their patrons saint agatha they released balloons in the sky, one for each victim and migrants' bodies taken to the port city on monday and will be buried in a cemetery there and they were trying to cross the mediterranean and sophisticatuf -- mediterranean and here is our website al jazeera.com. >> a second explosion hits thailand's capital as police try to find this man, the man accused in monday's bombing that killed 20 people. >> shelling in eastern ukraine threatens the ceasefire. >> colorado reopens rivers contaminated by a toxic mine spill. now the focus shifts to the

impact on the surrounding environment. >> this is aljazeera america live from new york city, i'm richelle carey. nerves are rattled in bangkok this morning after another explosion hits the capital. a bomb went off at a train station earlier today. it follows the deadliest attack to the capital in years. twenty were killed monday at a popular tourist shrine. the hunt is on to find the accused bomber seen in a surveillance video. we are live in bangkok. tell us about thes man in that video and the search to find him. >> in the past hour or so, we heard from a thai police spokesperson. he said the man seen that in security camera footage, the man

in the yellow shirt as he is being described is no longer simply a suspect, that he in fact is the bomber, they believe, so that essential going one step further than the comments we heard from the prime minister earlier in the day, who acknowledged the existence of the video, said he had seen it, that the man in it appeared to be a suspect in the bombing but the fact that the video footage wasn't of very good quality, that it needed to be investigated further. we have the police spokesman al jazeera according to them, they believe that he is the bomber. >> what is the government saying about a possible motive behind this attack? >> well, not a lot. they are of course continue to go drop the odd hint here and there why they believe this has happened in terms of it being politically motivated, but not saying that it is. they are leaving the door open to this attack linked to some

outside group. this was designed to cause maximum damage to thailand's economy, designed to cause maximum damage to its tourist sector, as well, which is so important to the economy as a whole. when you hear reports of the second bomb, it didn't detonate on the pier and it was thrown from the bridge near the train station. it exploded as it hit the water, leaving no one injured, but that is a busy part of bangkok, particularly with tourists on the river, which runs through the city. it's very busy, tourists going up and down that river all the time. the police also saying that it appears there are some links according to what they have found so far between those two attacks. >> all right, wane reporting from bangkok, thank you. >> thailand's prime minister is promising to bring those responsible for the bomb attack to justice. in a televised statement, he insisted to both thai citizens

and foreigners that he will ensure their safety. >> the on going attempts at destruction might be politically motivated, targeting the economy, tourism. the government will work to find the perpetrators and bring justice to any networks involved as soon as possible. >> thailand's currency fell to its lowest level in six years over concerns about the attack's impact on tourism. the country had been struggling to bring in tourists in the midst of political turmoil last year. foreign arrivals were up 30% in the first half of this year. the government expects thailand to make about 61 billion dollars r. billion dollars from tourism this year. search teams in indonesia spotted the black box and have recovered all the bodies from a plane that crashed on sunday. the plane went down in bad

weather the bodies had to be transferred by helicopters because of the remoteness of the site. >> ukrainian troops and pro-russian separatist exchanged fire. talks have broken down. the united nation estimates the conflict has killed 6,000 people since april of last year. meanwhile, russia's president, vladimir putin was in crimea today. russia annexed that region last year. the ukrainian penalty petro poroshenko said putin is trying to in flame the area with his visit. he said he is trying to help with the economy.

when you look back to now and where things are now, has any progress been made in your mind? >> >> we have to say that events went very quickly. no one in ukraine or europe suspected russia would attack ukraine and then annex crimea. it was a strategickical surprise for us. we are still drugling with the surprise and cranes can see that our close neighbors and even brother russians have attacked us. also for europe and the for the rest of the world, especially america to understand how to deem with the situation in the political terms. >> the report says that there is a growing presence of russian troops. when did building escalation start, as you see it? >>

>> well, the recent escalation about which the report actually is has started more or less one week ago when we have noted that more and more russian soldiers and also so-called volunteers, they have been crossing border between ukraine and russia in the eastern part of ukraine and starting from the moment we have seen that almost every single day we have more numerous attacks. last week it was more than 167 attacks, the biggest number of escalation and biggest number of attacks since the minsk agreement. three civilians were killed in mariupol during the attack. >> this back and forth has been going on since february, clearly obviously since before february, but there's technically been a

ceasefire since february. what will it take for there to be a true ceasefire? >> well, unfortunately, as you correctly mentioned, peace, this is something whole ukraine and especially was the main goal for negotiations and to sign minsk agreement to provide peace and stability for the region. the ceasefire was never ever into place. one of the things that was provided and was respected for several weeks or even a month, it was with trouble of all happening away from the front line in eastern ukraine. unfortunately after few weeks, this provision has been violated and terrorists have returned back to the front line and then cranes have to do the same in order to protect our territory and protect people. we don't see the ceasefire in the camps that there are no civilians killed and no soldiers wounded or killed, as well. other times, there are attacks

all the time, we have losses, loss have infrastructure and loss of people and more and more people leaving the region. >> it seems the focus of the international community has now shifted book to the middle east and not so much on what's happening in ukraine. does that concern you? >> one of the major concerns of cranes is that we won't have that much of the support of western partners, especially european union and countries and of america, strategic partner for ukraine when it comes to the situation. this is something which is really concerning us, because unfortunately on our own, we aren't able to stop the conflict and we aren't able to convince russia to stop supporting terrorists. the biggest problem is not people who are on the ground in dunbar square fighting with ukrainian army, but the fact that russia is providing them with money, supplies, with weapons, with fuel and first of all also with people and with

regular russian army on ukrainian soil. it is really very important to understand that strong support from international society on the side of ukraine and pressure on russia to stop supporting terrorists and to stop sending weapons and people to western ukraine, this is a key fact in order to deescalate situation and return it to the normal situation. >> and to be clear, ruer has denied these allegations and said they've only been sending in international aid. >> a number of people affected by an i.r.s. computer breach is nearly three times higher than previously reported. the agency says at least 334,000 people had information stolen using an on line tool. the breach was part of a scheme to use stolen identities to claim fraudulent tax refunds. it is expect russian cyber criminals were responsible. >> the state department now says more than 300 of former

secretary of state hillary clinton's emails may have been classified information. the f.b.i. is currently investigating clinton's use of a private email server to see if any classified information was mishandled. clinton said in an interview on monday that "this will all sort itself out." >> health officials are praising a new federal initiative aimed at ending a surge in heroin abuse. the rate is climbing. we have more. >> across the country, heroin use is up. in 2013, more than 8,000 people died, many seeking a cheaper high using heroin laced with an ingredient. we went in search of answers where we met the director of the center for substance abuse research. >> unfortunately, many people start out being prescribed an

opiate for their pain, which they might need at that time, but then for some reason, they take more of it when they no longer need it, and they become dependent on a prescription opiate. at that point, they realize that it's cheaper to get heroin and easier to get heroin. >> according to the d.e.a., it is often cut with if he didn't knoll used to treat pain often for cancer. >> if he didn't necessarily is so potent that very small quantities of needed for the same high. they have use fentanyl to

improve the potency of their product that they're selling. >> how much more potent would it be? >> it's on the order of 20 times more potent than heroin. >> sarah hoye, al jazeera. >> you can watch america tonight weeknights at 10:00 eastern. >> contaminated rivers reopen in colorado, but there are fears the water may still hold dangers from the toxic mine spill. >> an active duty soldiers move to the front line to help combat 100 wildfires burning across the western u.s.

>> welcome to al jazeera america. it's about a quarter until eight in the east. we'll take a look at the top stories. two female soldiers will become the first women to ever graduate from the u.s. army's elite ranger school. the army said they will complete training on friday. ranger training is considered some of the toughest in the military. under current rules, the women will not be allowed to take combat positions. >> a new report condemns california police with how they ended a standoff with a bank robber. two suspects and a hostage died after a long car chase. the report found officers went too far, firing 600 shots at the

suspect's car. >> royal dutch shell received final permission to drill for oil off alaska's northwest coast. it's the first time federal regulator's approved drilling in more than two decades. environmental groups worry about the potential for a spill. >> it has been two weeks since contractors accidentally spilled 3 million gallons of toxic waste water into a colorado river. the water quality is back to normal, but residents are not so sure. we have today's environmental impact report from durango, colorado. >> if you pulled up in a tour bus having never been here before and knowing nothing about its recent history, you would think there wasn't anything that had gone wrong here, much less that this stuff had washed down this river two weeks ago, lead, cadmium, other waste minerals that come out of the mines that

are just 60 miles upstream. was scientists now are grappling with what exactly has happened here. it seems as if the worst of it, the surge has moved through. the question now is what are the long term affect? nobody likes to pay for monitoring. there is no front line agency that can tell you with a sudden blinking red light that the water here is toxic or is in any way dangerous. instead, it is the long term effects that people get to look at most closely. the hope here is perhaps that this will draw attention to the need for better on going monitoring. >> in one respect, this spill was a good thing our water quality has been going down because of leeching and we haven't had action. i hope to that starts to addressing it more. >> fishing is one of the economic main stays of this

place. they talk about what it is to think about the mines to are both up stream and downstream from here. documents dating back into the 1980's and 1990's talk about 300 gallons a minute coming out of these mines carrying terrible stuff with them. the problem is you cannot go in as a community and begin cleaning it up. doing so takes on a liability that very few of willing to entertain. as a result, it falls to the government agencies to deal with it, the e.p.a. and that is where we arrive here. the complication is this is a community that has wanted to do something for a long time but found there has not been the administrative tools or scientific resources to really get this exactly to the place that people would like it to be. >> reporting from durango, colorado. >> active military troops are joining crews to battle more than 100 wildfires in the west.

calm you are winds in idaho are clothing one fire along the ruer going border. the fire is 90% contained after burning more than 400 square miles. >> we've got a lot of firefighters there ready to respond. we've got the helicopters standing by, so we are confident that the lines are going to hold, but we want to wait and see what happens. scoop 30,000 firefighters are battling wildfires that stretch from california to colorado and into the northwest. >> claims of an unfulfilled promise. why these college graduates say the federal government is dragging its feet in helping them pay off their student loans.

eggs. >> earlier this year, the obama administration launched a program zoned to help some students who attended for-profit colleges. many carried a huge loan debt and said the education received was worthless. we met students who say they are still waiting for that relief. >> time is running out for pam hunt. the bank foreclosed on her landlord and served her with a notice to vacate the house she's rented for 10 years for her and her six children, including her special needs son. >> they said he would not survive past a year around he's 19 now, so -- and that's because

i chose to keep him home all these years. >> she may have no choice but to send him to a nursing home, because hunt can't find anyone willing to rent to her. >> i have a job. i have income. >> but she is in a deep financial hole, one that started with nearly $100,000 in student loans for a bachelors in human services that landed her only low paying secretarial work, treading water, hunt took on an additional $64,000 in student loans to earn a masters in criminal justice, thinking it would launch her into a better paying, more stable career, a sound plan, except her choice of school. >> hunt earned her masters from an everest college. part of the defunct for profit college chain corinthian, whose campuses were shut down after

hit with a slew of lawsuits, including the chain of predatory lending and a $30 million federal fine for lying about job placement rates. hunt's fighting back. this spring, she joined a group of former students who were refusing to pay back their federal loans. june 8, the department of education took some action, launching a program that laws students who believe they were fee fraud by a for-profit college to apply for loan forgiveness. >> is that a victory for you? >> actually, it's not. >> that's because even though hunt submitted her application more than two months ago, all she's received so far is a generic email receipt. >> do you think they get the sense of urgency? >> i don't believe they do get the sense of urgency, because if they did, object june 10, it would have said your debt is clear. >> she recognize not alone. the department of education told al jazeera it has not yet

established a process for reviewing claims like hunt's. >> i don't see what's taking so long. >> ann larson helped otherwise the student debt strike. >> the secretary of education ernie duncan could cancel all of this debt with the stroke of a pin. we provided an order for debt cancellation on our website that was designed by lawyers. >> we asked the department of education for an interview, but our request was declined. >> i don't think the department of education appreciates the gravity of the situation. pam is just one person, but in fact, what's happening to her is happening to thousands of others. >> it's very, very heartbreaking. it is. and to know that taking that amount of money off of my student loan, and having my debt to income ratio shrink tremendously, it would help me out, because i would be able to do what any american should be able to do, have a place to

live. >> patricia sabga, al jazeera, connecticut. >> a number of current and former football players will keep fighting despite losing an effort to unionize. a request was denied by northwestern university players who said they were employees and wanted more bargaining power over scholarships and medical benefits. northwestern calmed it the right decision. >> thank you for joining us this morning opinion al jazeera. hope you have a great day. do keep it here. stephanie sy is back in two minutes with more on a aljazeera america morning news. >> we're here to fully get into the nuances of everything that's going on, not just in this country,

but around the world. getting the news from the people who are affected. >> people need to demand reform... >> ali velshi on target weeknights 10:30p et

>> a second explosion rocks bangkok less than 24 hours after a bomb went off at a popular sideline. the man in this surveillance video is the bomber. >> crews find a missing crimean airplane and recover the bodies of everyone onboard. what officials are learning about the crash. >> addressing heroin diction with treatment instead of jail time, is the white house pilot program going in the right direction?

this is aljazeera america live from new york city, i'm stephanie sy. >> another explosion rocked thailand today, going off at a train station, sending people running. no one was hurt. it happened hours after a bombing killed people at a shrine on monday. police are zeroing in on a man they say is responsible. he is seen here in a surveillance video. we are live in bake cock. what details are being given about the bomber? >> the first official comment about this security camera footage came earlier on tuesday from the prime minister, and he had seen the footage. he said that the man in it wearing a yellow shirt appeared to be a suspect in the attack on the shrine, but he said that they couldn't say anything

further, because further investigations needed to take place. in the last hours, a spokesman for the thai police has said that he is no longer a suspect, the man in the video, that he appears to be the bomber. so clearly, there is a process still to go through, clearly there is a search now underway for this man and they really haven't released further details about him. there was a suggestion earlier on in the piece that this man may be a foreigner, but as far as any official comment now, they seem to be backing away from that assertion that he is a foreigner, but clearly a search now underway for this man dressed in yellow. >> government officials call this the work attack there in recent memory. do they have any idea on a possible motive. >> well, not that they're saying. they certainly have dropped hint in some of the official speeches from people like the prime minister where they have talked about the fact that this could

be politically motivated, but certainly not going any further than that. they are leaving it open to the possibility that this could be from another group, perhaps a group outside of thailand, but there is certainly that assertion that this could be politically motivated, but clearly, this was an attack that was designed to cripple or severely affect anyway, thailand's economy, particularly tourism. this is a busy part of bangkok where the bomb exploded. also the second bomb later this afternoon that you mentioned is also to very busy part of town, very popular with tourists. it was designed according to the government to affect tourism and therefore affect thailand's economy. >> what are you seeing as increased security in the area, what is the atmosphere there like in the capital? >> well clearly early on tuesday in the hours after that explosion at the sideline, there was still a very heavy police and military presence around that area.

they had it cordoned off for half of the day as they continue to look through the debris for any clues as to who might be behind this attack. that area has largely been cleaned up now, the roads are back open and there really isn't much sign of an increased security presence. i think as the day waters on, you may see that start to evolve in areas like shopping malls, perhaps a security presence. as night has fallen and we are now 24 hours after a explosion at the sideline, it is a very quiet scene in some of those parts of bangkok and shopping malls and on the streets around that area. it does seem to be a lot quieter than usual. >> wayne haye reporting, thank you. >> all the bodies from a plane that crashed on sunday were found. the plane went down in bad weather in papua.

>> they found the plane totally destroyed, most of it burns, because it crashed against the mountain and they found 54 bodies, he many of them in very bad shape. the rescue workers are now trying to lift the bodies to a different area one by one by helicopter which will be quite a lagging task and something that needs to be noted is that nine passengers of the 54 that were onboard were actually not on the passenger manifest. that's something also that happens a lot in indonesia, where the manifests can change at the last minute, so it's not clear who were actually onboard. the cause of the crash is still not known. there is a lot of speculation of it might have been very bad weather. the weather in papua is very

bad. the international aviation organization has put out a very damaging report about indonesia safety, saying that it lacked on most points and especially on the organization of their staff to actually keep up with this very booming and rapidly growing aviation industry. >> reporting from jakarta, thank you. >> thunderstorms in china halted recovery efforts from last week's explosions at a warehouse. residents, firefighters and police held a moment of silence today. more than 100 were killed, many more were badly wounded. 57 people, including 52 firefighters are still missing. experts say the rain may spread chemicals exposed in the blast, leading potentially to dangerous

chemical reactions. china stock markets are falling again today, both exchanges closed down more than 6% amid fears over the government's move to devalue china's currency, what it means for the u.s. and world economy later this hour. >> presidential candidates will each get 20 minutes at the iowa state fair to address fair goers. the obama administration is expected to propose federal regulation to cut methane emissions within 10 years. >> chelsea manning faces a hearing today, the former soldier and convicted national security leaker will be in court for prison infractions that could lead to solitary confinement. >> the u.s. military is making plans to increase its use of drones around the world. the pentagon wants to boost intelligence flights by 50%, and it won't just be the air force

at the controls. jami macintyre reports from the pentagon. >> drones or known at the pentagon, remotely piloted vehicles are becoming the weapon of choice for u.s. commanders around the world. take syria, the u.s. central command routinely releases cockpit votes of strikes against isil in syria but what it doesn't routinely says is those cockpit votes often have no one in the cockpit. drones are the weapons of choice in syria because of syria's active air defenses. the drones don't just attack. they also provide spy functions, what's called in the pentagon i.s.o. or intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance mission and what nato's top commander was here earlier this year, he said the competition among u.s. commanders around the world was fierce for those unblinking eyes in the sky. >> i.s.r. is always short.

yes, i could use more, but i understand the calculus by which it has been apportioned at the way it's been apportioned right now. >> the u.s. air force conducts the bulk of drone missions around the world right now. right now it's capable of flying about 60 to 65 drones every day on missions for commanders. the pentagon would like to increase the flights by about a third, increasing it to about 90-100 flights a year. they would do that by keeping the air force flying about 60 drone flights, adding 10-20 flown by the u.s. army, another 10 by special operations forces and then 10 more that would be unmanned flown by contractors. that would require training more drone pilots and building more drones, but drones are a bargain compared to expensive manned aircraft. the mq9 reaper for instance, costs $40 million, if you include a ground station, where as the new f35 stealth fighter,

$144 million. it's one of the things that programmed the navy secretary to say earlier this year that as much as he likes the f35, he said the f35 should be and almost certainly will be the last manned fighter aircraft the department of the navy will ever buy, an indication that the pentagon believes that drones are going to be the combat aircraft of the future. >> jami macintyre, reporting from the pentagon. >> a story we first brought you yesterday, two female soldiers will graduate from the u.s. army elite rangers he unit on friday. it is considered the toughest in the military. 17 other women who started the program failed out at various stages. >> active military troops are joining crews to battle more than 100 wildfires in the west. crews in idaho say calmer winds are helping slow at least one

fire along the oregon border. the soda fire is 90% contained after burning more than 400 square miles. strong winds and dry conditions are creating dangerous conditions for firefighters battling other fires. john terrett reports. >> mother nature's worst. >> across four western states, a trail of destruction, raging wildfires devouring everything in their path. for the first time in 10 years, active military will be set to help find the blazes. help can't come too sob. across in washington state are stretched to the limit. >> we don't have enough resources to put this huge containment line around all this fire. they have to prioritize what's near structures. >> the flames are not only decimating the state's tourist and apple industries, but reduced homes to ash. >> it hurts. i'll never get that stuff back. memorabilia and everything.

we'll pull through this, you know? >> six fires in a popular resort town destroyed more than 50 houses, 100,000-acres of brush and sparked an evaluation order for more than 2700 people. >> it was a panic zone, but still, we had enough time, people coming up and just telling us hey, man, let's head your way, get out, don't act like you can stay. >> fires along the border around faring better. rings around the mountains can be seen from miles away. in drought describingen california, 13,000 firefighters are taking on 19 wildfires alone. crews depend heavily on air support, including this super scooper plane, landing and filling just feet from tourists. across the country, almost 7 million-acres have burned in wildfires this year, more than the previous two years combined

over the same period. it all adds up to over $100 million a week according to the u.s. forest service, which will burn through its blaze battling budget within a week. >> our state resources are stretched so thin, so it was up to us to defend our property. that's what people do. they come together and help you defend what's yours. >> al jazeera. >> on the tech beat, the number of people affected by an i.r.s. computer breach is three times higher than previously reported. the agency says at least 334,000 people had information stolen using an on line tool, the breach was part of a scheme to use stolen identities to claim fraudulent tax refunds. russian cyber criminals are suspected as being responsible. >> final results are not out in an election that could affect

countries word wide. the former president could strengthen sri lanka's ties to china at the expense of india ant u.s. we are live in colombo. good morning. the prime minister is not waiting for the final election tally to claim victory. >> that's right. we saw a statement from him issued earlier today, which talked about the fact that this result in the parliamentary elections, being very much consolidation of the victory, the sort of revolution brought in by the ruling party, displacing the former president in january this year, so he is very confident that in counties centers around the country, each party has representatives catch watching the vote count. word gets out unofficially to party headquarters and they do get aningling of the way the

vote is going, even though the official result hasn't come out yet. >> how significant would it be if the prime minister did beat the powerful expresident? >> >> it would be essentially sort of the beginning of the end of an era. more than 10 years in office at executive president of this country, until he was defeated by the sort of coalition. we've had the party of the former president being in control of parliament, the presidency and essentially the foreign minister not doing so well on the political front. he has served at prime minister on that two previous occasions. however, his party's fortune had been in sort of nose dive until we saw a reversal in january this year, and now consolidated

by these results that we're hearing. >> what drove these results? >> i didn't quite hear you. >> what sort of issues, what sort of issues drove these results, if indeed the prime minister has defeated the long time strong man of sri lanka? >> from what we're hearing, we spent pretty much the entire day outside the polling stations yesterday. we did hear a mixed bag of views from people, but what seems to have swung the balance is that six years after successfully bringing an end to a brutal conflict that waged in sri lanka for almost 30 years, the former president had begun to behave in terms of an authoritative manager. they found that he had allowed

corruption to spiral out of control. there were allegations of. they fix, of very heavy-handed behavior and this went against him. even the president addressed the nation, as well as a letter to him in the last few days, had said that it is the fanning of his flames that went against him and allowed his defeat in january this year. these all points and resulting in the former president, who had been on a pedestrian stoll, essentially now facing defeat. >> reporting from colombo, thank you so much. >> treatment versus prosecution. we'll look at the new federal plan to deal with a surge in heroin use in deaths. >> most of south louisiana is all sediment, plant growth and decay... there's always a risk of flooding. >> now, new cutting edge technology that could help prevent future disasters...

>> the system has really evolved. >> and what it means for new orleans. >> our big take away is new orleans is on a good track, but the job is not done here. >> techknow investigates 10 years after katrina.

>> the state department says 300

of former secretary of state hillary clinton emails may have contained classified information. the f.b.i. is investigating her use of a private email server to see if classified information was mishandled. clinton said on monday that this will all sort itself out. >> a nuclear site in south carolina is up and running again today after a scare on monday. the site was shut down when a bomb-sniffing dog stopped a delivery truck but it was a false alarm. >> the f.d.a. is expected to decide whether to give final approval to a drug treating female desire. it has been called female viagra and helps females with low sex drive. approval was suggested over the summer. it has been rejected twice before. >> as heroin deaths and overdoses soar, the white house

announces a new initiative to shift the focus for treatment over punishment. tom ackermann reports on the problem. >> nowhere in the u.s. is the drug problem more severe than in the state of massachusetts. >> open yes, i do abuse is stealing our family and friends one person at a time. people call it a playing. >> since seventh grade, i started smoking weed, drinking all the time. by 10th grade, i'm doing heroin. >> state officials say they are giving priority to the problem, but after filling prisons, they are shift to go different approach. >> we are not going to arrest or incarcerate our way and you have this. this is a disease. this is a public health crise

and we must treat it and address it as much. >> in gloucester, the police chief promises any addict who turns in his drugs immediate treatment and without punishment. >> we don't believe in hiding it. we believe the more we reduce the stigma, the more we get people involved, the less problem we're going to have. >> in three months, more than 100 people in the small town have taken up the amnesty offer. massachusetts is also one of 25 states which authorizes emergency first responders to prevent addict deaths administering in a locks sewn, also known acinar can, reverses the effects of heroin within minutes. >> it's completely benign. the only function is to reverse narcotic overdose. local initiatives are encouraged

by that the obama administration, but so far, washington has been slow to back them up with money. >> the administration wants more money, congress is saying we're going to live within some caps, so if we don't get this resolved, we're going to see more people dying, more struggling with addiction, more getting hepatitis c. >> america has a way to go before admitting its bigger drug problem is one of demand, not supply. >> joining us now is dan big, the director of the chicago recovery alliance, joining us via skype. thank you for your time. >> my pleasure. >> how big of a heroin problem do you see in chicago? >> i think most would say the entire country is facing an opioid problem, not just heroin, but pharmaceutical opioids. it's been doubling, tripling, quadrupling over the years.

mostly opioid overdose is the biggest leading cause of accidental deaths among duties in the united states. >> is the white house siding with those that believe that treatment is preferable to punishment in addressing the problem and do you agree? >> well, actually, i was thinking more like rodney dangerfield works in the white house, because it was a joke that the first way to deal with drugs as a public health issue is to hire more policemen. police enforce the law and lock people up. that's what they do. i heard an officer on your show a seconding a say that he is into getting people treatment with seized drug money. you know, we need to separate ourselves from the um bill da of i will lit sit drug use and decriminalize drugs. there's no reason a non-violent

drug offender should be incarcerated for any reason. >> this program hires 15 health policy analyst to work with 15 officers, the idea of the program that they would work together to find the source of these drugs. can you expand on what you mean by decriminalization and how that would help the problem with heroin use in this country. >> just to explain what you said, when you hire someone and their goal is to find the drug, that's called interdiction, law enforcement. that's what we do now, been doing for 40 years to great negative effect. that's not new. saying health person to track the drugs is like saying canine to track the drugs. you are not running a dog school. you're actually using the dogs to find the drugs, in this case, they're two legged. the point is that it may -- i

can't interpret that as really part of a change. i can interpret that as understanding there's a need for a change, and i'm very hopeful of that, but there's some wickedly good changes the white house can make. >> what do you think would be a change that you would favor? >> well, first of all, why don't we take the treatment that has demonstrated itself over 50 years to be one of the most effective treatments in all of medicine for opioid democrats called methadone treatment and allow private physicians to do it out of their offices instead of ghettoizing it in clinics which makes it vastly unavailable. in chicago, 80% of the demand for methadone treatment is unmelt. >> the methadone issue is controversial, because some say that sort of gives in, that it is basically a substitute for opioid use. when it comes to preventing

there being new heroin users, what do you think the treatment is? >> as i said, methadone treatment. methadone treatment is the gold settled of treatment for people who are opioid dependent on form suit kells of any kind, opioids, on heroin, anything. it gives people back their lives and it sustains the dependence but gets rid of the addiction, the craziness. >> that didn't really answer my question about new heroin users, but thank you for your time this morning. i appreciate it. >> all righty. >> coming up next, two weeks after a toxic spill in colorado, there are still questions about the quality of the water. >> race relations, the black lives matter movement challenges the candidates, including those on the left.

>> every's thanking white people for voting for a black person! white people are constantly getting pats on the back. patted on the back, thank you iowa for voting for a black person. for me, when i hear that, it's kind of a turn off. ok? because he -- >> i tried to ask sanders about the criticism. he said the country has to create the institutionation and he will address the issue. >> sanders has terrorized to

address the issue. he recently issued a paper on race and inequality. though it may not yet be enough for kaya, the workers like her have begun to matter, at least to the one candidate they have tried to reach. >> federal regulators have given royal dutch shell the final approval to drill for oil in the arctic ocean. shell can start drilling off alaska's northwest coast for the first time in more than two decades. environmental groups oppose the drilling, fearing potential spills, they have tried to block the probable for months. >> it has now been two weeks since contractors accidentally spilled 3 million gallons of toxic waste into colorado's animas river. the government says the water quality is back to normal, but some are not sure. >> if you were to pull up in a

tour bus having never been to this place before and knowing nothing about it's recent history, you would walk up and think there wasn't anything that had gone wrong here in the last couple weeks, much less that this stuff washed down this river two weeks ago, a mix of lead, cadmium, other waste minerals that come out of the mines that are just 60 miles upstream. what scientists now are grappling with what exactly has happened here. it seems as if the worst of it, the surge has moved through. the question now is what are the long term affect? nobody likes to pay for monitoring. there is no front line agency that can tell you with a sudden blinking red light that the water here is toxic or is in any way dangerous. instead, it is the long-term effects that people get to look at most closely. the hope here is perhaps that this will draw attention to the need for better on going monitoring. >> in one respect, this spill

was a good thing, and that was that our water quality has been going down and we haven't had action. i hope to that starts to addressing it more. >> fishing is one of the economic mainstays of this place. they talk about what it is to think about the mines that are both upstream and downstream from here. documents dating back into the 1980's and 1990's talk about 300 gallons a minute coming out of these mines carrying terrible stuff with them. the problem is you cannot go in as a community and begin cleaning it up. doing so takes on a liability that very few people are willing to entertain. as a result, it falls to the government agencies to deal with it, the e.p.a. and that is where we arrive here. the complication is this is a community that has wanted to do something for a long time but

found there have not been the administrative tools or scientific resources to really get this exactly to the place that people would like it to be. >> reporting from durango, colorado. >> it has been 10 years since hurricane katrina tore through louisiana and new orleans is still struggling with some of the problems it caused. the mayor said the city still has a long way to go. >> 10 years after ka katrina, yu hear that new orleans has come back. >> we suffered after september 11, because we had a tourism economy, so our economic health after september 11 was terrible for three years. it took us three years to get back up. literally when we got to where we thought we needed to be, we got hit by more hurricanes, the recession and the b.p. oil spill. i think people have unreasonable expectations. they think they are going to walk into the land which oz

where everything is perfect and somehow new orleans in 10 years was going to solve 40 or 50 years of problems happening in major american cities across the country. i equal fight it saying we have completely turned our receivers around, heading in the right direction. we've done the hard work of recreating the deep institutional challenges that we had in health care and education. now we've got to get about the work of making sure that nobody gets left behind. >> you can see more of the interview tonight at 8:00 eastern. >> the c.e.o. of amazon is defending his company after a scathing report detailing its corporate culture. "the new york times" interviewed 100 current and former employees. it does annual rounds of firings and pressure to perform is so intense, one worker traveled on business after a miscarriage. employees use we're reviews to discredit coworkers. the c.e.o. sent a memo to amazon

employees saying the article doesn't describe the ma'am don i know or the caring employees i work with every day. our tolerance for lack of empathy needs to be zero. >> the nlrb rules against college football players, but the fight is not over. >> safety concerns after the mound after another pro pitcher is hit in the head by a baseball.

>> a new report condemns the stock to know california police for how they ended a standoff with bank robbers last summer. two suspects and a hostage died after a long car.

>> military officials plan to increase the number of intelligence flights by 50% over the next four years. the pentagon will increase its use of drones for airstrikes. >> two female soldiers will become the first women to graduate from the u.s. army's elite rangers unit. the women will complete their training program on a friday. ranger training is considered some of the toughest in the military. the women will not be allowed to take some bat conditions. >> a number of college football players vow to keep fighting after losing the fight to unionize. >> northwestern football players had said joining the college athletes players association would give them more bargaining power over scholarships and medical benefits.

>> kain colter who led the fight to unionize tweeted disappointed by the nlrb ruling but can't deny the positive changes that were brought about by athletes standing up, proud of those guys oh. northwestern said it was pleased with the decision, saying we applaud our players for bringing national attention to these important issues, but we believe strongly that unionization and collective bargaining are not the appropriate methods to address the concerns raised by student athletes. the players petitioned last year

but the university argue that had scholarship players are not employees and therefore could not otherwise. a regional nlrb director said they were employees and gave the go ahead for an election in the spring. players cast ballots, but the votes were locked away for more than a year, pending a review by the full board. although the nlrb denied the wild cats petition, it didn't determine whether the scholarship athletes are employees. sports attorney said that might mean a larger group might have better luck organizing. >> from a logical standpoint, it would be more like all football players in a conference or maybe all football players in division 1ncaa level, now there's a lot of legal reasons why some of that could be messy, some states have labor laws. >> the attorney said she shined

a light on what he considered rigged ncaa rules. the association said this ruling allows us to continue to make progress for the college athletes without risking the instability to college sports that the nlrb recognized might occur under the labor petition. al jazeera, chicago. >> new york yankees pitcher became the latest to get hit in the head with a line drive. he has a fractured nose but appears to have escaped otherwise any more serious injury. we've all seen this on television. it is always a scary sight. >> in baseball, they call a pitch ball hit back at the pitcher a comebacker. that's an innocent name for a phenomenon that can have devastating consequences. the game of baseball has struggled to pike mitching a safer enterprise. >> the play that catcher brian

mccann said made him sick to his stomach happened in the second inning. edwin nunez's 103-mile per hour line erik sheas off the head of brian mitchell. a doctor diagnosed him with a small anyways sal fracture, but no other serious damage. after the game, manager joe gerardi said it seems like your heart just drops into your stomach and you're scared for the kid and you see blood coming out. he is the third pitcher to take a bomb to the head, an occupational hazard going back to baseball's earliest days and hasn't changed much even as hockey and football have managed to convince their players to protect themselves with head gear and other safety innovations. while these incidents are allow in frequency, they can be devastating. come backers ended the careers

of pitchers. mccartney needed surgery to relieve pretty sure on his game. aroldis chapman needed gruesome staples. reliever alex torres was an early adapter, but not many followed sued, kiting the hats unsiteliness. >> two fans have been hit this season and suffered serious injuries and in kansas early they are month, a 9-year-old batboy died when he accidentally got hit in the head by a batter taking a practice swing. >> thank you. >> coming up in just two minutes from doha, the latest on the search for the bomber in the bangkok attack that killed 20. that's it for us here in new york. have a great morning.

>> the lifeline of the american west. >> what does this river mean to you? >> the river, to me, means homeland. >> in danger of running dry. >> there'll come a time when we fight over every last drop of water in the river. >> where's the water going? >> i worry about the future generations - what are they going to have? >> faultlines investigates the shrinking colorado river. >> no group of people can have their american dream... we have to pay that price.

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