are think pro ukrainian in crimea face league prize also? >> we saw some reprise also

early on. you can see fistfights on the street with everything in transition. now that everything is firmly under russian control, everyone keeping their head down here. we are seeing the tumultuous times of transferring between two countries. you'll see lines at banks as people try to get their money out, another bank announcing it is pulling out of crimea, another bank closed days ago. the rubles can run parallel, so there's plenty of time, but form amities haven't been finalized. you can't buy or sell an apartment yet. >> troops pulling out of crimea, has that withdrawal gone smoothly? >> it's been very much a stop and start pros, del, we did see some marines leave a couple of days ago from eastern crimea.

here in sevastopol, they've, very frustrated, the military folks, sailors and families sitting in their apartment waiting for a plan from kiev. the order came, but we heard today there was going to be a gathering spot. that has been delayed until tomorrow as the sailors who want to leave, reinwhat's left of the ukrainian navy on the mainland figuring out how they are going to get out of here. >> we'll have special live coverage of the president speaking at 9:00 eastern time right here on aljazeera america. >> it is called one of the worst land slides in u.s. history, the mud slide in washington state creating a one square mile path of destruction, destroying homes and causing deaths, the number rising to 24 after eight more bodies found tuesday.

officials are now saying that there are as he is pretty search and rescue operations underway. they are still looking for signs of life amidst the rubble. >> absolutely, dell, but it is devastating news, and to hear that they still have not found anyone alive on tuesday is very difficult for this small community. more than 200 search and rescue workers will be right back out here at first light today, again continuing this search, included in that will be helicopters and animal rescue teams, as well. no one want to go give up hope. >> as every hour passes, the hope for survivors in this square mile site did i dwindles. >> we knew people there, it's frustrating. >> everyone knows someone that is missing. >> this is transitioned into a

recovery for my sister versus a rescue, but regardless, we want to bring her home. my mom wants to hold her one last time and i'm going to make sure that happens. >> five days into the search and the death toll keeps rising, pulling two more bodies from the devastation tuesday and several others were located but not yet recovered. >> healing has to take place, grieving has to take place and that's community wide. >> hundreds of rallying together, volunteering to help in the search. >> there's always hope, you know, you have to keep hope. the reality is somewhat different. >> so many came out, most turned away. >> more than 200 responders were now on the ground. >> these are litters to haul patients out for remains, if we need to. >> including the 70 person fema team who set up camp in the nearby fair grounds to help with the effort that is looking ever more bleak. >> i consider it still a rescue operation, a rescue and recovery

operation. we haven't lost hope that there's a possibility that we could find somebody alive. >> they say that their bare hands and search dogs are actually the best bet in being able to find bodies or hopefully someone alive. what is not helping in all of this is the weather. we've seen heavy rains yesterday, again a little bit today and expect to see more rains throughout the week. when we see all of this, there's only one small rural road that leads to this slide and when we have the rains, it makes that road extremely wet, muddy and very difficult for those crews to get in and also this search area that is so wide, already muddy, makes that more difficult. crews are saying it's frustrating, tedious, going to take a long time, but they're methodical about it and refuse to give up to give answers and closure to those families. >> abby, thank you very much this morning. >> parents and students in new

town connecticut getting a first look at what the new sandy hook elementary school might look like. the new design, based on input from the community. those there were impressed with what they saw. >> they really know what sandy hook is. it's new town, but sandy is a very special part of new town and their incorporating what we are. >> as far as action texture ally, making it a more open school, and incorporating nature into the school. >> the plans include open space learning area surrounded by stone walls. they want to create a sense of security for the children inside. >> the white house is giving americans more time to sign up for the affordable care act, specifically for those who say they were unable to enroll before the march 31 deadline. people who started to apply for coverage but didn't finish in time. white house officials are stopping short of calling it an extension, it's more like

letting people vote past the time the polls closed if they are already in line. >> a power winter storm making its way across the east coast. live images coming out of the snow falling in chatham, massachusetts, a blizzard warning issued for the area with heavy snow and strong winds expected well into the afternoon, some of those areas including cape cod could see as much as a foot of snow. for more on the storm system, we turn at always to meteorologist nicole mitchell. it's nasty and it is mid to late march. >> mother nature doesn't always watch the calendar. it just kind of does what's going to happen. it's been a rough winter, i'm not surprised we are seeing snow at this time of year, a lot of that wasn't snow coming down, it was blowing, because the winds are so strong. most of the system is off the coastline. that's a good thing, because a

lot of our problems are just on the coastline, the closer you get to the coast, the more likely you're seeing the high winds and potential for snow. a little interior, it's a dramatic change in improved weather. coastal areas off of massachusetts, some places could get over six inches of snow. maine, the system gets closer, so you could be talking seeing up to a foot of snow. because of the high winds, that's our concern, we saw that blowing around, chatham right now, blizzard conditions, but to have a full blizzard, you need that sustained for three hours. i don't think a lot of places will meet the three hour criteria, but it will definitely be what i would call blizzard like at times. >> here's the system off the coastline. it moves north through the day, eventually impacting maine and off by tomorrow. even if you're not getting the snow, high winds through most of the northeast through the rest of today. i'll have more on what this is

doing to temperatures in just a bit. del. >> three generals in venezuela under arrest this morning, part of a widening government crack down there, all accused of using the air force to rise up against the president. the president said the men have ties to the opposition, dozens of other opposition leaders also being arrested, that country gripped by weeks of protest over high crime, inflation and shortages of basic goods. at least 34 people have been killed. the state department saying north korea launched missiles into the sea of japan. the two were fired earlier this morning. north korea state media has yet to comment. the state department saying the launch represents a troubling and provocative escalation that the united states takes very seriously. we are closely coordinating with our allies to take appropriate measures and response to this and address the threat to global security. >> malaysian authorities release be new details in the search for

malaysia airlines flight 370. they have new satellite images and spot the more than 100 possible objects in the indian ocean. new data could help pinpoint the fate of the jet that disappeared. more than a dozen international crews are now searching by air and by sea. officials are doing everything they can. >> for more we are joined by randall pinkston in washington. what can he tell us about these new images? >> first, today's search, 12 planes went aloft over two different search areas and apparently did not find anything that connects the debris in the ocean to malaysia airlines flight 370. these images were provided by a french satellite source of images recorded on sunday, passed on to the malaysians, who passed them on to australians in charge of the search. the map, we can show you in relationship to where the i am packages were found from perth,

australia, approximately 1500 miles southwest of perth in the same area where other satellite data have indicated debris fields earlier in the week, from australia, from china and also from the french and nearly a satellite siting. let's look at our next map, which shows pictures of those objects, 120 objects in an area about 154 square miles, some of the objects ranging from three feet in length to more than 70 feet in length, and then the french also provided latitude and longitude allocations. unfortunately today, the aircraft did not locate those images. they are in the same area where other data has indicated that the plane may have gone down. what they have to do, del is to retrieve something from the ocean and see fit matches mh370. that hasn't happened yet. >> the last ping transmission,

we are now hearing reports of, what do we know about that and how can that change the scope of the search? >> so we know according to malaysian officials, who received the analysis from mrsat that the determination was made that the plane went down in the southern indian ocean. how do they know that? because even after the communications, the transponder was turned off, the plane continued to communicate with satellite and ground stations. those were the pings. the last ping was a full ping, then there was this partial ping. that suggests that's where the plane went into the ocean, but they don't know exactly where, so they're still analyzing the data from that trying to get an act location to find the debris field and black box. >> randall, thank you very much. >> president obama revealing his proposals to change all the way the n.s.a. does business, whether those changes go far enough to please critics of the controversial agency.

[ screaming ] >> >> these dramatic images, a rescue caught on tape add fire crews race to save a man, a fire engulfed a construction site. >> new measures out of washington to help homeowners with rising flood insurance costs.

>> good morning, welcome to al jazeera america. the white house confirming it wants the nsa to stop storing mass amounts of data from your phone calls. they will still be able to get some of that data. >> the president in the netherlands, where reported nsa spying has come under harsh criticism, europeans as angry as americans that their phone calls and on line browsing activity may be stored by the n.s.a. obama said his administration is trying to end the government's role in the bulk collection of records, while maintaining as many tools for stopping terrorists as possible. >> overall, i'm confident that

it allows us to do what is necessary in order to deal with the dangers of the terrorist attack, but does so in a way that addresses some of the concerns that people had raised. i'm looking forward to working with congress to make sure that we go ahead and peace the enable legislation quickly so that we can get on with the business of effective law enforcement. >> the plan is for the nsa to end system take data about calling habits, keeping the record inside the phone companies, the officials not required to maintain it for any longer than they normally would. >> that's usually 18 months, a lot less than the five years the n.s.a. stores data but gives the government access to at least two phone calls back from any number that comes up as suspicious. >> the n.s.a. can still obtain specific records, but only with permission from a judge, using a new court order. civil liberties groups are giving a cautious welcome to the

president's plans, but worry it only covers phone records. >> he's taking a very important first step here. he is deciding that the collection of americans' phone records will stop and they'll go back to actually making court requests for specific accounts. this is a step in the right direction. the problem though is this is really the tip of the iceberg. there are financial records out there, internet records, other sensitive date that that they can still get through these bulk mass suspicionless programs. this should be the beginning of a conversation, not the end of it. >> obama needs congress on his side to end the bulk storing of phone records. in the house on tuesday, signs the haggling is almost over on this issue. >> in the end, i think we all want the same thing. >> all of the reviews from the i.g. to congressional reviews to the presidential review panels, no one found misuse of that

program, but again, americans need to buy into this. >> congress inspired n.s.a. reform plans are circulating on the hill, as well as the administrations, for now, though, president obama has directed his team to extend the current modified data trolling program for a further 90 days. >> we turn to a senior national security fellow in washington d.c. this morning. taking a look at proposals right now, only phone companies will be able to store met at a data, stored for 18 months, not five years, and the fisa court will approve each individual surveillance request. are these changes a step in the right direction for the future of the national security agency? >> i think they're certainly a step in the right direction. we have a couple of safeguards here in place, the data is held privately by your phone company, a limitation on how long it's held.

what we have not heard interestingly is what type of pro ponents, what are they going to give to us, determine whether this is really the government having a legitimate terrorist operation or whether the government is still going to be able to go fishing in the data. >> as you're giving this information over to the phone company, what mechanism is there to police the phone company? >> that's what i was getting after. i think we need to have much more accountability of these companies to which we give our private data, phone companies and internet providers on the websites we browse. we need to look moore closely at privacy statements, demand that they be something that we can understand, and that you don't need a law degree to read, and that they are more aggressive

protecting our privacy and letting us know under what circumstances that information will be disclosed. >> i take it that you're saying that these changes have not gone far enough and if so, what you do? >> i think as far as the government has gone, i think they are making some very good faith efforts. i'm disappointed still in the private entities that are holding our data and they're not taking a more aggressive role. we have one great example of this, swift, which holds our financial data has an ombudsman sitting inside looking at what the government requests from their data. if it's a terrorist investigation, they cooperate swiftly. if it's the government going fishing, they hold that data. they can do that because they're not a u.s. company. there are precedents for private companies taking a more aggressive stance in protecting our privacy and perhaps our phone companies, our internet providers could look to that

first precedent. >> now that we have those proposed changes what happens in the unthinkable happens again, a lot of people have forgotten the days after september 11 when there was a hue and cry wanting to know why didn't the government know these attacks were going to happen and they called it an intelligence calamity. >> the american people are going to have to come to terms with a balance between privacy and the government being able to totally ensure against anything ever happening. how much privacy are we willing to give up to move from a 99% confidence that we're finding terrorist phone records to a 99.5% confidence that we're getting terrorists' phone records? i think we're going to have to have a conversation that would be useful if the intelligence community could give a little more information about exactly what it really does need and whether this 18 months really gives them the latitude they need or whether this is a

politically imposed compromise. >> doug, thank you very much. >> let's check your temperatures across the nation today, some of you seeing snow with nicole mitchell. >> that system off the coast bringing snow funneling a lot of cold air, winds out of the north behind that, some high winds. look at this, as far as the south, atlanta 30 degrees versus new york at 33, so a lot of this is under freeze warnings for this morning because of that cold air that settled in. into the midwest, temperatures in the teens in a lot of cases from the northern midwest, but with the wind chill, single digits and parts of the arrowhead in minnesota, sub zero wind chill, so it definitely is a chilly start. one mild spot of the country, the central plains, denver up to 70 today and into the day tomorrow, that shift a little bit, the cold air behind that clashing with the arm air and enough moisture, that is a set

up for the severe weather tomorrow. >> searching for answers in the wake of that deadly mud slide in washington state, the science behind what causes these sorts of natural disasters. >> also calling for action following that will deadly shooting of a mentally ill homeless man. why this type of incident is a common occurrence. >> a young woman finding her birth mom nearly 30 years after she was abandoned. we'll tell you about the key role that social networking played in making that rue union possible. >> an nfl owner has passed away for the second time this month. we tell you about the man they are mourning in buffalo.

>> good morning, welcome to al jazeera america. i'm del walters. ahead in our next half hour, crews are race to go clean the damage from that oil spill off the coast of texas. people across the u.s. are

facing a higher price to buy their home thanks to the rising cost of flood insurance. first, a new report saying the residents of oso were warned are a catastrophic mud slide 15 years ago. in 1999 scientists asked why residents were allowed to build on the hill. officials are predicting how when and why mudslides happen is a challenge. our science and technology correspondent taking a look at the science behind the natural disasters. >> the science of how wind, ice, and water move the earth around is known as surface processes and it is to died to understand where we should or shouldn't build. i spoke with isaac ekman-larsson, a researcher who studied these mudslides and specifically those in washington state. he told me in fact there has been a long understanding of how unstable that region could be. >> as the ice came out of canada, it blocked up rivers

there and caused clay and silt to be deposited and then as the ice got closer, sand was deposited on top of that and the water can pen straight through that sand, but it gets caught and perched on that clay layer, and that causes the water pressure to increase, which causes the spoke to destabilize. there's a river at the base of has hill slope that's cutting back into those sediments that steepen the slope and increase the propensity for failure. in those early reports from the 1950's, there were propositions to stabilize the slope and even bedrooms built to keep the river away from the hill slope, but those were quickly washed out in floods the next year, so long term stabilization for a slide of that size is a difficult proposition. >> this is a simulator at cal

tech's laboratory studying the movement of water over rock, they can move gravel through. this moves thousands of liters a second through this simulator and gives scientists a pretty good understanding of the kinds of dynamics that lead to mudslides like we saw in washington state. the understanding of that is pretty recent, so the community that was built there was built at a time when people didn't understand how unseen and unrelabel the earth's surface can be. >> oso has been prone to landslides, the last happening in 2006. >> a beep refinery spilled crude into lake michigan monday, b.p. not saying much spilled before the leak was stopped. the company just finished a $4 billion upgrade of that refinery. the lake is a source for drinking water for people in and around chicago. they say the water is safe to

drink. >> tar balls are now washing ashore near galveston texas after an oil spill there over the weekend. the shipping channel will allow 100 ships that have been waiting to pass through the bay. crews are working to clean the spill. erika, this has been a monument ale task. >> absolutely, the coast guard is still laying oil booms down to catch the crude and there's a lot of it. nearly 170,000 gallons days later and plenty of work to do. gulf businesses say they are losing money every minute and now taking action. >> clean up crews are in a race against time to keep the oil slick away from the coastline. right now, most oil is 10 miles offshore but moving quickly, nearly two miles a day toward land. officials say the next 24 hours are critical in the cleanup operation that has 700 people involved. >> we'll monitor it constantly with overflights. >> four days later and the with miles of coinment booms and

dozens of ships skimming the water, the tar like oil is seeping into an important bird ref final. >> we estimate that we have something like 100,000 birds that migrate through here at any one time. >> plus this spill comes at a sensitive time, mating season, at least 10 birds have died from the spill, survivors being cleaned from their weeks to their feet. >> they do need to be cleaned. they don't want to be held by people, some struggle more than others. actually, the stronger ones struggle a lot more. >> as for one of the nation's busiest sea ports, limited travel is allowed, ships held for days. >> we'll be here until the last boom and pad removed, the last bird recovered. >> the best case scenario is for the rest of the oil to continue to turn into tar ball that is wash up further down the texas

coast where they can be more easily picked up and removed. some charter fishing boat captains haven't worked since the still and still can't go out there. reports are saying that they have gotten together, filed a class action lawsuit against the owner of the oil barge, saying they suffered losses because of the spill. >> they are not cleaning up in michigan, as well. we want to show you amazing video on a cell phone, showing a worker rescued from a house fire in houston. you can see the man dangling from the window to avoid the flames, dropping on to the ledge of the floor below. firefighters got a ladder to him, grabbing him moments later. look what happens when the floor collapses. >> oh, my god! >> the apartment building was under construction tell the of that fire, despite the flames and debris, there were no injuries, no word on that caused

that fire. >> president obama recently signing legislation to help homeowners with mandated flood insurance, delaying what could still be a steady increase in premiums. in one pennsylvania city, it's already felt. >> jeff king and his wife have lived in this home in pennsylvania for almost a decade. it's where they raised their four children. the desire for a better school district ape neighborhood with a lower crime rate prompted them to put their home up for sale last july. the house went on the market for $90,000. a prospective buyer found the house would cost much more because the flood insurance premiums required to purchase the home skyrocketed from $800 annually to more than $7,000. in 2012, a new federal law put an end to government subsidized

flood insurance. >> this prevented us from selling the house. nobody in their right mind would buy a house with an insurance premium that high. >> the home is a block from a creek and a mile from the river. assessed by insurance as a high risk zone for flooding. >> it runs down into hanover township pennsylvania, empties out into the river, runs 18 miles. >> when was the last time that this flooded. >> 1996, the water, these gates weren't here, this was just like a without iron fence and the water able to get underthe ndnce, through the against and just ran down into the neighborhoods. >> the kings are not alone, other residents have had the same issue selling their homes. >> it's not a question that they want to leave, they're going to be forced out of their homes, because they no longer can

afford a monthly payment on top of their homeowners insurance on top of their mortgage payments. >> president obama signed a bill reversing the 2012 law. under the new reform, 1.1 million homeowners who receive government subsidized flood insurance will see relief under the new law, but even with the discounts, their rates could go up 25% a year and the rates will keep going up until the program makes good with taxpayers on a $24 billion debt. despite reforms and this warning for perspective buyers, the worries are far from over. >> buyers just need to be more cautious and to be able to determine whether the home that they're purchasing is in a flood zone. they also need to understand what increased rates might happen over time. >> in the hopes of minimizing the expensive premiums associated with high risk zones, wilkesbury has been lobbying for

infrastructure to protect their homes. aljazeera, pennsylvania. >> records reviewed by the associated pros showed nothing enrollment in the insurance program dropped by 80,000 in the 12 month period ending january 31. >> in business news, candy crush developer cashing in on its popularity, trading under the ticker symbol king. the developer sold 22.2 million shares at $22.50 apiece. >> stock markets trade close to near all time highs.

>> facebook making another acquisition, mark zuckerberg spending $2 billion in cash to buy the company behind the virtual reality head set for gamers, saying the new technology will unlock new worlds for all of us and have uses in media. >> on wall street, dow futures are up 69 points, the markets bouncing back after two days of losses. the nasdaq stands at 1834. asian markets ended higher on hopes china and europe will

provide fresh stimulus measures to combat further growth, driving european markets higher, as well. kentucky senator mitch mcconnell stump to go retain his seat. a clip toward the end of the political ad mistakenly shows a quick image of duke university basketball players celebrating, not the university of kentucky. take a closer look, yes, those are duke players, the error made by theette stores of the campaign video. the buck stops someplace else. >> more changes coming to the nfl this season, including a change to all the way those controversial calls are reviewed. those are duke players. >> they are. obviously the editor not a

college basketball fan. i know you're a football fan and there's a time you have wondered how could that nfl replay officials see the replay that i just saw and make that call. you may like the new wrinkle the league has thrown into the replay system for next season if you think that way. at the owners meetings in orlando, a rule is passed allowing field officials to consult with the officials watching the action in the new york offices for help in making the right replay call, saying: >> the only owner that the

buffalo bills have ever known has died, 95-year-old ralph wilson died after a long illness at his home in detroit. he will go down in history at one of the founders of the american football league and a driving force behind the revenue sharing policy of gate and t.v. receipts that has helped make the nfl so successful. he was the oldest owner in the league. ensidelineed in the hall of fame in 2009. >> i think the nfl is a much better league because of people like ralph wilson. he had a lot of character and integrity, not afraid to be the lorne dissenting voice in the room. i can think of any number of votes that were 31-1 or 32-and he was one of the dissenters. he was not afraid to speak his mind and vote his conscience. i had a great deal of respect and admiration for him. >> his death comes 16 days after the death of lions owner.

the team left a light on last night in tribute to their fallen owner. >> to the nba, given the sorry state of an eastern conference where two teams are in the playoff field despite losing records, it would be an upset between the pacers and heat is not a preview of the conference finals. their first meeting was humid as the pacers chance to avenge their close loss in last year's finals. indiana has been alone at the top of the east, a win moves them three games healed of miami with 10 games to play. tonight's game is a chance to make a statement. >> another measuring stick for us, especially now, more than ever, because we haven't been playing as well as we want to, but it's a good opportunity for us, and we've got to come out and play a big game and get ready for this and this is a big one. >> going into an environment that we may potentially see in the post mistaken, we want to

see where we can be at right now and play well. we want to play our game, win, lose or draw, we play our game. >> that's going to be must-see t.v. for sure. >> you're saying now the refuse are going to get it right in the nfl. >> i'm not saying that. i'm saying they're going to have more opportunity and help to get it right. >> now the games will be what, six hours? >> i think that's overblown, it probably won't be much longer than now. >> when we come back, police tactics coming into question in new mexico, whether officers involved in this deadly shooting of a homeless manhandled the situation properly. >> it's not just a snowstorm off the east coast we're watching, a couple other weather systems could bring us problems. i'll have details.

al jazeera america, take a new look at news. >> albuquerque p.d., you are

guilty. >> residents taking to the streets, voicing anger over a string of deadly police shooting in albuquerque. we'll have more on that in a moment, but first let's find out about the snow falling across the country today. >> the system has stayed well off the coastline. had it been closer, a much more widespread area would have been seeing the snow. a lot of wind is associated with this as well, look for heavy amounts toward the coastline, massachusetts through maine. wind gusts have gusted 60 miles per hour, a lot of it in the 30-40-mile per hour range, blowing the snow. that's another concern. the central plains, brewing for tomorrow, right now that's beneficial rain in texas, but we have more rain moving into the northwest where we just had recent landslides, mud slide

situation. that is going to remain a concern with more moisture coming in. >> the fatal shooting of a homeless man stirring outrage in new mexico, police officers there accused of using excessive force. heidi zhou-castro shows us protestors demanding justice. >> a police camera captured the killing of james boyd, the homeless, mentally ill man held knives in his hands as police fired at him six times. >> get on the ground! [ gunfire. >> just before the shooting, boyd can be heard telling the officers that he will walk down the mountain with them. >> when a guy's coming down to give up, you don't shoot him. ok? that's just outrageous. >> james said he knew boyd when they both lived on the streets of albuquerque. >> he'd never hurt anybody. that's just outrageous. guy has a little pen blade this big against guys with rifles and shotguns and they're worried

about this guy with a little pen knife? we carry those for safety reasons. >> on tuesday, graham was among 2,000 people who converged on police headquarters. >> they are protesting not just the killing of boyd, but the 23 people who have lost their lives at the hands of albuquerque police since 2010. they point to a systemic problem they call abuse of excessive force. >> mike gomez lost his 22-year-old son to a police shooting in 2011. local prosecutors ruled the shooting was justified. >> it ripped my heart out, they ripped my heart out. there's a hole in my hard and all the victims' families hearts that can never be replaced. >> they are still trying to find james body's next of kin. the mayor of albuquerque said he be, too was disturbed by the police video and the police

chief spoke too soon saying the shooting was justified. >> i think he shouldn't have said that. i think what we all need to do in a horrific situation like this is thoroughly and comprehensively go through the process. there is video that is horrific. i find it horrific myself as anyone should. >> the police chief has backed off his comments, calling them premature. the department of vests is invited to review the case. the federal agency has been investigating the albuquerque police department's use of force for a year and a half. they hope boyd's death, though senseless may be the case that brings change. heidi zhou-castro, aljazeera, albuquerque. >> the former sheriff of a town in new jersey joins us. your reaction. >> it could have been prevent and unfortunately, the officers at one point felt compelled to use deadly force.

it was the moments precipitating that that were the deciding factors on whether or not they had to pull the trigger. >> they had time on their side. this standoff didn't happen in that period that we're seeing on the video, but extended a long way back. what changed in that moment leading up to the actual shooting that you think was so critical. >> certainly we're monday morning quarterbacking here, five hours by all reports they had used every method at their disposal, both less lethal additions to their -- >> trying to talk him out. >> they before the in a crisis intervention expert that didn't work, but when you're dealing with the mentally ill, it's a dynamic, ever other changing incident. you don't know what's going to happen next. if you look at the video again, you see that the suspect pulled out the two knives after the dog was deployed and the dog failed,

the canine officer let the dog go and the canine officer followed the dog. the dog failed to do its job by attacking the individual and taking him down. at that moment, they should have backed off. >> you are not talking about a crowded urban street, you're talking about in the middle of the dessert it seems like. why didn't they just wait him out? >> they could have waited him out, but they could have used some other things, as well. they could have used other physical tactics to go on the other side of the individual and kind of give him an open lane to go down the hill instead of asking someone who is clearly mentally ill come to me. he's already worried about the c.i.a., they're worried about aliens, all of those things come into play unfortunately and law enforcement itself scares them and it becomes an escalating incident instead of deescalation procedures, which they could have tried to do. >> here's the numbers, here's

the situation involving the numbers. the department there already being investigated by the justice department, three dozen officer shootings 22 fatal since 2010. >> albuquerque is not a bucolic little town. this town has many, many people, many challenges, so each and every one of those shooting incidents need to be looked at individually and again, within the larger context. >> should there be concern, the numbers seem to be out of kilter with a town that size? >> well, again, it depends. it depends on what's going on. you have to look at what the gang activity is, you have to look at again, the context of each of these individual stop and frisks that lead to a shooting where it's just one individual and a police officer engaging in deadly force. each one has to be looked at and then look at the bigger picture have whether or not the democratic has a culture allowing this conduct to occur. >> we see these happen and there's always a tendency to be

a monday morning quarterback, but it should be pointed out whenever there is as police involved shooting, the officer pace dearly, because it is not routine from that-day on. >> law enforcement is not routine. you have a squatters up in the hills. they tried to extract that person, it ends in deadly force. every single person at that scene and every family connected to those persons at the scene are affected. >> you said something a second ago, that whenever you deal with the homeless, whenever you deal with the mentally ill, it is a special-needs situation, why? >> well, first of all, you don't know what's in their head. you know that they are seeing and hearing things that may not be connected to reality and it takes a very special person, thus why albuquerque m.d. brought in the crisis intervention team. they were not successful in their efforts to talk to the individual. again, you know what you're dealing with, time is on your side, you see they're using flashlights.

now after five hours hence, the sun is going down, they're start to go worry how long this is going to take, what other things are they going to need, lighting, becomes more dangerous. >> just shoot to wound. >> we don't shoot to wound, we shoot to stop the threat. >> thank you very much. >> the woman known as the burger king baby has been reunited with her birth mom less than a month after asking for help on facebook. catherine was abandoned as a newborn in a pennsylvania burger king. she began her search earlier this month and after 30,000 facebook shares, her mom came forward with an attorney who arranged for them to meet. the girl said she felt pure joy meeting. they spent four ours together, shared their first hug and exchanged contact information to meet again. >> that will do it for this edition of aljazeera america. here now a look at the search and rescue efforts underway right now in washington state from that deadly landslide, the

death toll continues to climb and as always, there will be more news strict ahead in two minutes, including the president's news conference coming to you live from brussels. we will bring that news conference to you. live special

coverage. the president expected to speak live just a few minutes from now, he has on a tour since monday. our white house correspondent mike viqueira has been traveling with the president from day up with, he i