hollander is the lead counsel for slahi. that's our show for today. i'm ali velshi. thank you for joining us. admitting to a fatal mistake. president obama apologizes after revealing two al qaeda hostages including an american aid worker who was kimmed in a u.s. drone strike in pakistan. filing suit. >> when is america going to challenge the standard police narrative when they killed unarmed people of color? >> the family of michael brown takes legal action against the city of ferguson, missouri

months after his death in a police shooting. deal off. comcast is reportedly pulling the bid for time warner cable after the megamerger raised antitrust concerns. mapping the wooly mammoth genome. the scientific discovery that may take us a step closer to cloning the prehistoric creatures. good evening. i'm antonio mora. this is al jazeera america. we begin with the fatal error that took the lives of two u.s. hostages in pakistan. a u.s. drone strike in january killed american warren wine stein and italian aid worker leeporto. president obama apologized for the deaths but tonight there's a new conversation about deadly force. jamie mcintyre has more. >> reporter: the white house says there were two separate drone strikes in january that

targeted a compound in pakistan near the afghanistan border. one attack head two aid workers held captive there. american wine stein and leporto. both were abducted in afghanistan where they were working to improve the lives of pakistani people. while he didn't sign off on the strikes, he offers his deepest apologies. >> i take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations including the one that inadvertently took the lives of warren and giovanni. i profoundly regret what happened. >> it raised legitimate questions about the protocols used to approve targeted killings including the requirement of near certainty in the accuracy of pre-strike intelligence. >> the first is near certainty that this was an al qaeda compound that was used by al qaeda leaders that turned out to be true. that assessment was correct. the other near certainty

assessment was that no civilians would be harmed if this operation were carried out. unfortunately, that was not correct. >> the u.s. says the two january strikes did kill two al qaeda leaders, both americans. adam gadan and ahmed farouq. gadahn that converted to islam was one of the better known americans tied to al qaeda after he appeared in a number of videos. the two americans were not the targets. in fact despite over 100 hours of surveillance, some of it around the clock, all u.s. intelligence was able to say for sure was it bombed a suspected al qaeda compound. that's a huge rights advocates and drone strikes critics is a big problem. >> it appears that the united states quite literally in the two killings -- in the two operations announced today quite literally did not know who it was killing. >> the president said he declassified details of the

secret mission because americans have the right to know when a mistake takes the lives of u.s. citizens. >> i've directed a full review to identify the lessons learned from the tragedy and any changes that should be made. >> the white house says the tragic accident won't stop efforts to tarlt target and kill suspected terrorists, and for now the secret drone program will remain largely in the shadows. the white house says any lessen sos learned are incorporated into future counterterrorism strikes, and the president promised to do his utmost to make sure this kind of incident isn't repeated. that's far from certain concerning they're based on intelligence and as one pentagon official said today, intelligence is not an exact science. antonio. >> jamie mcintyre at the pentagon. thanks. dr. wine stein was held prisoner for more than three years. he was kidnapped from his home in pakistan days before he was supposed to return to the u.s.

his widow said therm devastated by his death. lisa stark has more. >> like rings on the tree the yellow ribbons on the map am at the winestein home marked time more than three years in captivity. now in rockville, maryland they're mourning the death of their neighbor. >> i always wondered how he could be in a place like pakistan. he wanted to help those people and cost him his life. >> warren winestein was a husband, a father a grandfather. he spent decades traveling the world as an aid worker in 2004 ending up in pakistan as a contractor for the u.s. agency for international development. he was helping small businesses. >> please make as many contacts as you can. >> aat age 70 days before he was supposed to return to his family al qaeda kidnapped

winestein from his home in pakistan. >> he just thrived on helping people. >> wife elaine and daughter jennifer coakley spoke to me last summer frustrated by what they saw as lackluster efforts to win his release. >> wlaefr they could do they need to do it and they need to do it quickly. >> bring him home to us. we need him now. he needs us too. >> the winestein family was holding onto hope even as video released by the captors showed a haunting image of a one lively family man. winestein, who suffered from a heart condition and asthma appealed for help. >> now when i need my government it seems that i have been totally abandoned. >> the state department told us it was actively trying to win his release. president obama thursday in extending his condolences echoed that. >> i directed my national security team to do everything

possible to find him and to bring him home safely to his family. >> elaine winestein remains disheartened by the government's efforts. in a statement she thanked three members of congress and the fbi for their help but added, quote, assistance from other elements of the u.s. government was inconsistent and disappointing. she urged the government quote, to take its responsibilities seriously, and establish a coordinated and consistent approach to supporting hostages and their families. the president has asked for a review of how the government communicates with families of hostages. for this family though there is only grief and memories of a loving man who devoted his life to helping others. in his neighborhood yellow ribbons have long been tied up and down the degrees of the street there. one neighbor told me that christians jews and muslims all have yellow ribbons, all showing

support for a good man who deserved to come home. antonio. >> very sad, lisa. lisa stark in washington. the saudi led coalition carried out 20 air strikes across yemen. saudi arabia announced on tuesday it would end the month-long air campaign. officials said the strikes would continue as long as the rebels kept up their attacks. it focused on vehicles held by houthi rebels. this was sentencing day for david petraeus the four-star general that served in iraq and afghanistan and went on to lead the cia. this afternoon he walked into a north carolina courtroom and pleaded guilty to leaking national security secrets to his mistress who was also his biographer. robert ray has more on the sentence and the reaction to it. >> today marks the end of a two and a half year deal that resulted from mistakes i made. >> he once commanded u.s.

military operations in afghanistan and iraq and launched what was known as the surge, the military strategy that seemed to turn things for us troops fighting yaeshgary insurgents. now this retired four-star general and former head of the cia is facing two years probation and a $100,000 fine part of a plea deal that general petraeus cut to avoid jail time. >> he had a good lawyer. that's what it indicates. he cut a good deal. he could have been charged more seriously and done jail time and had a muchl larger fine. >> petraeus admitted leaking classified information to his mistress and biographer paula broadwell. >> as i did in the past i apologize to those closest to me and to many others including those with whom i was privileged to serve in government and in the military over the years. >> as part of the deal he agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and not contest the facts laid out by the government.

those facts? the government says he illegally hung on to highly secret black book binders from his days as the top u.s. commander in afghanistan. the binders included names of covert operatives and coalition war strategy and notes about the petraeus discussions with president obama and the national security council. prosecutors say he gave the top secret military information to broadwell while she was working on the 2012 biography, "all in: the education of david petraeus." >> we have people in exile for leaking government secrets who weren't as highly placed as petraeus. >> he resigned at cia director when his affair was exposed in 2012. the fbi said he signed a form shortly after falsely stating he had no confidentiality term. they found the binders in a search of petraeus' house in 2013. robert ray, al jazeera,

charlotte, north carolina. >> loretta lynch is confirmed as the next attorney general as the united states. they approved the nomination by a 56-43 vote. ten republicans voted for lynch. she's the first african-american woman to hold the position. president obama is glad to have her on board. >> she'll do a great job helps our communities, keeping them safe but also making sure our citizens are protected by equal justice under the law. she's got credibility with law enforcement but has credibility with the communities. >> the president nominated lynch to replace eric holder in november. she's expected to be intorn in on monday. the family of michael brown, the black teenager shot and killed by a white policeman, sued the city of ferguson missouri today. the case sparked an emotional national debate about the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers. diane esther brook has more on the lawsuit. >> wearing sweatshirts wearing

their son's image, michael brown's parent stood with their attorney on thursday demanding accountability for their son's death. >> when is america going to challenge the standard police narratives when they kill unarmed people of color? >> the civil suit says officer wilson unjustifiably shot brown as he raised his hands to surrender. it claims wilson returned to the police station and began to destroy evidence and interfering with the investigation, washed blood off his hands and tampered with critical resident with gun rez deuce on his hands. the city supports williams' misconduct by failing to reprimand him, tampering with evidence and/or destroying evidence. >> the evidence has not changed. the presentation of that evidence will. we expect to put on evidence that you never heard about before. >> protesters marched in

ferguson four weeks after shooting claims the police department is racially biased and unfairly targets blacks. they declined to arrest wilson for the shooting. they also decided not to bring civil rights charges against the police officer but did find widespread racial bias in the police department and its municipal court. that report led to the resignations of several city officials including the city manager, police chief and municipal judge. law professor sheldon namate says the report will be critical in the civil suit as well. >> to use a family term you need to show a custom. that's why the doj report on ferguson with this pattern and practice of numerous incidents reported by the department of justice incorporated in the complaint interestingly enough that's going to turn out to be

very important by way of recovering anything. zo the brown family is seeking an unspecified amount for damages and legal fees. diane esther brook, al jazeera, chicago. baltimore's police department is canceling all leave for officers to ensure adequate coverage of the city. it comes after another evening of protests over the death of freddie gray while he was in police custody. also tonight baltimore police commissioner anthony bats med with ray's family for the first time. gray suffered a spinal cold j during an arrest last sunday. coming up a megamerger may be on the verge of collapse. they're calling off the deal after months of criticism and fears of a near monopoly. following the money. look at clinton and the foreign donors that gave to her family's foundation while she was second of state. of state.

a potential merger is reportedly falling apart.

comcast is set to announce on friday it will walk away for a bid for time warner cable. it was announced more than a year ago. it's valued at more than $40 billion. john is here now with more and this deal might have come undone because of too much criticism. >> yeah. kind of too much influence from the in-laws i think here because this is a corporate marriage don't forget between time warner cable and nbc's owners comcast. what appears to have happened is this comes out of washington, d.c. movers and shakers apply the pressure not to go ahead on the grounds that will ultimately hurt constituents in the pocketbook. at $45 billion, comcast move on time warner has everyone in tv land talking, especially the regularity regulators are not happy. that's one cable operator controlling 30% of the paid tv market and almost 60% of broadband. it's a big footprint with far-reaching consequences for couch potatoes everywhere.

>> it's not just they're a provider. at this point they will determine what content goes on the air for consumers. >> now the deal seems to be off. comcast is set to feel regulators put too many hurdles in their way. the last straw being the federal communications commission concluding the deal wouldn't be in the public interest and proposing a hearing by a federal judge. a hearing is a big roadblock to a merger. it signals to many people that the government could and likely would block the deal. the problem? concern that they could charge you at home more for less offering fewer choices and poorer services. comcast said no if anything consumers benefit from faster cheaper internet and access to features like hotspots. comcast says the deal won't harm competition because it doesn't operate in the same markets as time warner cable. regulators fret about the power a combined comcast time warner would have over tv channels

including al jazeera america and streaming services like netflix and amazon prime. >> the department of justice is worried that they will then control the content. they'll be the gatekeeper and determine what consumers get to see. >> there's talk comcast might have had to shed customers for the deal. now it seems red tape makes comcast see red enough to cancel the party altogether. an announcement is expected to be imminent. >> they're very exciting. ilts the most exciting bit of covering business in fact. an announcement is thought to be coming tomorrow morning before the markets open at 9:30 eastern. comcast shares spiked 1% while time warner slightly tumbled on the news. we get excited, but ultimately the big mergers never really work out. >> many have not worked out. you're right. thank you, john. democratic presidential hopeful hillary clinton is facing more concerns tonight about foreign donations to her family's foundation. as david schuster shows us ethics groups ask whether foreign donor governments were

interested in helping the clinton charity or in buying access to the then u.s. secretary of state. >> facing accusations she's been unethical and has ongoing conflicts of interest hillary clinton this week in new hampshire addressed reporters and was dismissive. >> we're back into the political season, and therefore we will be subjected to all kinds of distraction and attacks. i'm ready for that. >> most of the current distractions stem from her family foundation a charity whose mission is to promote global health and wellness. soon after she formally declared their white house campaign. >> i'm running for president. >> the foundation announced it will continue to accept donations from six foreign governments. one government canada's continues to lobby for the keystone xl oil pipeline. >> this is a great way for those donors to engrash yat themselves

with candidate clinton and perhaps ultimately president clinton. >> while hillary clinton was secretary of state, her family's foundation accepted tens of millions of dollars from saudi arabia and other foreign governments that have a record of suppressing women's rights. one donation from algeria was not disclosed properly and by the foundation's own admission violated an obama administrationette things agree. republican presidential candidates including kentucky senator rand paul are relentless. >> it reminds me of people usings the system to enrich themselves. i think a lot of americans agree with me. >> early next month a controversial investigative book is published about the clintons. excerpts that be reviewed by several news organizations including al jazeera. according to the book excerpts and supporting documentation, clinton foundation donors received timely favors from the state department. in the excerpts from the book

reviewed so far, there's no evidence mrs. clinton was influenced by the payments or she broke any laws. and top clinton defenders have taken to the airwaves to blast the book's conservative author and attack anybody that promotes his work in advance. >> let's see what the book says when it comes out. i'd be happy to come back. if i'm wrong, i'm happy to say this, but i think this is a political put-up job and i can smell it a mile away. >> chelsea clinton who as 35 is one of the co-chairs insisted thursday the foundation would not change its practices. >> the work will continue as it is. i think that's the right choice for the people who are being affected by that work. >> the biggest question is whether the foundation's financial dealings along with the "blurred lines" between donors and the clinton family's accumulation of wealth will matter to voters. for now hillary clinton and her surrogates are refusing to address specifics. they are convinced most americans don't care about these

issues or see the alleged conflicts of interest. david schuster al jazeera. teams of researchers announce a break through in studying an extinct creature. it could explain why the wooly mammoth disappeared and possibly might let them bring one back to life. also amazing new pictures from space celebrating the discoveries of the hubble telescope since it was launched a quarter of a century ago.

southern chile's kalbuco volcano has erupted. it's the first time it erupted in more than 40 years. they reported a magnitude earthquake inside the volcano 200 miles north of there. it erupted a few weeks ago for the fist time in 15 years. it sounds like science-fiction but researchers are closer to being able to clone a wooly mammoth. they've been extinct for thousands of years and they can reconstruct the genetic makeup using the tissue samples from the carcasses in ice. they home sequencing their genomes would explain what happened to them. it didn't but it's a major step towards cloning one. frank greely joins us from

stanford university. he's a professor at stanford law school, and it's good to have with us. this is the best hope so far to resurrect the wooly mammoth. do you think we're at the point where scientists could actually use this dna to re-create an animal extinct for thousands of years? >> i don't think we can yet. there are a couple of different ways you might try to go about it. one is cloning, straightforward cloning the same way dolly the sheep was cloned. for that you need a really really high quality mammoth cell, and i don't think we're going to get that. the other trickier way is to take asian elephant cells and genetically modify them and edit them using a variety of new technologies down the pike to turn them more and more into something like a wooly mammoth cell. i think that is quite plausible. there's probably at least five to ten years out. >> even if that is do-able, would it be a wooly mammoth? how close to the original would it be? >> we won't know unless we try

it. i think it's fair to say we don't really know. even if we were able to make it an exact copy of the dna of one wooly mammoth, therm around for hundreds of thousands of years. >> then the question, of course, that comes up is why would we want to? >> i think there are different people with different answers to that. my own answer is it would be fascinating. it would be awesome and it would be cool. those are reactions that i think have some value. you could also though think of it as a way to understand more about how wooly mammoths worked what their science and physiology was like. the most intriguing one and there's some people who are very interested in this is thinking you could re-create wooly mammoths and put them back in the tundra and have a really positive effect in that eco-system. >> if thrp this were to work how far do we go? do we create enough to reproduce and do what we're talking about? that raises the question should we do the same for other extiblt

animals? >> yeah. i think those are both great questions. i think of the extinction as a three-part process. you may not be able to get past any one of them but the first part is try to create a few individuals from the species. if you can't do that nothing else matters. if you do that then the second part would be try to create a captive breeding population. see if you can get mammoths to breed with each other in captivity, and while they're doing that while they're in captivity, study them to see is it safe to put them in the wild? could they live in the wild? how would they affect the wild? only then if you have a big breeding population and you concluded from studying them it's safe to put them out there, safe for them and the rest of us put them out in the wild and see what happens. >> is there any chance we will see a jurassic park and bring back dinosaurs? >> yeah i don't think so. i have mixed feelings about it. you remember what happened to the lawyer in the first

"jurassic park" movie. i think this is a real possibility. i think mammoths and saber tooth cats and giant ground sloths are a realistic possibility. that dna is 10,000 50,000 100,000 years old. to get to the last dinosaur you have to go back 66.4 million years. it seems impossible that dna would be preserved that long. we haven't seen anything that comes close to it. i think jurassic park will stay in the movies but this may come to a high latitude area near you sometime in the next 30 or 40 years. >> professor hank greely our thanks. thank you for joining us. "inside story" is up next and we life you with images from nasa. tomorrow marks 25 years since the agency launched the hubble space telescope. in honor. anniversary, they created this

3d nebula. thousands of stars sit among pillars of dark dense gas. the hubble captured the first image of this. they say the hubble telescope completely transformed how we view the universe. >> hello i'm ray suarez. mcdonald's, cash registers ringing, is a company that americans hate love and hate to love. changing what farmers ro grow and away we eat. now the company's announced it won't buy chickens raised using human antibiotics. mickey d's, changing what people eat and how they eat it.