hi everyone, this is al jazeera america. i'm john siegenthaler. >> i.s.i.l.'s claim an american hostage killed but was it in a coalition air strike? why jordan calls it a twisted trick. power grab: rebels dissolve parliament in yemen. instability threatens a stronghold of al qaeda. rebound. one of the best job reports in years. what's being gained in the u.s. recovery and what isn't. and his maker.

>> the largest selling single in the history of atlantic records and no other will i i don't think touch it. >> nile rogers on 35 years at the top of the charts. >> i.s.i.l.'s weapons are not just guns knives and kerosene. it is a propaganda arm designed to inflict maximum terror and suffering. american aid worker held captive since 2013, it is claimed was killed. i.s.i.l. says she died in a jordanian air strike. for u.s. officials there is skepticism. for the family there is only more pain. >> i'm in solidarity with the syrian people. >> her name is kayla mueller 26 years old. a native of prescott, arizona.

a young woman who traveled the world to help people in need. she was kidnapped august 2013. after she left a doctors without borders hospital in aleppo, syria. i.s.i.l. had reportedly demanded more than $6 million for her release. her identity had been kept a secret until today. when i.s.i.l. posted pictures online and claim they died in a jordanian air strike. the u.s. has not confirmed i.s.i.l.'s claim. jordan has tetched stepped up attacks on i.s.i.l. targets since the murder of its captured pieght, mu'ath alpilot,mu'ath al kasasbeh. >> we have to increase and step up this not only air campaign but as we said, we promised, we're going to go after these guys wherever they are and with whatever unit we have. >> backed by the rallying cries

of a nation jordan has unleashed the full force of its air power. bombing i.s.i.l. targets in syria and iraq. the jordanian government says its targets have been training and weapon sites. it is skeptical of i.s.i.l.'s claims, saying i.s.i.l. has lied before. the negotiation over al kasasbeh even though he had been already murdered. the suffering of syrian refugees drew kayla to the syrian border in 2012. she started working with support to life, a humanitarian organization to assist families forced to flee their homes. kayla found humanitarian work heartbreaking but compelling. she once said she found god in the suffering eyes reflected in her own. to washington now for reaction,

jamie mcintire joins us. how close are you to u.s. officials to confirming the death of kayla miller? >> well, john frankly not very close, unless i.s.i.l. produces some more proof of its claims which you said the u.s. is very skeptical of. usually when there's a complaint of unintended civilian casualties from an air strike the u.s. central command launches an investigation. obviously this is not something they can do in this case. what i can tell you though is that in this -- there were air strikes in the area where i.s.i.l. claims that kayla mueller was killed and they were led by jordanian f-16s flanked by u.s. f-18s. there were no hostages held at this storage facility, weapons storage facility that was targeted so there is some speculation that if kayla mueller is dead that she may have been brought to the site

just before the strikes or that she might have been killed elsewhere and then brought there as part of i.s.i.l.'s propaganda campaign. >> so is this news having any impact on jordan's request for more arms to fight i.s.i.l? >> as you know jordan's king abdullah was here when he got word of the killing of kasasbeh. they are very fired up to accelerate the flow of arms and ammunition to jordan which they consider a very close ally. the king also made a trip by the white house to make the same plea. the message that they told him and the people in the room in this very private meeting said that he was very impassioned that jordan was ready to fight but they needed to help the united states. and i think that there's a big impetus on the hill to bring whatever it takes to facilitate getting more weaponry to the jordanians. >> jamie mcintire at the white house, thanks.

now to yemen houthis took forl control of the government. tonight there are fears that the power grab could spark an all out civil war and spark a dangerous branch of al qaeda based in yemen. >> constitutionalizing their coup. 551 members to replace the dissolved parliament. >> the houthis this taken over sanaa last september. capturing key government buildings including parliament and state tv eventually forcing yemen's first democratically electeds president hadi to resign on january 21st. since then, the united nations had been attempting to broker a deal between the different political parties. the gap appeared too immigrate great and

the u.n. special envoy headed on friday afternoon and minutes later, the houthis decided to go it alone declaring themselves the new rurals of yemen. >> translator: the powers of the national council the governmental council shall be defined by the revolutionary committee. >> this committee is made up entirely of houthi leaders. almost completely made up of houthi supporters among those attending was the minister of the front he has been under house arrest since and sources close to him told al jazeera that he was forced at gunpoint to attend. all of this turmoil will further alarm yemen's neighbors particularly saudi arabia. many will be waiting to see what the response will now be from gulf countries. >> the unilateral declaration issued by the houthis does not meet the standards of a consensus based decision by

yemen. a process by which you can change the government vie constitution that wasn't followed today. >> yemen seems as divided as ever the second such government to suffer a coup in as many years. the question is how long will this reality last, the answer to that could very well lie abroad. georgiajamal el shahaal, al jazeera yemen. saudi arabia to its north it borders the red sea and guff of aden. the houthi rebels took control last month yemen also remains a stronghold of al qaeda. the group controls a large portion of the country seen here in light orange. now, this area has been the

target of u.s. drone strikes for more than a decade. tony schaeffer is a retired army colonel and intelligence officer in d.c. night. tony what does this mean for yemen and al qaeda? >> john, it is a very dynamic issue as you point out. the houthi are natural enemies of quealt, al qaeda houthi being shia backed and al qaeda being a sunni organization pnl sunni being the saudi ruling religion and iraq is kind of split. it's a very interesting dynamic simply because they are enemies doesn't mean they won't work together. a dynamic we might see is the houthi may even ally going after a common enemy the government of saudi arabia. i'm not sure anyone understands

what's going to come next. >> you talk about the regional risks. saudi arabia next door. >> right. >> could this destabilize not only saudi arabia but the region? >> absolutely. that's what's been happening. yemen john, yemen has not been a stable place. what the danger is if the houthi cannot gain control of the government in a real and substantial way we could see fractionalization which results in a basically somalia type outcomes with no governance. that is the worst case scenario. clearly you have elements at odds. you are going to see even i.s.i.s. now intelligence officers here in d.c. are telling me that i.s.i.s. is now looking at a way it can insinuate itself into yemen to work with al qaeda to go after the saud government. so there is real chaos here. and no one really has a clear understanding of what may come next. >> all right so yemen has been an american ally in the fight against aqap, al qaeda in the

arabian peninsula. >> absolutely. >> how does this impact the u.s. relationship with yemen? >> well, that's the million-dollar question. according to the people i've talked to john our operation there have ground to a halt. according to the white house we still have the ability to launch drones, i don't see us continuing that way. the officials have not been talked to about this. this is going to be a very interesting dynamic because again the common enemy is saudi arabia for both al qaeda and the houthi/iranian backed elements. so it could be we lose complete operational ability in yemen. the good news if there's any is that we still have bases in djbouti in africa. that's where we would launch before we had a base in yemen. we might have to go back to that >> it is sometimes left out when

we read the headlines. can you talk about the significance of this country at this time and especially what's going on there right now? >> well, two things. first, it's the population itself is suffering greatly. they don't even have water for the people to drink and there's no way to replace it. that's going to be a huge humanitarian crisis to come, that i don't think anyone has looked at seriously. you layer on potentially the politics. it is one of the situations where clearly you have the north -- used to be north and south yemen because of the split in the religious faith there. i can see it going back to that and worse. again because of al qaeda being there, that is one of their primary areas of operation. most of the training areas and attacks have come from al qaeda in that area. if there's no governance there to stop them i see al qaeda become even more dominant in the region. >> tony thanks for hemming us get it out. >> thank you john. president obama has sent his

new national security strategy to congress, it includes putting more pressure on russia over that country's involvement in ukraine. susan rice did not rule out the possibility of sending lethal u.s. arms to ukraine. >> the variety of tools that we have at our disposal, economic, and otherwise are ones that we will continue to use along with our traditional tools to reinforce our collective opposition to this type of behavior. >> now as the u.s. considers sending arms to ukraine western leaders were in russia today pushing for peace. germany's angela merkel and francois hollande were in moscow to forge a deal with vladimir putin to end the war. kiev says any deal must conform to the terminates of a failed truce from september.

the kremlin wants more territory for russian backed rebels. meanwhile, in eastern ukraine the citizens are continuing to lose their lives. charles stratford reports. >> donetsk morgue can barrel cope. the majority are not separatist fighters they're civilians. innocent people who had no role in this conflict. >> translator: there is a lack of space. bodies lie on top of each other. we have received 2800 dead since 13th of march last year. 500 bodies since the beginning of the year. 70% are civilians. women, children, people who lived alone. >> reporter: as the engineer plan and french as the german and french leaders flew to moscow to attempt peace shells echo throughout city. we're at a separatist checkpoint close to the airport. the intensity of the shelling

and the repeated failures of ceasefire, shows how difficult it is to maintain any truce. the fighters we spoke to at this checkpoint had lil faith little faith in this latest peace talk. >> when we offer them peace talks the ukrainian army uses it to enforce their positions. >> in town hundreds of people may leave the old and infirm queued for food handouts. this has been the routine of late in the so-called self proclaimed donetsk people's republic. >> benefits for invalids is not being paid anymore. we are not considered human. we are are being eliminated. >> it seems the shelling here has become more indiscriminate recently. lowelllocal authorities say in

territory controlled by the ukrainian army it is the civilians that are suffering most. charles stratford, al jazeera donetsk. >> coming up on this broadcast after the university of virginia allegations why one female student says sexual assault is still a campus-wide problem. plus my conversation with nile rogers on writing some of the biggest hits for biggest names in murveg. in music. music.

>> at the beginning of this new year it's appropriate for us to look back and acknowledge that we've endured one of the most traumatic semesters in uva's history. >> the president of the university of virginia talking about campus rape allegations. she says the allegation in a discredited rolling stone article unfairly tarnished the school's reputation. last weekend sorority members were told to avoid fraternity

house he to keep them safe. erica pitzi talked to a woman who says she was a victim. >> her memory is fuzzy she says the night a fraternity member sexually assaulted her in november of 2013 when she was 19 years old. now a junior at the university of virginia, she said she didn't know what had happened until she woke up the next morning with a naked stranger. she said we were dabsing on the dance floor but then there was no dance floor. >> she confronted the man she says attacked her. >> he was able to tell me some of what was happening we were dancing but it was awkward because we were the only ones that were dancing. >> alex was in no shape to give

consent he has agreed to counseling. according to the cdc one in five women have been assaulted while in college. >> it's not isolated to this one story. >> this one story alex is talking about is the article in rolling stone that brought the issue back into the headlines. jackie detailed a story of gang rape even though rolling stone's journalism is questioned jackie stands by her story and alex stance with her. >> her own assault and then the fallout, it's caused a lot of confusion with a lot of people. there are probably a lot of survivors who haven't come forward and part of the reason might be because of this article and the fear that they won't be believed. >> regardless of the role stone article the problem is real.

the u.s. justice department is investigating nearly 60 schools. the greek system seems to be at the center of it all. this was the scene at uva on saturday when we visited fraternity row. as brand-new members were welcomed into their houses in an alcohol and testosterone fueled frenzy. while these fraternity members ran free, two blocks away these sorority sisters felt imprisoned. their school banned them from going to any fraternity houses. them being punished simply because of being women. painting their frustration in full view. alex says university leaders are out of touch and rules like this one make matters worse. >> there are a lot of people who want to help out and they just don't know how to. they are doing it in ways that can actually harm survivors and

make the environment even worse for them. >> reporter: with these grounds in the spotlight pressure is on uva to change a campus culture plagued by sexual violence. >> i think we can really utilize that pressure and show the rest of the nation, this is what we're doing to help sexual assault. what are you going to do? >> so what is uva doing to help prevent sexual assault on campus? there's a miernlg effort involving students administrators and greek leaders that is called not on our grounds and raising awareness of the importance of bystander awareness, if you see something saying something. the chief of the university police sent an e-mail urging students to protect each other by speaking up and stepping in, and john apparently that's the number one way to prevent sexual violence. in fact for every single sexual assault incident, there are supposedly 30 bystanders who could step in and stop it. >> so you were on campus. did you get a chance to talk

with students about how they would react to the idea of intervening? >> yeah and it was an interesting sort of mix of what these students had to say. one said absolutely i would step in. one girl said she had stepped in when she felt one of her friends was a little inebriated. there was a lot of pressure at these parties i haven't been in this situation if i was i'd have to feel it out. ultimately what they are saying is if they did step in what if it was just harmless? >> the sororities were band from going to fraternity parties then what happened next? >> then the fraternity brothers decided we want our sisters there, we're going to go ahead and take control of the situation. they postponed their parties from last weekend to this weekend and i just talked to a few of the sisters just this afternoon and they said the parties at the fraternities are on and they are all going to be going. >> no ban? >> no ban. >> erica pitzi, thank you very

much. coming up next on this broadcast, more jobs and who is getting out of the recover and -- >> we knew it was a monster an absolute monster. >> he's the man behind decades of monster hits. nile rodgers.

>> an we begin with what could be a turning point from the u.s. jobs market. job growth in november and december was revised significantly higher. the jobless rate did go up slightly. that's because of hundreds of thousands of people reentering the labor market. still many across the country are struggling of course to make ends meet. patricia sag sabga has more on that. patty, tell bus that. >> it is a stellar number.

anonymity because just the hem line beat expectations, but solid well paying positions in construction and manufacturing. many reentered the jobs market to look for work. on balance there is a lot to celebrate in this jobs report but make no mistake we are still a long way off from where we were before the great recession hit. the u.s. jobs market is on a tear creating more than a million positions in the last three months alone. but for all that strength, millions of americans are still troweling find their footing in this -- struggling to find their footing in this recovery. 2.8 million people have been job hunting for over six months. while 682,000 are so discouraged by their job prospects they've stopped looking for work. 6.8 million americans are also

not working as many hours as they would like, or need, to make ends meet. it all adds up to a jobs market with plenty of slack to still work through. which helps explain why over the year average hourly earnings in january rose just 2.2%. well at least average hourly wages rose last month 12 cents to be exact but after losing 5 cents in december. the jury is still out. >> how far is that from full employment? >> according to the economic policy institute if we continue to add 250,000 jobs a month we till won't recapture our pre-recession labor market strength until may 2017. >> 2017. so what's preventing it and what's holding us back? >> okay we're still crawling out of a really, really deep hole and we also have to be cogfully

distant of any head winds that may come down the pike. there is a possible head wind with the possible draid deficit. the dollar is very very strong. that makes our goods very expensive. >> all right patty, thank you. a law school graduate being out of work for two years after being laid off in san diego. tori welcome. tell us about your employment situation now. how difficult it's been to find a job. >> well, first of all thank you so much for having me and letting me talk to you tonight about this. i, like so many people in my generation am out of work and i'm struggling between paying rent and paying off my student loan debt. when all i'd like is to be able to afford childcare and being able to find a job. i'm four years out of law school like you said and two years unemployed but i'm still struggling to find a job. >> your situation is your husband works and you're looking

for a job and you're trying to make ends meet. how do you choose when there's not enough money? >> well, fortunately i've had enough space to defer my loans. but i'm coming up on the end of the time for that. and i'm not really sure how we're going to handle that. >> so tell us about the job market. what's it like out there? >> it's been rough. i -- the numbers don't exactly represent the legal field i feel. i did everything that society tells us guarantees success. i went to college and then even to law school to improve my job prospects. but that just hasn't been the case. >> are you angry about this? and who do you blame as far as the government's concerned? >> well -- i'm frustrated i think is more where i stand.

frustrated at the extent of my law school debt, at the interest rate the at at the few option he i have how to handle that debt. and really i just expected more. six years out of the great recession i expected there to be a more general growth that had reached everyone. >> look clearly tori you have worked hard to get your education, you have a family, you want to live the american dream. what is most frustrating about this and what do you want people to know about how tough the job market really is? >> well i guess i just want people to recognize again that it hasn't affected everyone the same. that some people are still struggling and i think that it's especially frustrating when the american dream is sold to us. and then you pursue it and you don't see the same results. and especially with the cost of graduate school being what it

is. there should just be more options. >> is this an emotional topic in your household? >> a little bit. yeah. it's frustrating. my husband has been especially supportive all through law school and all after law school. but yeah. i mean, it is my student loan debt that keeps us from buying a house or from going on a vacation that we with like to. >> what do you want to tell other people who might be in a similar situation? >> it's an alienateing experience being burdened by debt and i just want them to know they're not alone. that means a lot to me. >> we wish you a lot of luck tori and i hope you find a job very soon and good luck to you. it's nice to meet you. >> thank you. >> so we're going to switch gears to our friday arts

presentation. a special presentation tonight. my conversation with nile rodgers one of the most successful people in the music business, award winning composer and hit make producer. the grammy academy honored her is career spanning five decades. i talked about his hits his fellow stars and his legacy. ♪ ♪ >> the music unmistakable. just like the man playing the guitar nile rodgers. a superstar for decades and grammy winner for 2014 album of the year for songs like "get lucky." interi'm up all night to get lucky ♪ >> he wrote his first major hit more than 35 years ago at the height of disco le freak. rogers and his band cheap

defined the era with block busters like good times and everybody dance. after chic's success the smash hit, "we are family." ♪ we are family ♪ >> soon legends came calling like dye ah nah ross. thanks to rodgers diana got her biggest album with "i'm coming out." when rodgers was approached with a folksong by david bowie rodgers turned it into the biggest song of his career, let's dance. then madonna when he produced "like a virgin" with sales of over 20 million copies it is one of the best-selling albums of all time.

the song became her first number 1 hit in the u.s. and stayed there for six weeks. ♪ like a virgin ♪ ♪ touched by the very first time ♪ >> we sat down with rodgers at electric lady studios in new york where he recorded some of his greatest hits. >> so nile rodgers welcome. it's great to have you on the program and great to be with you. >> thank you. >> what's it like to be in this building? >> for me this is incredible history. electric lady is where i recorded my very first record, chic in 1977 our first chic single was dance dance dance yowza, we sold a million different singles on two different labels believe it or not.

>> from le freak to get lucky. what have you done here? >> i've done a hall and oats here i did in excess, original sin, i did get lucky here, i did a lot of stuff. >> you had such sweet success at a young age in your career. and then -- >> (laughing). >> at this date in your career such sweet success. is it better, the third fourth, fifth, 10th time around? >> you know it's hard to say that it's better. but it's pretty, pretty damn good. it's pretty good. you know, a lot of things have happened. a little over three years ago i was stricken with very very very aggressive cancer and they were thinking that my future wasn't looking so rosy. and when i was told to get my

affairs in order it wasn't quite that dramatic but it was something like that. i thought that what that meant to me was well, i'm going to do as much music as i can. so i started doing more concerts than i've ever done. i started writing more songs making more records. and "get lucky" with deaf punk was probably one of the first of that era to come out and a bunch of modern punk records have all done very, very well. >> how did they get in touch with you and say hey we want you involved? they just called you up and said -- >> hey when they came to new york city they called me up and i happened to be home. it was just like that, i happened to be home, answered the phone. they were in new york working on a record, working here. i invited them up to my apartment. they played the riff of what

would be -- what would later become "get lucky." at that time it wasn't called get lucky it was another song. ♪ ♪ >> that went so well. they said well let's do another one. i did a second one they said let's do another one i did a third one. they said lets do another one i said guys, i got work to do. i was only in town for a day or so now random access is an amazing project for me. >> around rodgers has done an amazing number of hits over the years. >> let me talk to you about le freak. you really are advertise disco in many years. when you think disco you think about studio 54.

tell me about lefreak and studio 54. >> it happened to be 1977 going into 78. we were invited down to -- when i say we, i mean my performer partner, bernard edwards he and i were the co-founders of lefariq. grace jones was considering us for what would have then been her next album. this was a huge honor for us. we had one little record and one other record it was pretty important in the disco-scene. for us to be inviteby grace jones into studio 54 was incredible. we had never met her in the flesh, we had only talked to her on the phone. grace has this very affected accent, between marlena dietrich

and bell lugosi. she said to knock on the door and tell them we were personal friends of ms. grace jones. we knocked on the door and said we're personal friends of grace jones. he told us to f-off and we were perplexed. we said no no no no. we tried the accent again no, we're personal friends -- whatever. at that point we knew we were not going to get into studio 54 that night. we went around the corner to my apartment which just happened to be one block away and we bought a couple of bottles of dom perignon, and we started jamming. i started playing this little groove. we were going ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪.

ah f-off. f studio 54. f-off. f-off. f-studio 54. and we loved it. it sounded great. we were getting into, we wrote this bridge and we were talking about you know if a cab driver cuts you off f off. you know. and after jamming on that for a bit, my partner looks at me and he says you know my man you know this is happening. i said bernard we can't get this on the radio how are we going to -- it just doesn't work. so me being the hippy had a i am i said, oh -- that i am i said oh plan why don't we call it freak out. like when you drop acid, you freak out he says what are you talking about i said oh right.

bernard said in a moment of genius which he had many moments like that, he said my kids are doing that new dance called, "the freak." hello. so we made a song up about these beautiful people in studio 54 doing a dance called the freak which we called lefreak. >> you knew it was a hit? >> we knew it was a monster hit. >> freak out ♪ ♪ ah freak out. >> lefreak is the largest selling in atlantic records and no other record will touch it. we sold 6 million singles in america alone and we cut it off because we thought it would cut into our album sales. >> with le freak -- >> how did diana ross change

things? >> after summer of '79 after we had a string of number one records and big ones, like lefreak is the biggest selling song in atlantic history people weren't even answering our calls any longer. thank god we had inked a deal with diana ross before the whole disco-sucks things, broke out. we couldn't even get arrested. diana ross gave us the opportunity to write songs that were a lot more sophisticated harmonically orchestrally, we used polysyllabic records that we would never put in sister sledge records. diana ross was the very first superstar that we were working with and we wanted to prove ourselves in a higher level.

we turned the record in, they hated it. >> the record was? >> diana which wound up being the biggest record of her life. we sold 6 million. >> did you know that "i'm coming out" would turn into a gay anthem? >> of course we did. >> you did absolutely? >> i got the idea, the way i got the idea to write the song, "i'm coming out," we went away we call club-hopping and new york was the hottest place in the world for discould. wedisco. we had these cool joints i went to this one club the transvestite club called the guilded grape. i went into the club and thought, this is the weirdest thing in the world i'm standing in the room with a room full of diana ross impersonators.

i thought oh my god the gay community loves diana ross. wouldn't it be amazing if diana ross recognized the gay community's love for her in a song? so we took that war cry which was "i'm coming out" which was really powerful in those days and then a couple of days later i worked it out. and wrote -- ♪ ♪ ♪ -- "i'm coming out i want the world to know got to let it show ♪ ♪ >> still ahead from the dance floor to the streets. i never heard the music from one record put on another record to make the bedrock of yet a newer record. >> how rodgers found his music

at the forefront of the hip hop movement plus. >> i get on the phone it's keith richards, hello mate, you got a bump? >> the dark side of success rodgers talk about his drug addiction and getting clean next.

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>> welcome back to our special friday arts presentation. we're looking at the amazing career of musician and producer nile rodgers. he told me about an incredible accident how his song "good times" paved the way for rap and hip hop. >> it's the very first big hip hop. we do the song, do the chorus and get out of the way just so we could jam. "good times" takes four to five minutes before that song comes back in. the full version of the song. so when it would break down to just a boom boom boom, boom boom boom boom boom, boom boom, that big gigantic breakdown gave rappers the room to express themselves to express their poetry without the other music getting in the way.

>> on and on and on ♪ ♪ the beat goes down to the break of dawn, on and on ♪ ♪ >> and when rappers delight then took that music and then sampled our record on top of it, people never heard the music on one record put on another record to make the bedrock of yet a newer record and that's what happened to us. my life has been filled with theseth credible accidents, if you will ds with these incredible accidents if you will. and i think the reason why the accidents have been good, is because they all came from a very honest, real place. >> with millions of records sold rodgers tasted success. but with it, came excess and drug abuse. >> you spoke openly about drugs in your life. how did keith richards help you?

>> ha, that's a great story. keith and i our paths have crossed so, so many times. such an awesome guy. keith richards is probably the coolest guy in the world. nice, fantastic guy. so i'd see him all over new york partying and hanging out. and, you know, we used to do a lot of drugs. i mean, it was totally no secret. so one day i was off on a tear in miami beach and i was up for three, four days in a row which i actually did quite a bit. but this particular time it just didn't agree with me. and so i was reading an interview with keith richards. and it said at the time that he felt that -- i'm paraphrasing but the gist of it is that he felt that drugs were an impingement to his music -- musical progression or the music

in his life or whatever. he just basically said, either he had to live without music or live without drugs because it was one or the other. he couldn't do both. so he says i could live with without the drugs but i can't live without music. and knowing keith richards and seeing words that heavy i was going wow keith richards? i thought well if can he do it, i can do it. and it was sort of the gauntlet being thrown down. i thought if he could do that i could be strong enough to do that myself. so i checked myself into a drug rehab for eight months. and this is really hysterical. the day that i got out of the hospital, now i didn't make any announcement right? i just got out of the hospital. and i went to a take-out restaurant to pick up some food. now, this particular restaurant was also a night club and it was also a place that was a big party spot. and, you know, everybody did

drugs there. the owner we were all party-guys. so i walk into this place. and i was just going to get my dinner. and the maitre d' says to me, oh mr. rodgers a friend of yours wants to speak to you. i thought how could anyone know i'm here, i'm fairly anonymous and i've been in rehan hab for eightrehab, foreight months. and i got on the phone and it's keith richards who says, hey mate you got a bump? which is slang for blow. i can't believe it, i gave up drugs 20 years ago in the middle

of august, 1994. >> sobriety brought a new creative chapter for rodgers that has changed his life and that of many others. >> you have the "we are family" foundation. which i understand grew out of 9/11 in some ways. >> indeed, yes. >> tell me how. >> what happened was: after the tragic events of 9/11 a lot of people from around the world kept calling me and asking me to re-record "we are family" to jump-start the healing process. ♪ we are family ♪ >> i was very reluctant to do it. but after receiving a ton of phone calls and a lot of pressure from my friends i thought okay, let me do this. and i re-recorded the song. and it took on a life of its own. and the next thing you know, someone said, you know, we need to form a foundation and keep doing this because this feels

good. we started to realize that teens were the sort of forgotten group, you know? you can find a lot of charities that want to help young children who are defenseless and helpless and a lot of charities that want to help older people who are homeless and things like that. and we started focusing on teens. and it was the greatest thing that we ever did. >> each year niles' charity works with 30 teens who run their own programs addressing issues from bullying to racial inequality. >> so what we do is, we try and amplify their message and we give them the means to do that. >> each year niles' charity flies the teens to new york as part of its three dot dash program. use social media and spend a day at a marketing company. thanks to skills learned at three dot dash, teens have raised hundreds of thousands of

dollars for their causes. >> it's gone way beyond, i got a pretty good imagination but it's been incredible and that's our flagship program and we developed ted x team and three dot dash are two big home grown projects that just seemed to be the turbo-charger in the we are family foundation's engine. >> about when i think of your music and i think of your career i think you've had so much success you never failed or have you? >> failed a lot. no that's the thing that's really exciting and wonderful about music or any art or any job. it's the failure that teaches you how to succeed. so yeah, i've had a huch amount ofhuge amountof number one records but i've had many more failures. it's just you don't remember

them thank god. >> it's important for people to understand, you have to fail osucceed. >> absolutely. >> is it one out of ten? how does it work for you? >> i got a better track record than that. >> yes. >> our thanks to nile rodgers whose band chic is set to release its first album in 20 years. that's our show, the news continues with antonio mora and stephanie sy. stephanie sy. >> an al jazeera america special report >> unfortunately, you can't "should have", all we can do is move forward >> a nation forced to take a closer look at race. >> ...check which ethnicity... i checked multiple boxes... this is who i am... >> what does it really mean to be the minority? >> black history comes up, everyones looking to hear what you have to say, because you're the spokesperson...

>> how can we learn from the past? and create a better future? an al jazeera america special report race in america all next week part of our special black history month coverage on al jazeera america

a power grab in yemen. as houthi rebels dissolve parliament and formally take over the country. the international consequences of the coup and why it's sparking fears of a civil war. i.s.i.l. claims air strikes by jordan killed an american woman the group was holding hostage. is i.s.i.l. telling the truth? or is it just the latest strategy in its propaganda war? meeting in moscow. german chancellor angela merkel and french president francois hollande sit d