proprepare small rolls of dough for bakes. on this day they are making pastry which they will sell and share the profits. so much more on all of these stories on our website, aljazeera.com. winter put a chill on the economy, low temperatures partly to blame for a big drop in gdp. and residents in texas prepare for another stormy weekend. and this man faces charges of financial fraud.

♪ this is al jazeera america live from new york city. i'm steph. new numbers giving our first look for the economy this year and so far it's not good. the economy shrank in the first three months of the year. patty what is to blame? >> the main culprit appears to be the strong u.s. dollar. the economy shrank .7%. exports fell 7.6% and you can credit that to a strong dollar making american goods more expensive to buy abroad. u.s. imports increase 5.6%. consumer spending rose 1.8%, and that marked a sharp slowdown from the end of last year and

that really matters because consumer spending is the primary engine of u.s. economic growth. the big question is whether the economy has shaken off the winter blues, the data is still rolling in. good housing starts though we have yet to see an increase in paychecks. and the economy is growing less than 1% in the current quarter, so stand by and watch stephanie. >> patricia sabga, thank you. in about ten minutes we'll talk more about these numbers with an economist. more main today in texas. a police officer had to be air lifted to safety this morning. you see his squad car it was filling up with water on the freeway when he called for help. the flooding so far has killed 24 people in texas and oklahoma and the forecast calls for more rain this weekend.

robert ray has more from houston. >> reporter: six months ago the people of texas were hoping for rain, but not as much as they have gotten in the past week. houston, many of the neighborhoods have been under water, as people have cleaned up their belongings put them to the curb side the city of houston trying to assess the damage as thousands of homes and businesses have been under water. now more rain and storms on the way this morning and throughout the weekend. one of the major issues a little town about 60 miles southwest of houston they evacuated about a thousand people last night, volunteer evacuation they are expecting the colorado river, which goes through there to crest at some point tomorrow morning and expect major flooding tonight and in through the weekend. as far as people here in houston go all they can do is basically take cover and make sure they are out of their homes in the

places where bayous could rise and flood their homes once again. many staying with relatives or have left to go to hotels but people here clearly on edge as more storms await starting today and throughout the weekend. officials are working to identify the body of a man recovered late last night from the blanco river in central texas. meanwhile the desperate search continues for members of two families missing after water ripped a home from its foundation in wimberley heidi zhou castro has more. >> reporter: the search continues for two families swept away by flood waters. the mccombs, had been vacations with the charbas. this is what is left of the house where they were staying. after the blanco river rose 30

feet in less than two hours early sunday morning and swept the home off of its foundation. laura's sister says laura called her as the house floated down the river telling her sister that she loved her. that was the last time the mother of two was heard from. >> i think recognizing what is happening with the weather, we all know and we have accepted that they are gone. >> reporter: the father is so far the only known survivor. he is expected to recover from a collapsed lung broken sternum, and broken ribs. >> he is absolutely devastated. he did everything he possibly could to save them. >> reporter: miles downstream in the next county the body of this woman was recovered, and a day later the body of a still unidentified boy was discovered on the river bank. now seven are still missing. >> this effort is not over.

we are 100% committed to finding laura, andrew leighton randy, will ralph, and sue. >> reporter: that task false on an army of shrivelian volunteers. the search and rescue team and 32 national guard troops deployed to the area. how high are your hopes of finding signs of life? >> we never want to give up hope. >> reporter: but as the clock ticks they are prepared to come across more bodies. >> you know if you find them you are giving that family peace and allowing them to have closure about their loved ones. >> reporter: meanwhile there are 72 other families that are digging through the homes that were ruined. sections of oklahoma were hit with more severe storms last night, as much as five inches of rain fell south of oklahoma

city. dozens of vehicles were stuck on water-logged roads dennis hastard is facing federal charges. prosecutors say he tried to hide more than $2 million in secret payments and lied about it to the fbi. >> reporter: one of the things that propelled him to the third highest office in the land was his low-key good-guy reputation a reputation burnished by his taste as a small town high school teacher and coach. now there are questions about whether or not he had a darker past. >> i never envisioned that this former teacher and wrestling coach would have the opportunity to lead the united states house of representatives. >> reporter: eight years after stepping down as speaker of the house, he is in serious trouble. in an indictment made public on thursday federal prosecutors say a near lifelong associate

identified only as individual a threatened in 2010 to make public some quote prior misconduct that the 73-year-old committed before becoming house speaker. the indictment does not spell out what the misconduct was. to keep individual a quiet, it is alleged that he withdrew $1.7 million from his contracts. this money was part of $3.5 million he allegedly agreed to pay for individual a's silence. all of that is only the background. here is what he is actually in trouble for. first he faces one count of lying to the fbi. when investigators asked him why he was withdrawing so much money. he told them the money was for personal use and that he was withdrawing the money out of a distrust for the banking system.

second he faces accounts of trying to conceal his actions by making 106 withdrawals of $10,000 or less. by law, banks must report cash transactions over $10,000. if convicted on both counts he faces a $500,000 fine and ten years in jail. the yet unnamed individual a allegedly knows him from living in yorkville, ohio where he coached wrestling and taught school for 16 years. residents said this news was difficult to hear. >> he's definitely part of the town. yeah it's very surprising. >> reporter: you are [ inaudible ] so it's just disappointing. >> reporter: within hours of the indictment he resigned from his lobbying firm where he had

worked since leaving congress. in his autobiography he wrote about one of the lessons he learned as a high school wrestling coach. he said quote, there's no one to blame but yourself if you get pinned. words that may add new meaning for the former speaker of the house. voting has begun to see who will be the next president of fifa. the u.s. says it will not support another term for sepp blatter. the soccer world has been in turmoil since a crackdown charging opexecutives with taking bribes. >> reporter: you arrive here and it does feel a bit like business as usual for blatter. europe have come out and said that they will guarantee that most of their countries will not be voting for him. the prince is the preferred

candidate for the united states. it was interesting some of blatter's opening comments he said he didn't want to use the word coincidence, and then said coincidence, and said he questions the timing of these arrests just two days ahead of his election and intimidated that had the world cup not been given to russia and qatar, but had been given to the united states or a western european country, we wouldn't have had these issues. soccer is a huge potential market in the united states and it is a growing market as well so they cannot cut the united states off, but as lots of countries in western europe have discovered once you go up against blatter, you are going up against a very very tough regime. and if the united states is trying to get the majority of the votes inside that congress

haul, they might find that extremely difficult. again the voting is underway. the palestinian football association has dropped its proposal for a ban on israeli soccer teams. hundreds demonstrated outside of the meetings in switzerland, demanding israel be suspended from fifa. they say israel has restricted the movement of its soccer players between the gaza strip and the west bank. it is inauguration day for nigeria's new president. secretary of state john kerry traveled to abuja for the ceremony. he defeated good look jonathan the country's long-time leader. when the thin blue line gets too thin the police department in new orleans, understaffed and unable to refill its ranks. why the city can't find or keep enough good officers.

welcome back to al jazeera america. it is 10:44 eastern. officials say human error was likely not to blame for the military accidentally sending live anthrax across the country. the pentagon all procedures were followed but anthrax is notoriously hard to kill. beaches in southern california shut down because of tar balls washing up on their shores are reopening today. and virginia's governor has signed a new law aimed and preventing sexual assault on college campuses. it will create a task force and create all colleges to create a comprehensive plan for

responding to assaults. the economy has shrank .7%. thank you so much for your time. how much should we read into this first quarter gdp number? >> i think it's important not to get too carried away with the doom and gloom. there are a number of temporary factors. bad weather was one of them in the midwest and northeast, but also the disruption in the ports because of the strike in -- on the west coast always messed up the trade numbers. so you take those out, and the number doesn't look anywhere near as bad. we think the underlying growth is probably in the 2, 2.2 range right now. probably going to move up higher than that. >> we heard patricia sabga talk about the strong dollar. how much of this contract is due

to that? >> well certainly that is hurting the export side of the market. but in the end it wasn't the driving factor for the first. it has been a major headwind for exporters, so there's no question. the good news is the consumer is still in pretty good shape. for example, we think in the second quarter consumer spend willing grow 2.5%. and that is 70% of the economy. >> reporter: didn't we see a sharp deceleration in the first three months of the year. >> it is all due to weather. >> so we are firmly now in the second quarter. you seem to be optimistic we have seen job creation pickup strong housing starts other caters though show weakness are we going to see acceleration to offset the first three months

of the year? >> yes, but it's not going to be that big of a bounceback not compared to last year where we had a 4% growth after a negative 2.1. this year it will only be say, 2%. because there is a still a bit of an inventory overhang from the first quarter, but by the third and fourth quarters we think we'll be up by about 3%. >> there is concern that at this point in the business cycle, we won't see a significant pickup. how much are stagnant wages holding things back at this point? >> it's a factor. it's a headwind but there are also tail winds. consumer household finances are better considerably. people are spending that -- that tax cut if you want to call it that from the lower gasoline

prices still well below where they were a year ago, and interest rates are still very low. it improves consumer purchasing power because it makes purchases cheaper. >> sir thank you for your incite. police in new orleans have faced a long history of issues and now they face a new problem, not enough officers for a force that is overworked and understaffed. jonathan martin reports. >> reporter: in a city played with violent crime, there is increasing community outcry to solve what many consider a growing problem in new orleans. five years ago new orleans police force was 1600 officers strong today there are just over 1100.

>> when people call for the police it's going to take them a long time to get there, if they get there at all. >> reporter: the department started to shrink several years ago as new orleans was facing an enormous budget shortfall. >> we were not able to hire or purchase vehicles. >> reporter: and the city was losing nearly 100 officers a year from retirement and after a string of high profile cases involving police misconduct the nopd, and the department of justice signed a consent degree a list of strict reforms the police department agreed to implement. community activist says the layers of scrutiny have been driving officers away. >> if the police shoot somebody it will be investigating by the police monitor, the internal affairs office it will be investigated by the federal

consent degree monitor. >> we have been working on this issue for a long time but it does take time. >> reporter: the police chief says there is a desperate need to recruit more officers. >> we have billboards. we have commercials. we have recruitment teams going to different places. >> reporter: he says the application process that used to take four months now takes two, and the department has done away with rules requiring the officers to live in the city and have 60 hours of college credit. are you still getting qualify officers to apply? >> reporter: we are. and only about 3% make it through. >> reporter: he says the biggest issue is pay, as many who have left have gone to work for hire paying agencies like the state police. however, this month, the city council approved a gradual 15%

raise for officers and he says the increased work load is training the already thin resources especially whenever an officer uses force. >> they have to be sure that videos are made they are cataloged and archived correctly. who is policing the city while they are doing that? >> reporter: for now state police have stepped in to help patrol certain areas. jonathan martin al jazeera, new orleans. a group of bikers in the arizona are holding a second round of an event where people were killed. history spelled out again at the scripps national spelling bee. the competition goes down to the wire.

america mobile app available for your apple and android mobile device. download it now a live look now at one world trade center in new york. the observatory on floors 100 to 102 opens to the public today,

it features breathtaking views. you can see pretty far through those huge windows. you may have read the study and maybe believed it a team of german researchers reported that email who ate dark chocolate while dieting lost more weight. sounds too good to be true and it was. >> nowhere in the paper do we mention how many subjects we tested except in the caption of one figure where we off-handedly comment that the control group had five people. if you want to call yourself a reporter who is covering the diet science beet you can fake it. because, hey it's food. it's real science and it in's

incredible hard that's why we know less about the link between what you eat and your health outcomes. >> he says there was a clinical trial, but the results were meaningless. cuba is set today to come off of the list of state-sponsorers of terrorism. mike viqueira reports from washington. >> reporter: a major impediment to fully normalize relations between the united states and cuba is removed as of today. it could clear the way for an opening of embassies and the election of ambassador dors. the president has met with raul castro at an international summit in panama but there were things to do that had to be cleared away before these two

countries could fully normalize relations, chief among them the president announcing he was going to remove cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. since the president's announcement on december 17th there have been four rounds of talks all aimed at normalizing relations, the nuts and bolts towards opening an embassy and exchanging exchanging ambassadors. the u.s. is very concerned that cubans would be intimidated if they headed into the embassy, also the ability of diplomats in havana and cuban diplomats here in washington their ability to travel around each country without getting permission from host governments.

on the cuban side there was concern of what is called democracy programs. the cubans don't want to see them happen in havana. they include training journalists and training individuals in information technology. no break through was announced during that last round of talks. now that that 45 days has expired a 15-day notice the president has to publish his intent to normalize relations in the federal register. but there is one more issue that could take quite sometime more. republicans are very much in opposition to lifting the trade embargo that has been in place for more than 50 years against cuba. republicans are showing no signs -- it would require congressional action -- showing no signs of lifting that embargo. for the second year in a row two students are waking up as

cochampions of the scrips national spelling bee. >> s-c-h-e-r-e-n-s-c-h-n-i-t-t-e. >> correct. [ cheers and applause ] >> the word is german for scissor cuts. her sister won the 2009 bee. the cowinner is a 14-year-old from missouri. >> n-u-n-a-t-a-k. >> correct. [ cheers and applause ] >> he sped his way through the third round. this is only the fifth time theby has ended in a tie. thanks for. waing.

i'm i'm stephanie sy. we now join our colleagues from switzerland. >> i wish to play this role. i would like to continue with you. this is a matter of trust, confidence from you. to me a matter of respect towards each and every of you. you representatives of football federations everywhere i am at your disposal. i am at your command. if you wish me to continue this journey with you, i extend all thanks to you. my friends, and lovers of footballers, football is not just a game. it requires a great leader