this is al jazeera america. i'm thomas drayton in new york. let's get you caught up with the top stories at this hour. as fighting continues in gaza president obama talks to israeli prime minister binyamin netanyahu by phone and urges an immediate ceasefire. the us state department says these satellite images are proof that russia is firing rockets into eastern ukraine. two americans helping to battle the worse ebola outbreak falls victim to the disease.

rare lightening strikes hit loss los angeles beaches, and power outages. good to have you with us. we begin with a crisis in gaza. president obama urges israel to accept an immediate and unconditional humanitarian ceasefire. in a telephone call president obama said gaza must be disarmed in order to achieve a lasting peace. a united nations plan in time for eid has failed. hamas agreed to a 24 hour proposal, but israel did not accept it. israel says hamas is firing rockets into its territory. inside funerals were held for soldiers killed. one killed when hit by an antitank missile.

binyamin netanyahu defended israel's rejection of the latest ceasefire. >> israel is not obliged and will not let a terrorist organization, a ruthless terror organization committed to our destruction to decide when it's convenient to stop and rearm. the number of palestinians killed since israel began its assault on gaza 20 days ago. most are civilians. 6,000 have been injured. 43 israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in the same period. nicole johnson has the latest from gaza. >> people have been using the break in fighting to get money. banks were closed tore days. now the atms are open again, but not for long. israel proposed a 12-hour extension of saturday's ceasefire. however, they wanted to keep the soldiers in gaza, destroying the tunnels. hamas said no.

the ceasefire fell apart. a few hours later, there was another plan - this time from hamas. in response to the assessment of the u.n., and taking into consideration the condition of people in gaza, especially in light of the eid holiday, there were discussions between the factions, and they had reached on agreement to accept the offer of a 24 hour humanitarian calm starting 2 o'clock on sunday. >> reporter: during the first hour of the hamas ceasefire, israel carried out five air strikes. in the middle of the confusion about a ceasefire, people are in limbo. they don't know if israel will expand the ground operation, or when. >> how long are we going to soufr like this? -- suffer like this? the 12 hour ceasefire was not enough. they gave us a 12 hour one, enough to break your heart and

see your home destroyed. despite this, everywhere is wandering around the street. including children. everywhere is sick of being in their homes without electricity. trmpingt there should be a ceasefire during the eid holiday, to let the children fear there's an atmosphere of eid. >> reporter: neither israel nor hamas wants the other side to dictate how the war is carried out. they both want to dictate when there's fighting and when there isn't. >> there is pressure from the palestinian people, from the groups, that we need an immediate ceasefire to be able to deal with our destruction, to be able to deal with our daily life, which has been shot at by israel over the past 20 address. >> normally in summer the

beaches are full. families destroy a breeze, and children playing in the water. people want the days back. there's no seen it will happen soon. nicole johnson, al jazeera, gaza. secretary of state john kerry is back in the u.s. after he and other world leaders failed to negotiate a longer truce. it's unclear when talks on a ceasefire will reassume. james bays is in jerusalem with the latest on the diplomatic front. >> reporter: over the last week we have seen unprecedented diplomatic activity. it's rare to see shuttle diplomacy by the u.s. secretary of state and the u.n. secretary general, working the region, going to the capital, meetings, phone calls, a meeting in cairo and paris, and all we have to show for all of that now that ban ki-moon and john kerry returned to the united states was a 12-hour ceasefire that took place on saturday. no one has been able to agree a

proper extension of the ceasefire. now, from afar, i think, ban ki-moon and john kerry will continue efforts of the there'll be other communications. robert sary, the u.n. special coordinator is speaking to both sides. i think the view at the moment is for now israel will continue its military option. all along they said they'd destroy the rockets, find hamas's tunnels, they'll do it by diplomatic means, but if that is not possible. they'll take the military option, and that looks the most likely scrrn for the coming ours. >> oma is the moecksman for the foreign ministry. we asked him what the palestinian leadership is doing to broker a ceasefire. the president has struggled through all neighbouring countries to establish a

ceasefire teeling with the core elements and the root causes of the conflict, the siege, the inhuman siege going on against the people in gaza much the core problem with this, 47 years of occupation, is that the international community treats the israelis in a way that is above the international law, and it's allowed to do things that other civilizations are allowed to do. this is the problem, not the problem that the leadership is able to do. we are doing everything in our effort. we spoke with al jazeera's international affairs contributor, juan cole, and asked him about the dropping the blockade. >> elements are likely to remain, because israel believes it's in its security interest to have them. other elements are frankly mean spirited or an attempt to use the blockade to pressure the population of gaza for political

purposes. friendships, the israelis don't let the people in gaza export most of what they produce. this threw them into poverty and unemployment. as you would expect. >> that export ban - that's not security, there's nothing that does to israeli security. the tunnel into israel, if they are a problem, there's no reason the israelis couldn't stop that on their side of the border. they don't need to destroy the buildings in gaza. the egyptians have gotten many of the tunnels leading into s sinai and didn't harm gazans. they have done little damage to justify the massive military operation. it's nuts. >> once again, that was juan

cole, al jazeera's international affairs contributor. this afternoon secretary of state john kerry called his russian counterpart about the crisis in ukraine, urge aring foreign minister lavrov to stop supporting the separate its. he denied that russia contributed to the violence much the fighting in eastern ukraine is escalating. >> reporter: unguided rocket hit the up to. grads are notoriously inaccurate. under humanitarian law, they shouldn't be used in populated areas. this is why. these people were running from the fighting. medical workers say it's too dangerous to get to the dead and injured. ukrainians and the separatists both deny any responsibility. there's fear in villages and towns across the region.

people here gathered to find out how close the fighting is. >> we don't know what will happen to us. i'm an 80-year-old grandmother, scared for my family. >> ukranian forces are determined to retake the region, and are advancing in big numbers. one of the aims to cut off supply routes to russia. >> the convoy is trying to take control of the crash site area. it's been under territory of the pro-russian separatists in the past few months and the separatists are accused of bringing down the malaysian airliner mh17. >> investigators can't confirm this until they have full access to the wreckage. australian and dutch police are in the country. they can't reach the site because of the fighting. the separatists have retreated in

some areas. they still control much of the border with russia, and key city the in the region. this is a war that is splitting families, dividing a nation and claiming many lives. >> joining me now via skype is a social professor at the new york university of the global averages. what have we learnt about putin in this crisis so far? >> well, he's surprised us in the risks he's prepared to talk to intervene inside ukraine. he surprised us in the cost that he's prepared to bear, costs that the market exacted from russia in terms of declining

rates, interest rates. and the costs he's prepared to bear in terms of much more consensual relationship with the united states and europe. we have learned that he views these things as very high. >> there's a looming question on the table - is he trying to reassemble the russian empire? >> he's tried to reassemble parts of it. it won't get to the point where it has the space that the soviet empire did. he has assimilated crimea. he's trying to do the same thing, i think eventually in eastern ukraine. he has done it in georgia. he poses a credible and believable threat to the baltic

states. countries where there's russian speaking population. he has imperial ambitions. it's imperialist law, not lick with the soviets and tsars, but it's an expansion of russian influence. it's a revisionist strategy. the u.s. released a series of satellite images, supporting claims that russia fired rockets into ukraine. what do you make of the images. >> i believe them. i don't find them implausible. we have had many eyewitness report, about the russians firing rockets. and we'll get more of it because what is happening now is, as your reporter mentioned, the ukrainian army is the ukrainian army.

as they do so, vladimir putin looks as if he's prepared to up the anti--e. we are looking not just at a cynical war, but border war. it can escalate into a war between russia and ukraine. >> with that said, do you feel vladimir putin is acting in accordance to international law or sovereignty. >> he's acting in violation of intellectual law. he's establishing facts on the ground. we can puzzle his 19th century behaviour, but do you think he knows what he's doing. and he's not just making it up as he goes along. this guy has an idea. he prepares to invest heavily, even at the cost of the market turning its back on russia, and the cost of deepening sanctions.

>> he has an end goal. perhaps the next question is what steps need to be taken, where do we go from here. the ukrainian army is fighting a good fight. they appear to be winning. but part of the answer, therefore, is with the army [ inaudible ] deployment of the missiles in ukraine. it would be helpful [ inaudible ] >> it remains to be seen. we'll have to leave it there. michael, associate professor at the u.s. university for global affairs russia marked its navy day in crimea. thousands of residents in sevastopol watched a parade of

russian weapons. they annexed the peninsula in march. vladimir putin called for a strengthening of russia's black sea fleet based in crimea. >> translation: we have purchased 11 hulls. our aim to streptionzen the black sea fleet. we'll build a modern military infrastructure with social facilities. russia has been accused of backing separatist fighters in urine ukraine. europe and the u.s. are searching for a way to persuade vladimir putin to change course. >> pran says made a plea to stop -- pope francis made a plea to stop warfare around the world. >> translation: never more war sh never more war. i think about the children with the hope of a future, dignified

life but it had taken away. dead children, wounded children, children that played with toys, made out of the remains of weapons, children that cannot smile. stop, plea, i beg you with my heart. it's time to stop, stop, please. >> the pope used the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of world war i, and called for peace in the middle east. >> fireofficials in los angeles say eight people have been struck by lightening on venice beach. one is in grave continue another in critical condition. all injured were in or near the water when the light thing hit. thunder storms in the area caused power outages and brush fires. i want to bring in rebecca stevenson joining us with a look at what happened here. were they fast-moving storms? >> they were. it was a complex of storms. developed from a complex of monsoonal moisture coming up

from the south-south-west. the storms started to produce lightening. on the lightening map, you can see in the south-west corner of california, you can see a little cluster offshore. the national weather office counted 30 lightening strikes offshore of san diego, part of the cluster of storms causing the folks to be hit on the beach. if you look at a radar, looking closely at arizona, initially at 8 o'clock, the cluster, a large cluster of storms, tradition across the boarder into southern california. thing of air like water. it is rolling like waves off to the west. so it creates a wave on the other side of the mountains, on the california coast line, and that is what is spinning un the energetic -- up the energetic thunder storms that brought the flight nipping strikes to the

area. california - it's interesting that los angeles had trace amount of rain, and that's a record for them. more than 30 streaks. we think about florida in such cases. >> excessive amounts. lightening can't of the u.s. still ahead on al jazeera america. in california, the fires causing hundreds of evacuations in the north of the state. we'll have an update. >> another american contracts the deadly ebola virus. the latest details as west african countries struggle with the outbreak. and edward snowden's asylum in russia set to expire. we'll talk to a panel of experts about what may lie ahead for him.

this is what is called a sand fire in california. it continues to spread, causing the evacuation of hundreds of homes in northern california. 750 people have fled the

wildfire east of sacramento. 3800 acres burnt since friday. the fire started when a vehicle drove over dry brush. officials say it will take several days to bring the fire under control. we have learnt a second american contracted the ebola virus in liberia. missionary nancy riple tested positive. yesterday we told you about dr kent brantly from fort worth. he's under intensive care. he's on the right wearing protective gear. he attract ebola whilst working for samar ittan's purse. 670 people died in the ebola outbreak in west africa. the majority of cases are in guinea, sierra lee i don't know and liberia. a person travelling from -- sierra leone. and liberia. it is contagious and can kill

victims in a matter of days. there's no cure or vaccine. joining me from miami beach is dr eileen murray, a professor of infectious disease in the department of medicine at florida international university. good to have you with us. >> always a pleasure. >> no known cure. how are the individuals being treated now? >> you have to treat the symptoms they are manifesting. you have to maintain fluid at appropriate levels, making sure that their blood pressure is stable. it's systematic treatment. we don't have a specific treatment for ebola that has gone behind being experimental. >> what are we deal with here, ebola? >> you are dealing with one of the most interesting and exotic viruses that exist.

from a human perspective it's a dangerous disease that depending on which strain, kills anywhere between 40 to 90% of people who are ipp effected. in this -- infected. in this outbreak we are seeing 60 to 65% of people, despite our best ests, dying. that's -- best efforts, dying. >> why the recent outbreak? >> there's a lot of reasons behind why this outbreak is out of control. it wasn't recognised quickly enough. it wasn't recognised when it was in a small locality. it spread to urban areas rapidly. soon after it was recognised it was already in areas, and also cultural practices in west africa, where it's normal to face the body of a disease, exposing individuals to human

body tissues that are very contagious. another factor is the incubation period, which is 2-21 days. so if you are exposed to someone, it may be a couple of weeks before you manifest symptoms. in that time frame you can travel. today's presentation method, there has been travel. >> we look at a video. the doctor was wearing the right gear. how was this contracted? >> it's difficult to know without having an opportunity to speak to that physician, but, however, we do know that if any body fluids were on some substance that he was touching and maybe when he degloved he perhaps had body fluids in contact. it may have gotten into his eyes after taking off the gear, or he

may have, in fact, come in contact with someone who because he was already in the area, wasn't manifesting symptoms. >> quickly here, any concern for further contamination? >> yes, there is. there's a bit of concern, because we haven't contained the outbreak. it's difficult. it's just a difficult thing to do. eileen marte, a professor of infectious diseases the florida international university. appreciate your time. >> my pleasure. more than 57,000 undocumented children have crossed the border into the u.s. since october. we met up with two children reunited with their mother in los angeles much as rob reynolds reports the future is far from certain. >> reporter: this woman left her two daughters behind when she left hopped to find work -- honduras to find work in los angeles in 2006. conditions in honduras were so bad she was forced to make a

terrifying decision. >> translation: i had all the fears of the world. while they travelled i couldn't sleep, i couldn't eat. i thought about what could happen, but there's just as much danger if they were to stay in honduras with the gang violence. >> kath rip, aged 13, says murderous cannings -- katherine, aged 13, says murderous gangs turned her neighbourhood into a killing zone. >> translation: one time we played soccer with my uncle gang members showed up and they killed a girl where we were paying. >> you saw that. >> yes. >> she paid a human smuggler, a coyote to bring the girls to the u.s. they crossed the border and turned themselves into u.s. authorities and were released into their mother's custody. it was the first time she saw them in 11 years.

>> translation: when i saw them, it was as if i was reborn. there was nothing i could do than to thank god. >> reporter: the 9-year-old summed up how she feels to be back with her mother. >> i'm happy. >> reporter: the troubles are not over. both girls have orders to appear in immigration court. caroline is undocumented. what would you do if your daughters were sent back? >> reporter: i will go with them, now that we are together i can't bear to be separated from them. >> reporter: for now, the family is safe and they are adjusting to life in the u.s., as they await others to decide their fate. still to come on al jazeera america - edward snowden's year of asylum in russia is coming up. more on his options in our sunday segment "the week ahead". that's n. -- that's next. r

welcome back to al jazeera america. president obama urges binyamin netanyahu to accept a ceasefire. president obama said gaza must be disarmed in order to achieve a lasting peace. coming as fighting in the palestinian territory resumed. more than 1,000 palestinians have died in the violence. the u.s. released new satellite pictures officials say shows russia helping separatists in eastern ukraine. government troops have gone on the offensive, trying to take back the city of donetsk and secure the crash site. a second american citizen tested positive to the ebola virus. fort worth dr kent brantly contracted the disease, and missionary nancy ripley is confirmed to have attracted the disease. it's sunday night it time

for our "the week ahead". edward snowden has requested extension of a year and is awaiting approval. he spent weeks at the airport when the u.s. voided his passport. russia afforded him request. edward snowden was aware he'd live out his life in exile for leaking national security documents. the question - has anything changed since. richelle carey takes a look. >> reporter: in the past 13 months since "the guardian" leaked documents, it has dominated news coverage. whether edward snowden is a hero or criminal or both depend who you ask of the the white house position is clear. he's a criminal. still, edward snowden's actions forced the president to address privacy concerns. >> we have to make important decisions about how to protect ourselves and sustain our leadership in the world while

upmoleding the -- upholding the civil liberties that our constitution requires. according to a pew research poll, when it comes to spying on private citizens, slightly more than half disapprove. 42% approve. 74% feel being safe from terrorism should not mean giving up privacy. edward snowden's whistle blowing initiated some action. lawmakers stepped in. the white house passing a bill aimed at ending data collection. earlier this month president obama signed a bill into law preventing retaliation against whistleblowers who come forward through proper channels. national security contractors like edward snowden are not protected. tech companies are responding to demands for privacy and transparency. google released an email encryption tool. apple, microsoft are changing policies to notify users.

glenn greenwald believes the damage is done. >> people around the world refuse to buy american technological problems because they are not sure that they are security preched. there's diplomatic harm from u.s.'s relationship with other countries. >> reporter: take germany. it was revealed in angela merkel's phone was tapped. and brazil yap president rousseff cancelled a dipper after news of spying spoke. she blasted the u.s. embassy when some of her communications were intercepted. if the n.s.a. misbehaves again, it may be harder to find out. the n.s.a. tagged data with restrictions so only certain people have access. one of the things edward snowden exposed was pris , a

programme giving access to programmes. the leaks revealed that the u.s. did not target all foreign governments. some cooperated with washington. britain helped the u.s. in monitoring other world leaders. australia assisted in covert data collection. and canada ran a 2-month programme tracking customers qidi communications at -- wi-fi communications at airports. the leaks provided a service, adding that the constitutional right by the u.s. government were more soars than edward snowden's actions. i bring in colleen from minneapolis, a retired fbi agent and whistleblower. she travelled to moscow giving an integrity award to snowed your. and phillip hall away, the founder of hall away law group

and a former military attorney. great to have you with us. >> great to be here. nice to be here. >> here we have a man accused of leaking secrets, but was honoured by former intelligent officials. you bestowed the war. as a former federal agent is he seep as a courage -- seep as a courageous whistleblower. >> i think so. it was based on during the vietnam war where someone toed the truth when the general was telling the american people that the enemy troops were declining when it was increasing. in some cases officials do not want the troops to get out. the espionage act is an improper law. it's geared towards true spies, not whistle blowing. >> did edward snowden put our nation at risk? >> absolutely he put our nation

at risk. in america we valuer our privacy, so much that we enshined it in constitution and we were protected by unreasonable government intrusions. this is something that has americans talking, but he's committed a crime. when you take the national security playbook, and defect to china, and hand everything over to the foreign governments, it puts america at risk. that is a crime. >> why not go through a normal chain of command? >> exactly. you always can go through a normal chain of command. there's any number of congress men and senator that would have loved to have talked to him. people with security cleechess, i had a security clearance. i was not clear to take anything i knew to another country, neither was he. >> i'll let you april that.

>> -- answer that. >> several things were factually incorrect. one is there's no indication that edward snowden turned anything over to the russians. it's quite the opposite. they asked him, you know, if he was given the chaps, and he declined the chance. he criticised putin. in fact, if we are talking about strategic interests. he's a patriot and siding on the side of democracy, and mr hallo way is correct. the conversation does enshine the right to privacy, association and religion. edward snowden has upheld the constitutional values. what the constitution is doing was illegal. judges said they were violating the fourth amendment. so, you know, we need to look at

the facts here instead of listening to people. do you think edward snowden compromised intelligent gathering. >> the true, of course, criminals in paris are well aware that they risked being monitored by law enforcement and they have all kind of ways, we try to avoid commumenting -- communicating, et cetera. we know that whole story. the group of people that did not know they were being monitored, which are the innocent americans - those were the people, we the people, who learned about the dragnet surveillance that targeted innocent people and served no purpose. that can't endanger national security. >> did he commit treason? >> he's committed certain federal criminal violations, whether it rises to the level of treason is arg ible. i will agree that he exposed a

framework where the government, without authority does, in fact, violate the fourth amendment. i will agree that he has done arguably a service to the public. because the modern day equivalent, emails, cell phone calls, text messages, instagram, facebook, twitter, all that stuff is the modern version of papers protected by the fourth amendment of the constitution. people have died for that rate. to the extent that it raised that it's done a service. you can't go to china and russia and defect with national security materials and expect not to be charged with a crime. >> you bring up a good point. >> the n.s.a. is collecting data under a rule known as three homs. referred to the -- hops.

hops referred to the degrees of separation between a target. the average adult facebook user has 338 friends, so your friends, that's the first hop. the second takes in your friend's friend, creating a pool of over 114,000 people. three hops sh or friends of friends of friends takes it to 38 million. the n.s.a. could monitor everyone based on suspicion of a single person. in this day and age, did we give up a certain right? >> if someone could show that it helped detract and reduce terrorism, i would be less adamant that we need to reform this situation right now. in all fairness to the n.s.a., i wouldn't put the blame on the n.s.a. officials. technology, and the decreasing cost of not only monitoring all

people, but storing the data, is something that changed and the law did not keep up with it, and then the other problem was this was done in secrecy. now, if we could show the officials, the n.s.a. and c.i.a. officials didn't show any instance where in has worked to detract. we have cases like the boston bomber not detected through this massive dragnet surveillance. >> mr holloway, former vice president al gore said -- made comments. what do you make of them. >> he said the benefit of that service outweighed danger or damage. i don't know how you co up to that -- come up to that april

without knowing how much damage he did to the national security infrastructure, i don't know how you balance the equation. it is important that we have the discussion. and probably in all likelihood we have some fourth amendment violations, probably a lot of them. however, we don't know the nature and the extent to which edward snowden did try to damage the national defense - our intelligence gathering infrastructure. so i don't know how you could do the math to say that the benefit outweighs the means. >> we still don't know. what could edward snowden do at this point to win over his detractors in the u.s.? >> he doesn't have too many options, other than to remain in russia and hope they grant an extension of the asylum. what he has been doing is speaking out publicly through electronic purposes, and he's done a good job of educating people about the current

situation, as have prior whistle blowers. there was something i wanted to add in the prior response, which was that prior whistleblowers, including thomas drake of the n.s.a. tried to go to inspector generals, to the pentagon and congress, and, unfortunately, they were retaliated against. that's the reason why whistle blowing is so important, because there are not really any good avenues right now. we can hope that the new laws that have just passed might change that, but so far we are waiting for the proof of the pudding. >> president obama plageed to scale -- pledged to scale back domestic spying on allies. was there any good that came from this, mr holloway. >> there's always good, i think, when you have a national discussion that is triggered by an event like this, and, of course, this is so important that it impacts everybody's life

every day, and to the extent that we are here on national television discussing it and laws reformed, yes, in a nutshell there can be some good. hopefully all americans are aware of everything they put out there is subject to being monitored. it is unfortunate that we no longer have an expectation of privacy in thinks we held to be personal, however. >> looking forward to the week ahead. will edward snowden get an extension on his asylum in russia. >> it seems likely. the criteria is that his life is in danger, and nothing changed this past year. it looks like he'll be granted a continued asylum. >> if he doesn't, what then? >> if he does, he'll continue to go what he has been doing, going on television. giving interviews to foreign or u.s. media.

he'll participate in hackers conferences like he has done recently. and so you'll still see him out in the public eye, trying to raise awareness for what he sees as a serious issue. >> if it's denied. >> if it's denied and he's extradited back to the united states, he can expect to be fully prosecuted to the full extent of the law. >> we'll leave is there. colleen - thank you to my two guests, appreciate your time on "the week ahead" before we go, some of the other events informant week ahead -- in the week ahead monday - the andrew edis holiday. ending ramadan. tuesday - love letters written by warren harding to his girlfriend will be available to the public at the library of congress in washington d.c. friday, britain will take over the president say of the united nations security council.

still ahead - we'll look at the biggest of the big cats - the tiger. and why wildlife researchers say it could go extinct within the next decade.

welcome back, we could be a decade away from a world without tigers. their population decreases 97%. activists have been trying to raise awareness. this is the head of international tiger day. poaching pushed tigers to the brink of extinction.

the vast area has been decimated by deportation. tiger population is in the double digits in some countries. for more on the threats we spoke earlier. andrea told us how long the tigers' numbers dropped or how low they dropped. >> it's not well-known that fewer than 3200, that's the best estimate, exists in the wild in asia. today there are eight countries verifying breeding populations. the biggest driver to extinction is because of coaching. they are highly intensified networks of criminals that are out there, targetting the areas where tigers live. out there day and night, setting traps, poison, using guns to kill the animals. the good news is we know what is

killing these families. we know what to save them. the immediate needs are well trained boots of the ground, law enforcement. patrol units that are out there. they are in areas where tigers protected them. and they are trained to meet the - how do you say the poachers who are well outfitted, that these gods are equally so, that the boots on the ground are one step ahead. the big cats are the apex predators, the top of the food chain. what we see is their presence, indicating healthy forests. they are easy to rally behind. they are charismatic heads of state. they don't want the animals to go distinct on their watch. they are echo system ghardians. the organization is seeing positive changes on the ground and it's raising hopes that the tigers's population can be

brought back from the brink of extinction. a check of the forecast. a major cool down in parts of the country. >> yes, all the cold air is blasting up north. we'll continue to see the storms and the cold air track to the east. the storms will continue that way as well. first, wind gusts in the south-west, where wildfires moved through california, nevada, wyoming and utah. wind gusts 25-30 miles per hour, because we have monsoonal moisture coming up from the south, south-west. spinning up thunderstorm. now to the midwest where there has been a few storm reports, wind gusts up to 25-35 miles per hour. 44 mile per hour gusts, that's asserted with a line of storms created by the cold air.

it's 10 degrees cooler than it was this time last night in fargo and tulsa oklahoma. temperatures dropping, not just tonight, but into the day tomorrow. as we get to the first part of the week, temperatures will be so far below normal, down about 15 degrees below the average. you'll have cool night ahead, and it will get hot in the west. hot and dry for the west, cooler to the east. temperatures now - triple digit heat in phoenix. chicago at 75. you have dropped. now, yesterday chicago is into the mid 80s. not so much today. these are storm reports showing the edge of the cold air pushing in. as it shoves in, it's lifting up the humidity, and there's a lot of energy and heat thrown up in the air, creating large hail and gusty wind, continuing towards the mid-atlantic. we'll have a storm system blast through west virginia, and we

are watching you closely. low temperatures - a dramatic cool down to the north, and highs. they'll be cooler, moving to the east while the west cooks. >> active end to the weekend. thank you. >> still ahead on al jazeera america. the "costa concordia" cruise ship makes its final version. and two brooklyn items join forces to bring art to the neighbourhood. that's coming up on al jazeera america.

what a site. a huge blast brought down three cooling towers this morning at a closed coal power plant in southern england. after standing over its town for 40 years, they were demolished for 10 seconds hundreds gathered to watch the action, ignoring instructions from officials to stay home. the final journey of the "costa concordia" is over. you are about to see a time lapse showing it being toed back to the italian port of geppoa.

it took -- jennoa. it took four days to bring the ship back to port. the salvage crew were praised, but remembering the 32 who died when it capsized. >> translation: we know what happened took place due to an error that was made. this is truly a tragic event and we are not here to celebrate. crews will remove furniture and other items on board the ship. the rest of the ship will be scrapped. sometimes chance brings people together to making is unique. that's what is happening where an artist and businessman struck an unusual deal. they explain it in this first person report. >> i am david ellis, i'm at rouse corner store. we are finishing up a mural art

installation, revamp of the store that's been here for 40 years. >> i'm ralph. we are about to open soon, and we look forward to seeing everybody back. we used to live on the block. i was on the block 12 years ago. i would come in to guy the newspaper. ralph opened it up. >> i saw a big article about him. i said "this is dave, the guy that ride the bike, the crazy guy." he kept on calling me saying "let me paint." i said "we'll see, i'll think about it. he says to me, let's do a trade. >> my deal with ralph is $20-$25 a day or juice or coffee or whatever, newspapers, for the rest of the my life. so in a way that's the most expensive painting i have ever sold. it comes out of a style i have

been doing for a while. we have thrown a stone in the water. or lava flows out of a volcano. ralph gave me the canvas. it's the roots that go down into the history of brooklyn, people who are here, people who moved on, people who die. then there's him and his father, and the community that they have helped enrich. time to conjure that nature, energy for ralph. he is a living, breathing relic. his father is too. i believe in this place is like sacred ground. if i can bless it, i'm there. that'll do it for us for this hour. thank you for joining us. i'm thomas drayton in new york. i'll be back with another hour of news at 11:00pm eastern.

al jazeera presents "miners shot down", starting now. thanks for watching.