velshi and thank you for joining us. hi everyone this is al jazeera america, i'm john. [chanting] missed deadlines, two lives in the balance, a look at the convicted attacker being offered up to i.s.i.l. threat level and video from inside a texas police station, officers shoot a teenage girl dead. the new questions about the use of force. cruel and unusual, a brutal sentence for a saudi blogger and talked to one of the u.s. professors saying he will take the beating for him. and laser focus, cds, printers

pointers and beyond the vision who made it all possible. ♪ and we begin with a fate of two men being held hostage by i.s.i.l. a proposed prisoner swap is in the balance after a second deadline whatthat has come and gone and officials in jordan are demanding. wasn't taken off death row and handed over then it would kill the jordanian pilot and they

needed proof from i.s.i.l. known as dash for the 26-year-old was still alive. >> jordan is willing to exchange sajida al-rishawa with the jordanian pilot muath al-kaseasbeh. at this point we want to emphasize that we have asked for a proof of life from dash and we have not received anything as of yet. >> reporter: i.s.i.l. had wanted to exchange sajida al-rishawa for japanese fill maker and japan's government had a special envoy in jordan trying to make things work. >> translator: we collect information and analyze and share it and we the government are working as one for the early release. >> reporter: it's unclear now whether there was ever any real hope of a three-way deal. muath al-kaseasbeh family belonged to a big influential

tribe here in southern jordan. this is the gathering point for friends and family waiting to hear some form of news. there is an anger here but jordan became involved with the alliance against i.s.i.l. the pilot's brother had this to say. >> this war is not our war here. and all jordanian citizens said this statement and now i'm very sad about my brother muath but i believe god will bliss muath, i hope muath will come back to here to his parents, to his home. >> reporter: so the lives of a jordanian pilot, a japanese film maker and would-be suicide bomber are all at stake and jordan and japan have competing interests in getting their own citizens released and i.s.i.l. will play the next hand.

andrew simmons, al jazeera in southern jordan. so sajida al-rishawa in prison in jordan for a decade and now at the center of i.s.i.l. demands and randall pinston is here with more. >> reporter: sajida al-rishawa was 36-year-old when she launched attack in jordan and reportedly married another suicide bomber and in order to help him gain access to a wedding. for more than nine years this woman has been on death roy in a jordanian prison and suddenly she is front and center in a possible prisoner swap with i.s.i.l. in 2005 sajida al-rishawa and her husband attacked a muslim wedding party in jordan both of them were wearing explosive belts like this one. his detonated, killing 60 people. hers didn't. she escaped but was captured convicted and sentenced. analysts say sajida al-rishawa showed no remorse. >> she had absolutely no qualms

going into a wedding which there were sunni muslim women and children. >> reporter: they reports that sajida al-rishawa has close ties to al-qaeda in iraq the organization that gave rise to i.s.i.l. one of her brothers was an aide to al-qaeda leader who was killed by u.s. forces. her brothers were also killed by american forces. so sajida al-rishawa reportedly became a suicide bomber to avenge her brothers deaths and until now no one considered her an important player but she may now be seen as inspiration to i.s.i.l. followers as one of the first female suicide bombers. >> may lead women inspired by her emulate not a caregiver or wife but an martar. >> reporter: spoke out online against the prisoner swap no one should give in to demands of i.s.i.l. or al-qaeda or any group that claims to represent a very distorted view of islam. this reopens the wound that has

never healed for myself and the surviving members of the acod family. others including the groom at the wedding disagree. i don't think she is very important. if it's 100% sure to get the pilot back we support this. the groom muath al-kaseasbeh's father was killed in the 2005 attack and said if sajida al-rishawa is released he believes she will attempt another suicide bombing. john. >> randall thank you. a group linked to i.s.i.l. is claiming responsibility for a series of deadly attacks in egypt today. car bombs and mortar hit police and military in the sinai peninsula and a dozen targets hit simultaneously, they were followed by a separate attack at a military check point, at least 26 people killed more than 100 injured. meanwhile an uneasy piece on israeli lebanon border and

soldiers and u.n. peace keeper were killed wednesday during exchange of gunfire with hezbollah and no fighting since then but area on alert and we are on the golan heights with more nick? >> reporter: good evening, it's absolutely alert in this area. give you a sense of where i am and i apologize you can tell i'm losing my voice i'm standing in the occupied golan heights and behind me the lights over the shoulder is lebanon and the area between here and lebanon is all a mine field. today israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu came out and blamed iran for attack half-a-mile down the road but as you said no incidents at all along this border today after messages delivered by both the israeli government and hezbollah officials and did not want to escalate further after yesterday's attack and so this area breathed an sigh of relief

and gave a chance for israel to breathe. >> reporter: the cemetery in front of a crowd of thousands israel buried a beloved common commander, draped in the flag which he fought was killed yesterday by a hezbollah missile and the men called him a father and leaves behind a pregnant wife and a one-year-old baby and his death leaves behind a border on high alert. the dust from this attack has not yet settled. israeli soldiers work on the same border where he was killed think they might have found something and searching for tunnels and worried hezbollah fighters are preparing to sneak under ground to israeli communities. massive drills dig holes in the spots where they think hezbollah

nighters might be working and capabilities with cameras deep under grounds and can see what they dig up that is a screen right there. for now these are just precautions. they and local security officials hope the border stays quiet. >> translator: we do not wants an escalation at all. >> reporter: throughout the area the soldiers try to maintain the routine and outside the site they block the road and at the northern most point they stand guard, beyond the mountains is syria. at their base is israel's only ski slope. it might seem a strange location for a resort the attack was only a few miles from here but the families who came today play in a form of defiance. >> translator: it's safe here and if it's not safe here it's not safe in all israel. >> reporter: teaching his

four-year-old son to ski. there was an attack a couple miles from her yesterday. why are you here today? >> translator: it's educational for my children they need to learn the lesson that hezbollah may be able to scare us but life must continue. >> reporter: he hopes the troubled border stays quiet so he can teach his sons to ski and be resilient. whether the border remains quiet over the next few days may de depend on a speech tomorrow in beirut and expected john to respond to the attack that hezbollah said it was responding to yesterday and israeli drone less than to weeks ago killing six hezbollah fighters and senior iran general inside syria and bottom line is either side definitely wants to see any kinds of escalation but small incidents could always happen on an always tense border. >> that is nick reporting thank

you. three american contractors who were killed in an attack today in afghanistan, the shooting happened at a military base connected to kabul airport, afghan national was also killed according to one report the shooter may have been an afghan soldier. so called insider attacks have declined since reaching a record level in 2012 and remain a major threat to coalition forces in that country. homeland security chief jay johnson warning americans to be on the look out for potential attackers here at home and johnson made the comments today during the state of homeland security address and jamie is in washington with more on that. >> reporter: john jay johnson's message is more than a decade after the september 11 attacks the threat against the u.s. is evolving into a new phase, one he described as more decentralized and more diffuse and more complex. in glendale arizona tight security put in place for sunday

use superbowl, the nation's premier sporting event and a giant headache for u.s. law enforcement officials charged with detecting and preventing attacks. >> we are concerned about the domestic-based threat leshging in our midst and the lone wolf who may be expired by the extremist propaganda on the internet and can strike with little or no notice. >> reporter: johnson inspected the superbowl site this week and after a small recreational drone went down on the white house grounds on monday faa issued a warning to football fans via youtube the stadium is a no drone zone. >> don't spoil the game leave your drone at home. >> reporter: in his state of homeland security address he said the recent attacks in paris as well as ottawa and sidney prompted him to order increased police presence at federal buildings in major cities in the university. and he chastised republicans in one of those buildings, the u.s. capitol for trying to link funding for homeland security to

a move to reverse some of president obama's executive actions. >> in these times the homeland security budget of this government should not be a political football. i urge congress to pass appropriations bill for dhs free and clear of politically charged amendments. >> reporter: as if to drive home his point johnson shared a family photo from 1966 over an 8-year-old johnson and his sister. >> as recently as 1966 a private, everyday family of tourists like ours could drive our car on to the grounds of the u.s. capitol and park it with no inspection or prior notice just a few feet from the building. this is the same spot today the public parking lot is gone replaced by a few black suburbans and police vehicles and heavily armed members of the capitol police. >> reporter: johnson says for

now the counter terrorism effort is aimed at taking the fight to those who would threaten the united states in places like iraq and syria and yemen as well as increasing security at home he urged americans to be hyper vigilant doubling down on the see something, say something campaign which he says has to be much more than a slogan. john. >> jamie mcintyre at the white house and thank you. president obama wants congress to do away with mandatory spending cuts imposed in 2011 the president will ask congress for $74 billion increase in his budget proposal next week. he is revealing details of that proposal tonight in philadelphia. >> let's make sure that we end this across the board sequester that doesn't differentiate between smart and dumb spending and let's take a scalpel and not

a meat clooe cleaver and what we know helps the families. 30 billion in nondefense and another $38 billion for defense. despite a new accord with cuba the u.s. ban on travel to that country remains in effect. today by partisan group of senators took steps to change that the legislation from four democrats and four republicans would end the travel ban but it's unclear whether the bill will even come up for senate vote and congress must pass legislation to clear travel restrictions from all americans. many american businesses hope it improves even more and see a brand-new market for their products and jonathan martin joins us life from new orleans with that jonathan? >> good evening, john and new orleans in louisiana has been a big part of this trade conversation because before the embargo was in place 50 years

ago the port of new orleans was cuba largest trading partner and a lot of businesses specifically here in this area are watching closely to see what happens with these u.s./cuba relations. american businesses have been cutoff from trade with cuba for more than half a century and see the castro communist regime as enemy but others are just hoping to capitalize on a new market. for this fourth again raegs -- generation louisiana farmer it's promising. >> this is a high-quality crop. >> reporter: before the u.s. trade embargo in the 60s cuba was the largest importer of louisiana's rice. >> they import a lot of rice it's almost the size of louisiana's whole crop. so as you can see it would be significant if we could get back to what we were doing before or more. >> reporter: with louisiana

ports straddling the mississippi river and 700 miles from cuba the agriculture commissioner says it's in a prime spot to trade with cuba and with rice poultry, beef and chemicals to be exported. >> what it means is we expect within the first year 15-20% increase in sales of louisiana products louisiana products going into cuba. >> reporter: opening trade with cuba could add millions to the state's economy and create jobs. but critics say the excitement is premature. >> for goodness sakes the embargo cannot be lifted absent congressional approval when they will get that. >> reporter: george fowler fled cuba in 60 when he was 9 years old and now an attorney for the american cuban foundation under castro's regime opening trade does nothing for the people still struggling in cuba. >> the only one that benefits is castro. >> reporter: what about

countries like china and vietnam that we do business with communist countries? >> that can make money from their transactions and be millionaires and billionaires or even just well to do. >> we stay away from politics. >> reporter: kevin is sensitive to needs in cuba but says current trade restrictions put u.s. farmers at a disadvantage. >> we are the ones in my opinion that are getting hurt from not being able to trade with cuba. rice farmers, i mean they get their rice from somewhere else. >> reporter: and one of the other reasons, john that leaders in louisiana feel they really do have an edge and really in a prime position to resume trade with cuba if them bar bar, embargo and the senator and ray took a trip to cuba years ago and sent some goods to cuba

louisiana has in the past a few years, most of that john through humanitarian effort. >> change in landscape for farmers and other businesses as well jonathan thank you, coming up next in this broadcast the saudi blogger sentenced to a thousand lashers and the college professor willing to take his place, a breakthrough in the research of peanut allergies.

there are concerns tonight about the health of a blogger facing a sentence in saudi arabia and his wife says her husband's condition has worsened since he received 50 latches earlier this month and sentenced to 1,000 latches and ten years in jail for insulting islam and several advocates including some america college professors offered to stand in for him and take 100 lashes and daniel is one of the

professor professors and teaches on religious freedom and joins us near philadelphia and welcome and let me start with this you are not serious about this right? >> i am unfortunately quite serious, thanks for having me. this is something we decided to do not to make most of all to make the statement and help the man to make the point about the need to protect religious freedom and freedom of speech but we also wanted to sign this letter with integrity and say if a follow through on this and if they take us up on the offer if this is what it takes to spare this man and make the point we are willing to do it. >> you are serious and willing to take 100 lashes and that put this man in some serious medical condition and you smiled as you said it. >> that is right. just the first 50, in fact, i'm smiling because you are touching on something i really thought carefully about a lot. i wrote a blog post explaining

this recently saying my first thought is i'm not signing this letter because i'm a coward and decided maybe i should because they probably won't take us up on the offer and what does it hurt. the third thought is i should sign the letter and if i'm going to i should because i'm really committed to do this and we work for freedom and once in a while we have to step up and have courage on put your money where your mouth is. >> courageous it is and whether or not you have to stand in can you talk about what it was that spurred you to action? let's of incidents of people who have been beaten beheaded in some countries for crimes. what was bt it this one? >> absolutely. well one of the obvious features of this particular circumstance and you are quite right, there are far too many atrocities that we could react

to in this way but this man was to be beaten with lashes and the first 50 he got a few fridays ago is the first installment of the brutal punishment and if we can convince them to change their minds there is a chance to stop the horror before it's complete and other instances is the best we can do is react and condom when it's done. and not always obvious feature but well-known to people inside is the relationship is strong and important and a good word from our president or the secretary of state really could carry a lot of weight with the saudi king the new saudi king and government and hope enough negative publicity may convince them to do it and looks like the president missed an opportunity to do this. >> you are upset and think the president should have mentioned it? >> i think it would have been great. now one view of this, is that the president could have mentioned it quietly and we will have no way of knowing if he did

because the saudi king is less likely to do it if he is seen as having bowed to pressure from the west in granting clemency to this man. but at the same time the other feature about this case that makes it so important to us and a reason to stand up is not because we have a real chance to help him and spare this man and perhaps save his life is this is a man punished for nothing more than exercising his sacred right to freedom of religion and freedom of speech and something we cherish and hold dear in this country and it really gives us an opportunity to highlight the precarious state which the rights are around the world and if the president said something publically it would really make a difference. >> how did this group get together? >> well the 7 of us all served together on the u.s. commission on international religious freedom and these things are something we work on all the time and there are two commissioners who didn't sign and not everyone convinced this was the right course for us as a commission, but the 7 of us do

work on this kind of thing together so we decided that in our private capacities we would write this letter and make it public to hopefully call enough attention to the case to change the minds of the people in charge. >> i noticed that you were appointed in 2014 by the speaker of the house, john boehner, do you see this as a by partisan issue? >> yes, absolutely we do. freedom of religion and freedom of speech and human rights it's absolutely by partisan and by partisan support from people we heard from and indeed partisan support near signatories who represent this in so many ways and not just religious and ethnic but certainly political. >> good to have you on the program and appreciate you sharing your story and we will keep up on this story as well. >> very grateful for the spotlight you are helping us to shine on this. >> nearly 400 days past since three of our al jazeera colleagues in prison in egypt mohamed and greste and fahmy

convicted of aiding the muslim brotherhood, one month ago egyptian court ordered a pretrial and not set a date and today greste's father spoke out. >> the pressure on us and including peter is the way that the whole matter is being built especially on the egyptian end. >> reporter: they were sentenced 7 years in prison mohamed ten years and demands immediate release and next oton broadcast a teenage girl armed with a knife shot and killed inside a texas police station and was deadly force necessary? and new concerns that the ebola virus may be evolving.

hi everyone this is al jazeera america, i'm john and use of

force, video of a teenage girl shot dead inside a police station, why the officers say they had no choice. energy inefficiency turning corn and sugar go fuel the environmental group now saying it's not worth it. daily dose a possible cure for a potential deadly food allergy that is on the rise. and ray of light, the vision whose intention changed our world. ♪ the video is chilling and controversial. a 17-year-old girl shot to death inside a texas police station. the officers say she charged at them with a butcher knife. the department is defending them and investigation just beginning but the girl's family says it didn't have to end this way and critics are now calling for protests. heidi joe castro is in dallas heidi? >> reporter: hi, john this happened to a 17-year-old girl

with no criminal history who is described as quirky and displayed her love of ufos and she was mentally ill. no one knows what drove her to the long view police station last thursday where she met her death. 17-year-old enters long view police station lobby at 6:28 p.m. and picks up the after hours phone on the wall and tells the dispatcher she needs help and needs to see an officer. moments later an officer enters a police spokeswoman reviews what happens next. >> talk to her and she holds her hand up and has i have a gun written on her hand. >> reporter: noticing an 8" long butcher night tucked in her waste band and she got up and the officers throws her to the ground the officers jumps up without putting her in handcuffs

then a second officer enters with taser drawn joined by a third officer moments later. first police use the taser and it doesn't stop the young woman then they fire five rounds and she collapses, the shots are fatal. long view police chief says the lethal force was just justified >> the officers went to how they were trained and what they did is what they were trained for. announcer: the deadly police shooting the third in a year has shaken the community and appears she had been troubled. her aunt tells the website with progress her news had bipolar and attempted suicide twice and it was a cry for help and something could have been done to save this young life. and the three officers are now on paid administrative leave and text rangers of the state police force investigating the police shooting and the case will be forwarded to the local da office. this is the third fatal police

shooting in a year in this small town of 81,000. one of the victims from last year was a 15-year-old boy, and police were not indicted in that case. >> heidi joe castro reporting and thank you. david cass is a firearms and tactic trainer for law enforcement and founder and ceo of global security group and in the studio tonight and david welcome. give me reaction to the video, did they follow procedure? >> there are questions and don't know everything that happened because we don't have audio and unfortunately this is a tragedy because this is a woman who was not evil but mentally unbalanced and i don't care who it is if someone lunges with means to take your life you have to choice and this young girl was not helped during the course of her illness and she wounds up coming to this end. >> there are a number of questions and first of all the taser didn't work right? >> they said she was tasered but he was in contact with her and

if you tase somebody you break contact or you will get the voltage itself and it's hard to see and i don't know if it malfunctioned because the you tase somebody and felt it it's very effective. so it didn't work for whatever reason. and they went to other means of force. >> why shoot to kill? >> there is no you don't shoot to kill you shoot to stop and you are in a situation where the girl is this close to you, in a split second a butcher knife is going to go through you, you won't go home and not see your wife and children again, there is no choice >> cannot shoot her in the leg. >> anyone who handled a weapon realizes and knows and i'm a master pistol shooter and i would not take the shot and i would try to stop her. >> there is a discussion about tactical retreat and whether or not in situations like in the police need to back off a little bit, what do you say to that? >> interesting point tactical retreat is something that is used in new york city for example but it's used in circumstances where usually the

perpetrator like this girl is not an evil person not brutal not a thug or criminal and the standard protocol is you try to back off unless the person is a threat to themselves or an another person and you wait for another one to respond. in this case whatever transpired there was an initial incident and either she said or did or showed something to make the officer act and apparently there was no time and on the tape there is a long period of time he is alone with this girl. and i don't know why or why no one was responding. no one was aware this was happening but he was by himself and there wasn't a lot he could do. >> i mean we have slowed it down and we are showing the video now and as this occurs but it happens very quickly. can you talk about the pressure that police officers are now under especially given what has happened in ferguson and what happened in new york? >> sure, you have -- everything you do is under scrutiny and you

have to understand that if you are the street the likelihood is you're being videotaped so in addition. >> whether you are wearing the camera or whether someone else has the camera. >> reporter: somewhere in the back of your mind do you hesitate? does that make you take a split second and act later rather than sooner because that is the argument the argument is that going to hinder an officer from protecting himself. >> they had that situation this albuquerque where a homeless man was shot and mentally ill as well and that is a very different case than this case. but i guess the question is whether or not the whole country and police forces in general need to rethink the situation when it comes to somebody who is mentally ill and how do you determine that if you are a place officer? >> i think if you road the new york subway you get a sense of who is mentally ill or not with their facilities but you are right the average officer is not

equipped or trained with a person who is unbalanced and you look at it like it's their fought but they are not and they are not evil they are sick and you try to hold and isolate and contain until emergency services can respond and take them in custody safely. >> david it's good to see you and thanks. the controversial keystone oil pipeline cleared a herdled and republican controlled is that true passed a bill authorizing construction of the $8 billion and as republicans passed a similar measure last month and now has a show down between the president who has promised to veto the bill and congress. they made a big mistake in investing in bio fuel and they are considering ending subsidies and perks for the fuel source if that happens it could spark a backlash from the nation's farmers and diane esther brook has the story.

>> reporter: winter bears down on heart land farmer taylor spends his day tracking prices. >> 370 on the board. >> reporter: thanks to demand from ethanol corn prices have risen over the last decade boosting his bottom line. >> a lot of young people back to the farm and helped farmers may age put money away for retirement which wasn't so easy to do before when we had narrow margins. >> reporter: the federal renewable fuel standard requires corn used gas on dependency on fossil fuels and a boom in corn production, when the rule went in effect 8 years ago american farmers produced 13 billion bushels of corn and less than a quarter was used for ethanol. this year they will produce more than 14 billion bushels with roughly 40% going to the fuel. but critics have long argued what has been a boom for farmers has been a bust for the environment and the economy. now those critics have more

ammunition thanks to a new report by the nonprofit world resources institute, it says ethanol has reduced the u.s. dependency ones to s toon fossil fuels by 1% and a researcher says swapping food for fuel drove up the price of food around the world. >> a huge run up in prices and tripling of prices from 2005-2011 actually really started in 2007. and since then we've had a moderation of food prices but important reason for that is bio fuel production has basically stabilized only risen a little bit since 2011. >> reporter: ethanol is a sensitive issue in washington. the environmental protection agency has considered rolling back volume requirements on it or scrapping it and has farmers like paul taylor worried.

what would happen to you as a business person? >> cut margins and reduce profitability. >> reporter: they could cast a chill over rural communities like his, diane esther brook, al jazeera, illinois. concerns about the environment are at the center of a $48 million settlement in louisiana involves a small community nearly swallowed hole by an incredibly large sinkhole and many residents lost their homes because of it and blame a texas mining, company and more on the buay corn and louisiana disaster from michael. >> reporter: texas brine and around here it's a name that will quickly turn friendly smiles into scowls and mike and many of his neighbors blame the houston company for making it inhabitable. they were put in after the

sinkhole. >> a year after the sinkhole. >> reporter: keeping out highly famable gas. this had a massive column of salt in the ground covering an area of one mile wide and three miles across in the early 80s the company began esxcavating for chemicals and i was risky and the process creating an under ground cavern and 2012 the unthinkable happened part of the cavern collapsed and began swallowing the countryside and the sinkhole continues to grow to this day. and mike joins us now. so this catastrophe for this town what options do they have now? >> well john i mean they had very few options and could have settled cases with texas brine

or joined a class action suit or said we will not resolve this with texas and be hold outs and stay in our homes, few people given the situation on the ground see that as a viable option according to environmental groups tracking this for a very long time the sinkhole is a good 40 acres at this point and continuing to grow and reports say it has been stabilized in the past six or seven months and the sinkhole is growing slowly but surely towards a valuable piece of real estate, not to mention the fact that there are still amounts of explosive methane gas that rise from below the surface out into the environment. >> this video i believe everybody in the country seen the video and the fact the hole keeps getting bigger is remarkable and scary so what are people telling you in these

towns? >> well you are going to hear stories about heart break and loss, about hardworking people who were resolved to one day finally turn that weekend campsite or that weekend place into the house of their dreams essentially to live out the rest of their days there. but clearly they are going to have to resort to plan b. you also will hear from at least one cancer survivor and seem to be plenty in the town i might add who not only have to juggle real health concerns but also the shock of having to uproot their lives. >> michael and you can see michael's complete report on america tonight at the top of the hour and learn more about the sinkhole coming up the growing threat of measles and some get ill because some don't get vaccinated and we remember the life of the man who helped

invent the laser.

the fight against the ebola virus in west africa could get much more difficult. the number of new cases is down but researchers worn the virus could be out smarting them and we are here with more. >> reporter: john the world health organization says it's shifting efforts from slowing the spread of the disease to

ending the outbreak and at the same time scientists in france say the virus has evolved. some good news in the fight against ebola, the number of new cases is dropping in the hardest hit countries to below 100 for the first time in 7 months. >> the countries know what to do now, they have the capacities they need this could be driven to 0. >> reporter: the world health organization says last week sierra leone had 65 new cases of ebola, guinea had 30 and liberia only 4. in all the three countries seen about 22000 cases of ebola leaving nearly 9,000 people dead. to end the outbreak the world health organization is shifting its efforts to what it calls contact tracing. >> you have fewer cases but for every case you want to identity everybody that has come in contact with them monitor them and make sure that they don't come down with the disease. >> reporter: as the focus is shifting scientists say the virus is evolving.

>> so the ebola virus is similar to hiv or the flu virus and viruses that are sloppy when they replicate which means that they mutate at a high rate. >> reporter: they want to find out if ebola has become less deadly but more contagious and analyzing blood samples from patients in guinea and found in cases infected people had no symptoms at all making it harder to track victims and harder to test new vaccines. >> if the ebola virus mutates the drugs, treatments vaccines in the pipeline may not work against the new strain so we are very concerned that this could stall our efforts to have new drugs and vaccines for ebola. >> reporter: it shattered the economies of liberia and sierra leone and new guinea and governments will meet in march to figure out how to help the economies. new concern tonight about

the spread of measles, the disease was all be eliminated in the united states 15 years ago and it's back sending officials scrambling and we are in california at the current epicenter of theout break. >> that is right, john it's the epicenter of a massive outbreak a 76 cases here just in california alone and driven as the c.d.c. pointed out in a press briefing today by a tide of antivaccine sentiment which has been debunked by scientists and popular by parents and wreaked havoc here in california. >> i think every child in a public school needs to be vaccinated from the kind of diseases or they should not be allowed to go to school. >> reporter: this is a growing sentiment up and down the west coast parents concerned not enough being done to protect their children from a new out break of measles, a disease

declared eradicated 15 years ago but last year 644 in 27 states since december california's health department says there have been 95 confirmed cases in 7 states and california the hardest hit of 79 52 of them linked to disney parks in southern california and ten cases here in the bay area. >> let's not have a sick kid at reed. let's immunize our children. >> reporter: carl's six-year-old son fighting leukemia for years and it's in remission now but his immune system cannot handle a measles vaccine and the family has to hope that all of his elementary school classmates will somehow be vaccinated but unfortunately they live in a community that has one of the highest opt out rates for immobilizations in all of california. >> i actually am very concerned and had no idea reed had that high of that. >> reporter: some doctors stand by parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. >> i think a lot of this is if

you have a family history that shows there are issues then you really need to be more careful. it's really going to depend on the history and this child and what's going on in their system at this point in time. >> reporter: the centers for disease control disagrees. telling reporters vaccinations are the key to containing the illness. the same message came from the chief infectious disease doctor at the veterans hospital at palo-alto. >> a decision by a relative few can have a grave disservice and harmful effect on others because with vaccines we have to rely on a majority of the people accepting a vaccine and undertaking its use, not only for their own protection but for the protection of others who are too sick or unable to take the vaccine for medical reasons.

>> reporter: john it's really important to understand that even though the numbers here in california sound relatively small, only 50 some people connected to the disney atlanta outbreak that actually represents a massive sort of ripple effect for every one person connected there can be 60-100 contact traces so right now just the ten we are seeing here in the san francisco bay area means over a thousand people the public health officials have to reach and make sure do not have measures. >> jake ward recording and thank you. millions of americans are allergic to peanuts and some the threat to their health is mild others peanuts can be fatal that is why a new report is out tonight and so encouraging and researchers have a potentially breakthrough in ending peanut allergies and cliff baset is at the allergy and asthma care at new york and professor at nyu school of medicine what do you think of the study? >> surprising and they say they

may have found a key or concept in how to treat peanut allergies and had a small group of children with a severe peanut allergies and they dave them probiotics known as lacto-bacilis with friendly and good bacteria and use it for gloating and intestinal problems and in is can they use it in a group of children with severe life threatening peanut allergies and what would it do and found 80% or more of the children were able to tolerate peanut allergies at the end of the trial. >> we don't know why >> it's not clear, the mechanism is unknown and it's thought provoking and a controlled study and not a real world solution. >> it's not a fix quickly. >> correct and we don't want people to get the wrong idea and run to the vitamin shop. >> how do people mostly intake probiotics? >> orally and a capsule and it was like 40 pounds of yogurt. >> i would imagine there are

people out there who are going to hear about this study and know that they can get probiotics and go out and say that is not a bad idea and won't hurt me what would you say? >> this is not ready for human consumption and not approved and if you is a peanut allergy go to the american academy of allergy or asthma and learn about symptoms and key is prevention and preparedness. >> is this possibly could this be the leading edge of a cure? >> hard to say. we are in love with supplements and nutrients and fan of probiotic and it's one clinical study and more work to be done and the only treatment of food allergy is prevention avoidness and preparedness. >> and calls from your patient patientings s are in the future as a result of this. >> thank you for having me. >> days after a blizzard new

england is in line for more snow and metrologist rebecca stevenson has more. >> two storms across the u.s. we are watching but the one in the northeast is bringing snow to the very places that we could use a little break from the snow and ice, light snow expected across parts of new york and even thank goodness for boston where we are only expecting 1-3" the higher amounts northeast maine into canada. this is a quick-hitting storm and a little clipper as they call it moving quickly and dumping snow and winter advisories along with win chills and the winds will be strongest up in the new england area we do expect those win chills to make these low temperatures feel much cooler through the evening and 24 and feel like the teens as well so it will be a cold start to the friday morning, brisk and snow showers will continue to be scattered through parts of down to west virginia and virginia

but most of that snow accumulation again way further to the north. however we do have another storm system that is coming in and that will start to really hit as it develops wintry mix across the plain states go the mid-atlantic and hitting the northeast later in sunday and monday morning so the commute monday morning watching that closely for the areas of ice and snow again, john. >> thank you. we heard about the passing of a major scientific figure this week his name was charles towns and shared the nobel prize for inventing the laser in 1964. and first people called the laser a solution and in search of a problem, since then the laser has solved more problems than any one could have imagined. remember this classic moment in u.s. politics? former president george hw. bush in 1992 looking just a little too impressed with a cash register scanner, something most

americans see everyday and even though talking heads blamed bush for the gaf you can argue it was really the fault of this man, charles towns, one of the researchers whose work led to the invention of the laser. without his discoveries we might not have laser scanning cash registers, c dchlds and dvds and printers and high speed networks and crystal clear long distance phone calls and you might say his research helps us do everything from getting rid of tattoos to contradicting targeting bombing campaigns, the laser was the answer to a lot of questions human beings didn't even know they had. something else made charles towns unique his ability to reconcile the competing demands of both science and religion. in fact, he said the differences between the two were largely superficial, a view that maybe is rare as towns' lasers are

ubiquitous. >> and he died and he and mother theresa won the nobel prize and temporal ton and recognizes a standing spiritual achievement and the vote approving the keystone pipeline and coming up at 11:00 eastern the politics behind the story and how it became a national debate about american energy independence and new demands from cuban president castro to the u.s. before normalizing diplomatic ties. those stories and more at 11:00 eastern time and now to the picture of the day. a woman praying in a church in liberia. a moment of faith and perhaps a turning point, that country is raviged by ebola and sees just a handful of cases left and the government is asking the public to stay vigilant until the disease is completely wiped out.

that's our broadcast, we thank you for watching i'm john "america tonight" is coming up next and we will see you back at 11:00 eastern.

♪ on "america tonight," who is watching you and why? with cameras on every corner of our lives "america tonight" we ask are they really there to make us safer or just targets for a government drag net. >> i would not think of another surveillance technology that had the potential to be as invasive. >> reporter: russians on the run. what's behind a surge of russian immigrants to the country and some americans believe they are exaggerating. >> having your head