active poison that fell 70 years ago. >> have a good luck at al jazeera.com for more. and the republican presidential field is about to descend on cleveland ohio but

some of the biggest names did not make the main stage. >> this is al jazeera america live from new york city. president obama is asking americans to join him in supporting the landmark nuclear deal with iran. just a short time ago, mr. obama wrapped up a very high-profile speech at american university on the 50th anniversary of the test ban treaty. he says it's the strongest nonproliferation treaty ever negotiated. is the strategy for selling the deal working? >> he still has a bit of time, david. congress will weigh in on this in september after coming back from a very long recess so the

president today making his case both to democrats who he still hopes to win over as well as to the american people. congress will be home for five weeks during that time and will certainly be talking to constituents about this iran deal. the president made a big parallel today to people pushing against this deal and people supporting going to war in iraq and that's significant because the president basically said there are parallels that are hard to ignore. take a listen. >> it was a mindset characterized by a preference of military action over diplomacy. obama a mindset that exaggerated threats beyond what the intelligence supported. leaders did not level with the

american people about the costs of war insisting that we could easily impose our will on a part of the world with a profoundly different culture in history. >> this is certainly a message he hopes will resonate with the american people he talked about, the lives of american military forces lost or injured. he also counciled americans to recognize the impact of the war in iraq. the president said ironically iran was one of the biggest winners in that. >> a lot of americans are deeply concerned about israel's security. the president met with jewish leaders yesterday at the white house. anything more from them today in this particular speech? >> well, he absolutely was making an appeal to jewish-americans to support this deal trying to give a direct call out to israel and to the jewish community talking about

supporting them but he had no bones about calling out israeli leader, benjamin netanyahu who is very against this deal. >> i believe the facts support this deal. i believe they are in america and israel's interest and as president of the united states, it would be an obligation of my constitutional duty to act against my best judgment simply because it causes temporary friction with a dear friend and ally. i don't believe that's the right thing for the united states or for israel. [applause]. >> the president said he does not doubt the sincerity of benjamin netanyahu but said he's flat out wrong.

many members of congress are being watched closely. many of them democrats walking a tough line between supporting israel and supporting the democratic pipeline. >> you've been paying very close attention to the administration, talking points and rhetoric about the nuclear deal with iran for several weeks. were there any surprises in the president's speech today? >> we heard a lot of repeated refrains but they were very direct. the president talking about how he sees it as a far more dangerous decision to shoot down this deal. i think the only real surprise if you want to even use that strong of a word is that he was so direct in calling out prime minister netanyahu as being wrong and that he was very critical of republicans in directly, the hard liners in

iran, those chanting death to americans are aligned right now with the republican wing of congress and that's a dicy parallel to make. >> libby, thank you as always. >> he's the president of the american, iranian council and a professor at princeton university. we have his reaction. >> i'm wondering what is going on in iran right now with people there who don't like this

agreement? >> well, as the president himself said, this is a deal for -- a good deal for the u.s. meaning it's not a good deal for iran. so the hard liners and nationalists in iran just basically making the same argument that the president is making, basically saying this is not a good deal for iran. >> if the president of iran and the foreign player negotiated this deal with the u.s., is there any chance that iran might reject it?

minister -- >> that deal will be a very hard choice for him or a future american president which is military action. what is your opinion about the president's characterization of the options on the table here? >> i disagree, strongly disagree. for one thing, the president is making the assumption very openly that saying that iran has the intention to build a bomb. and then he said my deal will stop that intention. first, mr. president has to really approve that iran has that intention. in fact, the nsa has said that since 2003, iran has stopped --

never moved in the direction of detonizing. >> may i interrupt you? the president points out that there have been the construction of thousands of centrifuges that iran has enriched materials that can be weaponize. so that raises the logical conclusion that iran must be doing this for a purpose beyond peaceful purposes because you really don't need enriched plutonium if you don't intend to make a bomb. >> that's not true. all countries have plutonium, heavy and light water, reactors, enrichment facilities, and

others. two of 35 countries that enrich throughout the world so that's not true. the bottom line is this: if iran has an intention to build a bomb, there is no way you can stop it. the world history proves that if you have an intention, you'll go for it. so i think the problem here is that for the president to tell us if iran has an intention. i don't believe iran has and this is above this argument and assumption that iran has an intention and, therefore, if you don't have the deal, you don't just build a bomb and because you don't build a bomb you have to go to war. >> the president of the american iranian council. a series of massive wild fires in northern california. the rocky fire has destroyed more than 67,000 acres.

however, temperatures have dropped and there's a little bit of rain in the area so crews are reporting that a week-old fire is now 20% contained. jacob ward is there and has the latest. >>reporter: firefighters have con verged on northern california. they're from departments all over the state and when they get here they find out it's a whole different world. one captain drove more than 600 miles from san diego to get here and was assigned a task immediately. >> we're headed out to interstate 20 to the biggest priority of the rocky fire. yesterday it jumped highway 20 burning north. >> there's a large, big pocket of green in here and has the potential to make a strong push. >>reporter: firefighters in the united states work with a

command system called ics. it's an agreed-upon structure and brings hundreds of departments together at any time. >> it doesn't matter where you're from, you don't have to worry about your budget. you can walk into here and say i need a hose, a helicopter if you need to. the point is to keep departments from feeling they have to hoard resources and protect their turf, territory. it's known as mutual aid. so you borrow what you need and bring it back. a sort of emergency lending library for firefighters. >>reporter: the system does away with rank and does a hierarchy for those who are experts in one

kind of fire or another. >> we all know california has experienced such a drought and lack of rain and it seems like every fire season starts with northern california and they tend to get the dry lightening strikes and cause all the issues. >>reporter: in a changing climate where the violence and duration of fires is growing, this system is saving lives. just a couple of days ago, firefighters saw 20,000 acres go up in a matter of hours. that's an unprecedented fury in these fires. >> the stage is now set for the first republican debate. it will feature donald trump,

jeb bush, scott walker, ben carson, mike huckabee, ted cruz, marco rubio, chris christie and the governor of ohio in at number ten. synth all of the candidates are in rough shape except for donald trump. >> i will be the greatest job-creating president that god ever created.

he's at 26% now, 11 points ahead of jeb bush and 17 points ahead of wisconsin governor, scott walker. while polls say more disapprove of trump than approve, most of his competitors on that count are in the same situation. . >> trump skipped the event prompting several pundits to say he's boring and insignificant. he hammered hillary clinton. according to trump -- hyper bolic charge before.

>> it's leaving -- a few have employed a few stunts to try and break through. this week, ted cruz highlighted his ability to cook bacon on the muzzle of a machine gun. >> machine gun bacon. [laughter] >> last week, mike huckabee criticized the iran nuclear deal comparing it to the holocaust. >> last month, lindsey graham hit hard at donald trump. >> i don't care if he drops out. stay in the race. just stop being a jerk. and then give out his personal cellphone number. then he released a video on ways to destroy your phone but did

not help his poll numbers which are too low to attend to the debate. rick perry also failed to make the cut despite saying this. >> donald trump is a cancer on conser conserve -- conservatism is dangerous. >>reporter: in the democratic conservatism -- hillary clinton's supporters say the democratic debates can't come soon enough. her numbers are dropping prompting her campaign to start running television ads in new hampshire and iowa. polls indicate clinton has reached her lowest favorability

rating in eight years. one issue thursday night involves u.s. policy in the middle east and in syria. an al quaeda linked group has -- al nusra attacked u.s. backed syrian forces and 60 rebels trained by the united states have joined the battle so far. training and equipping syrian rebels -- u.s. drones have begun flying missions from a turkish air base near the syrian border. there are still many questions about what the two countries

hope to achieve. >> turkey turkey is very, very concerned about the syrian kurds connected to the turkish pkk kurds. very complicated. they have a contiguous land mass cutting off the main route we believe the islamic state was using to bring fighters out and to smuggle oil and antiquities out. i think this is more about turkey and its kurdish concerns than it is for the united states and its fight against isil. >> the united states is preparing for a more comprehensive fight. just ahead, ferguson,

missouri one year later after the killing of michael brown. brown's mother is speaking out. we'll bring you the exclusive interview. contiguous

in a new study, more than half of blacks believe they've been treated differently because of their skin color. 75% say them or a family member have personal experience with such treatment. 71% also feel the criminal justice system treats police too leniently when officers hurt or kill people. this erupted a year ago in ferguson, missouri when michael brown was shot and killed by a white police officer. the shooting made the community of 21,000 people a symbol of racial tensions across the united states. we sat down with michael brown's mother for an exclusive interview about the one-year anniversary of her son's death. >>reporter: she said they shot

mike mike. and, i don't know what happened after that. i just felt my body and mind were somewhere else. i just started running but i just felt like i had to get to him, you know? and, um, when i did finally get there, are it was police cars just everywhere. when i got there, i saw an hump in the street with a sheet on it. >> what do you think when i mention the name darren wilson. what comes to mind? >> the devil. that comes to mind.

evil. >> you can see the full interview tonight at 7:00 eastern. a democratic committee woman from ferguson says brown's death has slowly brought some change to ferguson. >> i think that change is moving at a snail's pace. there have been some changes which -- change is very hard to get. i think people are underestimating that. but it's just a microcosm of how fast it's changed coming into this country. we have an interim police chief and an interim city manager. the city is still -- going on unfortunately and --

after. ly and -- >>reporter: it is one of the largest and perhaps most important construction projects in new orleans since hurricane katrina. it's celebrated as full scale healthcare finally coming back to a city that needs it. but can it fulfill its mission to providing care for the poor and uninsured. there was a frantic race for some of the city's most vulnerable. >> i had a sense of helplessness. >> you're loading sick patients on, you know, on back boards on air boats and shipping them, you

know, four or five blocks away through chest-deep water. >>reporter: what lessons have been learned about building hospitals in new orleans and will this hospital be able to handle the next massive storm. >> malaysia is confirming what many have suspected, the debris washing up in madagascar on the reunion islands is the remains of mh flight h 370. it disappeared over the indian ocean 17 months ago. more news throughout the day and you can always catch us on al

jazeera.com. news continues live from london next.