access, more conversations. so you don't just stay on top of the news, go deeper and get more perspectives on every issue. al jazeera america. good evening. this is and welcome back to al jazeera america live from new york. good evening, everyone. i'm adam

faculty brought here to reunite families. seen a lot of very sad scenes here. obviously people not hearing what they hoped to hear and leaving in tears in the arms of their loved ones. a chaotic scene on campus this morning as you can imagine just after 10:30 in the morning. police reporting single shooting opening fire in a classroom and then either being shot or shooting himself. we don't know but engaging in a shootout with police. the current president of the

umpqua community college described that scene and the response this morning. >> a plan in place for campus violence and we went into lockdown immediately and people did exactly what they were supposed to do and pulled in people who were outside and sheltered them. so, adam, as you see, they've been told there was a quick and tremendous response from police here. that they were on the scene four to five after the very first reports of the shooting came in. we also want to go to a little piece of comment that we have from somebody who was very close to where that shooting happened. this is allie who was on the scene this morning. >> i looked out the window and there were a couple of girls sprinting from the building and then i hear screaming after the first gunshot and i looked out and saw the people running and i

said to the teacher we need to get out of here right now. >> we talked to another young lady a couple of hours ago with a red cross towel wrapped around her who said she heard shots, wondered if it was one of those things that you see in other places in the country and then heard more and more shots and realized that things were very bad indeed. she and the classroom that she in did empty and they were able to safely get out of the building. we also have a comment from one of the doctors tea at one of the hospitals in the area treating the people who are injured. the doctor from the eugene springfield area hospital where the more severely injured were taken. >> three are admitted. two of them went directly to the operating room. one of them is still being worked up with further diagnostics. we called in multiple extra resources, surgeons, emergency physicians, nursing and others.

>> we understand that the governor of oregon, kate brown, has now ordered flags on public buildings to be flown at half staff in honor of the victims. again, the latest word we voir dire from the sheriff here, ten fatalities in the shooting in roseburg. >> all right. we'll check back in with you later live on the scene there where families are meeting trying to get word on their children. kristen brady is joining us now on the phone. she's a student at that college. kristen actually heard the gunshots fired. kristen, where were you when the shooting broke out? what did you hear and how did you first realize something was horribly wrong? >> i was over by my car. i had just walked over there with my friend, liz. she and i were going there. i was personally going there to get -- put my books away and then she was going to be leaving

i guess for the day. we first heard a pop, pop, pop sound and we thought possibly it was an engine backfiring. and so an administrator told us there's an active shooter on the school, get in your car. and we both got in our cars. my friend elizabeth drove away immediately and i unfortunately panicked and crashed down in my car not quite sure what to do. >> wow. why did you crouch down in your car and not try to get out of there as quickly as possible? what was going through your mind at that point, kristen? >> well, my first thought was i was afraid if i did drive away and the shooter could possibly shoot me in my car as i'm driving away. >> were you hiding? >> so i tried to lower -- huh? >> were you crouched down trying

to hide in your vehicle? >> yes, at first. and then i realized that possibly the students in the science building that i had just left may not know a thing about what's going on and as i was worrying about this, i saw a student leaving the science building with ear buds in her ears and texting on her phone. i made a choice to go ahead and jump, you know, get out of my car and run towards her and i yelled at her there's a shooting get in the building. and we both ran to the side of the building where the teachers offices are and as we ran i saw dr. richard, the director of the science department and on her face i could almost tell that she wasn't quite sure what was going on. so i yelled at my director of

science and told her there's a shooter, there's a shooter, get in the building. and my anatomy and physiology teacher opened the door for us to get in the building. his name is dr. champion. he's a very sweet gentleman. >> what happened once you got inside the building then? how many people were there gathered together and how were you trying to get information? >> well, the first thing we did is we got into the center of the building, the science building. and in the center of the science building is all the materials that each of the teachers need for their classes. so, you know, there's a lot of chemical items, there's a lot of various different microbe items

and they have to keep that safe from causing -- if there is a problem causing a fire amongst the rest of the science building. so it's fire proof and might also possibly be bullet proof. so the teachers rushed us into that room. >> wow. >> and they just told us, you know what, this is possibly the best room to be in right now. you are completely protected. don't even worry about it. and it was actually very reassuring to hear that. >> how long were you in there? >> we would be fine. >> i would say we were about, like, 45 minutes to an hour in there. >> and how did you know it was safe to leave? >> the police came to the science building were giving us instructions of what we needed to do. and they guided us out of the science building to the library where we would get patted down. >> gosh. i can't imagine what it was like

to be involved in something like this. you're a college student. you're there for an education. you've seen this play out and now now there are cities and states across this country and suddenly you're in the middle of it. have you made sense of this yet? >> not yet. it's completely -- i haven't even had a moment to even really think about it yet. i know that there was a lot of students that were very much worried about their siblings and their friends. i was worried about my friends. >> have you heard from all of your friends? do you know that all of your friends are safe, or are you concerned that someone you know, someone you sat next to in a class may be among the dead? >> i know all of my friends have confirmed that they're okay and they're safe. i have a couple of classmates that i'm actually kind of worried about that they may have been in the snyder building when this was going on. >> kristen, i hope you get good

news and find out that all of your friends are safe. thank you for taking time to speak to us. wow. kristen brady who helped another student learn about this, another faculty member and got to safety. kristen, thanks. we're getting also some information from audio recordingals that came from the local police department that give us a little bit of a picture of what happened and the emergency response. let's take a listen. >> this is going to be the snyder hall. somebody is outside one of the doors shooting through the door. there's a female in the computer lab. we do have one female that has been shot at this time. >> next to the library, there are about 35 people in the hall piled in the campus center is on lockdown. >> you know that call definitely put police into action. later this evening, an angry and emotional president obama spoke about the mass shooting. we he went beyond today's

tragedy saying that there must be commonsense approaches to gun control. >> as i said just a few months ago and i said a few months before that and i said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough it's not enough. it does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. and it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted some place else in america. next week or a couple of months from now. we don't yet know why this individual did what he did. and it's fair to say that

anybody who does this has a sickness in their minds. regardless of what they think their motivations may be. we talked about this after columbine and blacksburg, after tucson, after newtown, after aurora after charleston. it cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun. >> let's bring in senior washington correspondent, mike pacerra. what did you think about the president's speech this time? >> after each shooting, i think the president's statements get progressively more visceral and more emotional. after the charleston shooting

this summer, the president gave an interview and said his inability to move gun control legislation is one of the most frustrating things he'd had to deal with in office. many thought the tragedy in newtown would be the thing that finally brought congress again. but, again, the background checks, gun show loophole, assault weapons ban, all of those things that have been on the table since many of those provisions in 2004 were unable to pass. the effort collapsed then. the president made reference to the fact that after each shooting in newtown, tucson, charleston, he has come out and gives a routine statement. he said the reporting on it is routine. he said that people have become numb to it and he once again

asked americans to vote on the basis of this issue which obviously has not been done. this is a recurring theme of the president. so the president implicitly admitting once again there's very little he can do politically to push this through congress even as progress is made for gun control advocates at the local level. at the federal level it's still a third rail. it's not moving through a congress right now that's controlled by republicans, the house and senate. and the frustration that the president feels after each incident quite evident this evening. >> one thing is how quickly this issue of gun control has come up. on that issue, we have learned tonight that the sheriff handling the mass shooting in oregon has expressed strong opposition to gun control in the past. sheriff john hanlin joined hundreds of other sheriffs writing letters to vice president joe biden writing gun control is not the answer to preventing heinous crimes like

school shootings and we want on to say that politicians were exploiting the deaths of victims. it was recently ranked a d plus. that from the law center to prevent gun violence. while a permit is required to carry a handgun, there is no handgun license in oregon. buyers do not need a permit to purchase a gun and they don't have to register them either. let's bring into the conversation here a former new york city police officer, a professor now. darren, let's begin by opening this conversation with the speed at which people are starting to talk about the politics behind some of this. it is different compared to some of the other mass shootings that we've seen so far, isn't it? >> it is. often times you hear this argument of gun control. the second amendment is something that's guaranteed through the constitution. however, states and

municipalities control gun control on the local level. as you see what the sheriff stated, he felt that gun control wasn't an issue. unfortunately he may have to regress on this and look at it more carefully. >> as a former police officer, i know that this divides the law enforce president community. while the sheriff did join in on this conversation in this letter with hundreds of other law enforcement officers, there's other law enforcement officers that believe that they do need to have stronger gun control and have called for commonsense gun control as well. explain to me the divide among police officers and police departments on this issue, whether or not gun control can actually make a difference and stop some of these. >> when we look at this situation, gun control is only one component. there are three key components that i would look at. one, the employees, the faculty

members and the student should all be debriefed and a question should be asked that is what is it that you want moving forward. those suggestions should be taken into consideration. secondly, there's not a one stick solution in terms of gun control or what happened in oregon. oregon, one of the things that they do is they conduct a background investigation and look at psychological issues. however, the problem with that is that psychological investigation only focuses on hospitals, not on your providers such as a psychiatrist or psychologist that lives in your neighborhood. those things would come up in the background investigation. secondly, we look at this as a school. generally, all schools in the country fall under something referred to as the clary report which just details the violence in all schools. so when you look at the active shooter protocols, this is something that's focused on, what's happened in the past. so when we think about gun control we have to pair it up with those three issues i just mentioned and that's how you gain your active shooter protocol.

you have the sheriff like i mentioned in the past he felt he was uncomfortable with gun control being the point but he may have to regress and look at this differently. >> it will be interesting. we've seen that in the past with other officials. you see the carnage and begin looking deeper. all right, darren, thank you so much. we're going the continue to follow the events of oregon throughout the hour but there is some other major news we need to talk about on the foreign policy front. how the u.s. is dealing with russian air strikes inside syria. the strategy to beat isil. and the sound of silence. very dramatic. why israel's prime minister stopped talking mid speech at the u.n. today.

mid

>> we're keeping a very close eye on the developments out in oregon. we'll bring you new information as soon as we get it.

but first, russian war planes carried out another round of air strikes in syria today. moscow says that they're still taking aim at isil but critics say the real targets are rebel groups fighting the assad regime including at least one backed by the u.s. tensions over the strikes are really complicating the military talks between the u.s. and russia. let's go to jamie mcen tire at the pentagon. >>reporter: about 50 russian war planes carried out 30 strikes today returning safely to their base in syria. it appears they may have struck one isil strong hold but for the most part it appears once again for a second day the russian effort was mainly directed at areas of syria where isil isn't. russia launched the latest

strikes with various ideologies including a coalition of fighters who oppose isil including the nusra front. russia's foreign minister insisted moscow and washington are fighting a common enemy, targeting terrorists. >> if it looks acts walks and fights like a terrorist, it's a terrorist; right? i will recall that we always were saying that we are going to fight isil and other terrorist groups. this is the same position which the americans are taking. the representatives of the coalition command have always been saying that their targets are isil, al nusra, and other terrorist groups. this is basically our position as well. >> the u.s. says it has no evidence russia has struck any isil forces and it conducted its first direct talks with moscow over the process of deconfliction sorting out issues

such as radio frequencies and which language is used in the air. in one sense, the u.s. and russian pilots are already deconflicted with the u.s. flying over areas controlled by isil to the east while so far russian attacks have been in areas not controlled by isil to the west. and the u.s. says despite conducting only a handful of air strikes in syria in recent days, the russian air campaign is having no affect on coalition efforts. >> it's lower than our average but it's only because these are dynamic targeting processes and there simply were no targets. we're continuing our strikes and we have not altered operations in syria to accommodate new players on the battle field. >>reporter: john mccaine argues the deconfliction talks are accomplishing nothing but adding legitimacy to syrian president

bashar al assad's brutalization of his people. he back in may, the defense secretary, ash carter, made clear the u.s. has a responsibility to protect rebel fighters it has trained and sent into battle. >> we definitely have acknowledged that we have an obligation to their safety as well as their effectiveness and we would exercise that. >>reporter: the u.s. did bomb the al nusra front to protect the first group of u.s.-trained fighters but now with russia allegedly targeting u.s.-supported groups, the pentagon won't make the same play. >> they were unique circumstances when that was discussed previously. i'm not going to get into a situation here talking about hypotheticals in terms of what might happen in the future. >>reporter: as for the future, russia is leaving open the door to expanding its air strikes

into neighboring iran. but only if asked. >> we will not invite it or ask and we are polite people as you know. we don't come if not invited. >>reporter: that on a day when iraq's leader expressed dissatisfaction with u.s. air support and seemed to be issuing an invitation. >> if we get an offer we consider it. i would welcome it. >>reporter: and after days of insisting it had not suspended its train and equip program for syrian rebels, the pentagon today admitted that in fact, yes, it has paused the program. it's still training some syrians outside the country but it's not sending anymore in to battle isil in syria until it figures out how to fix the spectacularly unsuccessful program. >> very complicated. i understand there's some breaking news out of the pentagon. a crash of a c-130 transport

plane in afghanistan? what do we know about this? >> we have very little information at this time. this happened several hours ago. a c-130 aircraft with 11 people on board, six crew members on this air force transport plane and five members of the resolute support mission, that's the nato advice and assist mission in afghanistan all perished in the crash. we don't know the conditions. we know it happened just after midnight but we don't know what the weather conditions were and at this point we have no idea whether hostile fire was a factor either. the investigation is underway. >> still ahead at the bottom of the hour, beer going to go back live to oregon. we have more information on that college shooting. plus, use of force, new rules for the new york police department and how to track those incidents.

good evening. we need to update the breaking news out of oregon today that

mass shooting at umpqua community college according to the sheriff, ten people killed, several others injured, three critically. this happened near roseburg, oregon, about 70 miles from eugene. it's a very sflud situation fluid situation. alan, what's the latest there? >> well, i just spoke to a volunteer who's been here all day in the building here working with her therapy dog with families and relatives of the victims and people brought here to the fairground. she tells me that this building is virtually empty now that most people have left and that they were told sometime ago that there are no more buses, no more people coming from that shooting scene. that was what many people had hoped would happen. we have not had that confirmed. no one here has been able to

damp confirm that, but that's what a volunteer on scene has told us. we've also been told it will be 24 to 48 hours before we know the identities of the victims and flatly said we're not talking about the gunman. so we don't expect this evening to hear any of the identities released at least from official sources of the people who were killed, the people who are in hospital, and the person who perpetrated this shooting. >> so there's a lot of information we don't know. who carried out the shooting, who are the victims, what exactly unfolded inside that school besides the fact that there was a confrontation between officers responding to the scene and the gunman. one thing we have learned a little bit more about are the security measures at that campus. what can you tell us about that? >> well, there was some confusion. a past president had reported that traditionally there was just one security guard on re campus at any one time and that guard was unarmed. the current president of the cleanly described a rather different scene today saying

that there were more safety officers who were on campus and that it was a little bit more secure and that they had, had a plan in place for this kind of event or similar events. that campus right now is completely locked down and sealed off. there's really only one road in and it is shut down. lots of investigators still on the scene. we don't really expect to hear what they're finding, what they're doing there for some time. >> all right, alan, thank you very much. reaction to the shootings has been pouring in from across the country from famous names on social media to political candidates to those closest to the tragedy. >> adam, messages of con dole lenses, grief and anger. eric holder now oregon we weep again as a nation is the answer to our gun violence epidemic to do nothing again? come on america, we solve problems. also former florida governor jeb

bush writing prayer for umpqua community college. the victims and families impacted by the senseless tragedy. former congresswoman gabby giffords writes a community's heart has been tested but will not be broken. and oregonians in the area are also posting messages. collin writing waiting for the names of the taken is the hardest. i don't even know what do. police are using #uccshooting for updates and people are using twit tore spread the word about a vigil later tonight. >> joining me is a former new york city police lieutenant.

let's talk about how police respond to these tragedies. columbine was a changing moment for this country. how did it change police officers? >> after aurora initially, with aurora police are the strategy of isolate and contain. however, since aurora police have now moved to a strategy that actively engages an active shooter. >> the movie theater or

columbine? >> the movie theater, aurora that came after columbine. after that police engaged in activity to actively engage an active shooter to prevent people from losing their lives. >> we heard officials there in oregon that the school had actually gone through training drills. they had a drill last week where they teach those in the school what to do. so if a police officer gets the call as what happened here, there is a shooting incident inside the school, what's the first thing they do once they get up to the building? >> all schools have an active shooter protocol. one thing officers need to do is make an assessment as to what's making place. how many people are engaged in active shooting roles and how many victims are on the scene. and then once you gain that information as quickly as possible, you want to radio back for as many people that can assist you as possible. these are very violent instances and so you need the proper fortifications to safely get these people out of the school safely. >> can police officers -- by going in there right away. have we seen that work? >> i believe so. like i mentioned to you in the past, the isolation and containment strategy, have people -- more people are susceptible to losing their life. whereas when officers are actively engaging the shooter, it minimizes the window for the

shooter to kill or injure other people on the scene. >> all right. thank you very much. >> thanks for having me i want to switch gears and talk about what happened here in new york today. israeli prime minister bing minute netanyahu gave a forceful speech to say the least to the u.n. general assembly denouncing the iran nuclear deal and criticized palestinian president mahmoud abbas. >>reporter: he reiterated his country's alliance with the u.s. is unshakeable but that did not stop him from blasting the u.s. nuclear agreement with iran and five other nations. >> after three days of listening to world leaders praise the nuclear deal with iran, i begin my speech today by saying, ladies and gentlemen, check your enthusiasm at the door. >>reporter: vowing not to allow iran into the nuclear weapon's club, netanyahu once again condemned the agreement including the lifting of sanctions that he said could eventually mean billions of unfrozen dollars flowing to

iran. >> you think hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief and fat contracts will turn this rapacious tiger into a kitten? >>reporter: the israeli leader along with u.s. law makers opposed to the deal insisted the agreement which does not entirely dismantle iran's nuclear program would only increase the threats to israel by an atomic iran years down the road. >> that would place a militant islamic terror regime weeks away

from having the material for an entire arsenal of nuclear bombs. >>reporter: netanyahu further -- being silent in the wake of continued threats by tehran to destroy israel. he also stood in silence and stared out at the general assembly for nearly a minute. but his 40-minute speech wasn't reserved just for attacks on iran. netanyahu said he's ready to get back around the negotiating table with palestine wednesday mahmoud abbas threatened to no longer honor agreements from the oslow accords signed over 20 years ago. >> i am prepared to immediately, immediately resume direct peace negotiations with the palestinian authority without any preconditions whatsoever. a tough sell. it continues to construct homes for israelis in the west bank. and remains the controlling authority in the region. >> israel is the country that

re-neged on all its commitments and is refusing to abide by international law and blames the palestinians who are its victims. >> just to make it clear, netanyahu did indeed repeat his call for a return to peace talks without preconditions today. the trouble is he always says that and says nothing about the ending of the building of israeli settlements in the west bank and that is a key demand for the palestinians and faone that has israel on a collision course with the united states. >> i have never seen anyone use a dramatic pause like netanyahu did today.

rifting. >> the devil and smelling of -- >> wow. all right. john, thank you so much. bernie sanders is catching up with hillary clinton in campaign contributions. sanders has raised $26 million in contributions. his campaign says it's received 1.3 million individual contributions. that's ahead of president obama's pace in both 2008 and 2012. so in total, clinton has raised $75 million for her campaign and sanders catching up at 40 million. house republicans say they will hold lead leadership

elections one week from today. the majority leader is widely expected to replace speaker john boehner who will step down at the end of the month. he's being challenged by the republican from florida. ohio republican served 18 years in the house of representatives before retiring in 2013. he joins us live tonight from washington. good to see you again, steve. the last time we talked was right around that big government shutdown and john boehner was caught up in the middle of this. you are a friend of his. were you surprised to see him step down and do you think he was forced to step down as a result of this? >> well, i wasn't surprised that he stepped down. i was a little taken by surprise on the date that he did it. i knew when i retired in 2013 from the conversation, exit conversation i had with him, that he originally intended to retire attend of the last congress. only stayed after eric cantor lost in the primary. but he was always planning on leaving and i think he just accelerated the timetable because he had become the issue with these very conservative members of his caucus and he didn't want to be the issue one and two facing another government shutdown. day gentlemeja vu all over agai

>> those nay sayers are pretty loud. >> they are. but don't you know that it's usually the noisy people that get all the attention and they're certainly getting all the attention. but they wouldn't force him out. i mean, they could not have forced him out. what you had was a little bit of political blackmail in that they would continue wally say, oh, yeah, if you do that we're going to have to have a vote on this motion to vacate the chair and a lot of people who supported him said have the have to have a vo motion to vacate the chair and a lot of people who supported him said have the vote. let's talk about kevin mccarthy. who might be his replacement.

>> everybody thought hillary clinton was unbeatable right? but we put together a ben ga see special committee, a select committee. what are her numbers today? her numbers are dropping. why? because she's untrustable. but no one would have known that any of that had happened. >> so this suggests there's a political motivation behind these benghazi investigations and now the headlines are saying mccarthy is trying to clean up what he said. clearly the benghazi was appointed to get to the bottom of what happened in benghazi. at the same time, you've

plum merriment in secretary clinton's numbers. it's not going to impact the election next thursday in the house, in the house republican conference. that election will rise and fall a whole host of other issues. it was an unfortunate choice of words. >> i remember our conversation last year, steve, and you made some reference, not exactly this term but kind of like herding cats you said of your friend boehner with the diverse group of republicans there. is it still that way? will mccarthy do a better job of herding those cats? >> well, i don't see how he can. kevin mccarthy will make a great speaker if the election turns out that way next week but the fact of the matter is you're still left with these 40 or 50 nay sayers within the party who are not happy unless they get what they want. they didn't want to do the export thing, didn't want to raise the debt limit. but then what? they don't have a plan b just like now that john is retiring, daniel webster got 12 votes on opening day and he's not going to become the next speaker of the house. nay sayer. >> and cut the use of excessive force. >> occasionally the takedowns make headlines but it's unclear

how often this happens. so new york city announced expansive new policies to clearly track every time an officer uses force. whether he or she swings a baton, sprays mace, or gets into a scuffle. >> it is part of the total reengineering of the department we've engaged in, in the last 20 months. >>reporter: police tracked officer shootings and use of force during arrest, but how often it was used in other situations was unclear. so next year, officers will be required to fill out a two-page form explaining their use of force and also noting when a suspect attacks police. it will clearly define the level of force and any injury. >> our new policy will not wait for an allegation. we'll document all uses of force. we will investigate uses of force and injuries.

we'll create an oversight mechanism. >>reporter: the officer's union called the move a step backwards including more paperwork and second gigs their actions as a formula for disaster. the fbi says they need to start tracking officers nationally. >> how can we address concerns about use of force? how can we address concerns about officer-involved shootings

if we do not have a reliable grasp on the demographic and the circumstances of those incidents? >>reporter: cities like los angeles and seattle have already overhauled their policies on use of force generally in response to federal pressure. new york's new policy could set an example for other cities. >> there's no police department in america that has as comprehensive a set of policies, procedures, guidelines, or the capacity to train to them. officers say this extra scrutiny will only cause them to be simply hands off but city leaders say this data is critical and that it's hard to address an issue if you don't know how widespread it is. >> absolutely. knowledge is power. thanks. jury selection is underway in the trial of don blankenship who is facing charges after the 2010 west virginia coal mine that left 29 dead. it's very unusual for high-level executives to face criminal prosecutions in cases like this as lisa stark reports. >>reporter: don blankenship once ran one of the largest coal companies in the country and was

a political power house in west virginia. now a jury will decide if he will spend up to 31 years in prison. >> are you still claiming your innocence right now? >> yeah. >>reporter: yes? >> yes. >>reporter: just 30 miles from the charleston, west virginia courthouse, you'll find memorials to the 29 miner who died. -- miners who died. vivid reminders of who was lost when methane gas and coal dust ripped through the mine in april, 2010. tommy davis barely escaped the blast but lost his son corey as well as his brother and nephew. >> i go to the grave yard and i talk to them and i tell them daddy is still fighting for you, boy. and i'll continue to. until i think justice has been served. >>reporter: what is justice? for the families of those who died, it would be the conviction of blankenship who ran masscy energy, the company that owned the mine for a ey energy, the company that owned the mine for a decade. the mine had racked up 500 federal safety violations the year before. >> he knows about everything that went on down there and yet for him not being the man he should have been and step up and

said stop, let's make it safe for these men, he let them men die that day. >>reporter: besides being accused of conspiracy to violate mine safety standards, blanken ship is charged with lying to investors to prop up stock prices after the explosion. he has pleaded not guilty. in a youtube documentary he funded, blankenship called himself a safety pioneer and insisted safety and profits go hand in hand. >> i'm smart enough to know that keeping your miners safe and not having accidents is very profitable. >>reporter: but papers show him very differently obsessed with cost cutting. he writes in a note, you have a kid to feed. do your job. blankenship's turn attorneys may argue that he oversaw dozens of mines and was not responsible for everything happening under ground at just one of those

properties. legal experts say proving a ceo's direct involvement in day-to-day operations can be tricky. >> they've got to get to the jury's gut. and just going after a ceo and saying he was there and he should have known, that's not going to be enough for most juries. >>reporter: it may be a legal long shot but victims' families say they will be in the courtroom until the jury decides blankenship's fate more than five years after one of the

nation's worse mine disasters. lisa stark, al jazeera, washington. hurricane joaquin is pummeling the bahamas tonight. # # the current category 4 hurricane is turning a path that almost affect the east coast. >> we just got some more information at 8:00 o'clock.

not much has changed but what has changed is cuba has actually put out a tropical storm warning for its eastern shores because the storm has been moving so much down here towards the southwest before we've even seen a change to the north which we think is about to happen over the next six hours. so right now this is a satellite image. here's the eye of the storm in the center of the bahamas. all the bahamas are either under hurricane or tropical storm warnings and this is the newest area of cuba that is also under tropical storm warnings. now, this is the track of the storm that we expect to see over the next several days. the national hurricane center has actually moved it

john kirby is in new york tonight for the u.n. general assembly and he spoke with antonio mora earlier today. >> always interesting to talk to him. we talked about how he is near

the middle of i did promacy diplomacy and russia's new role in syria. >> what we've seen so far and we're the pentagon is still analyzing as much information as we can here about these early strikes. i mean, it's not as if the russians are being overtly transparent about their targeting campaign here. but we know that they didn't hit areas where isil operates and we know they didn't hit isil targets. that's what we would like to see. if they are willing to have a constructive role against isil, then that could be helpful.

>> we also discussed what coordination with russia would mean and what role syrian president bashar al a bah shirr shirr bashar al assad should have. >> funeral services held today for a new jersey high school quarterback who died last week. hundreds turned out last night for the wake of 17-year-old evan murray. he died of a ruptured spleen after collapsing on the football field. his his death once again shines

a spotlight on the dangers of football. schools are now looking at new ways to keep young athletes safe. >> athletes here are allowed to practice full contact for more no more than 90 minutes

to prevent injuries in a sport often criticized for being too violent. >> prevent as many injuries as we can. the injuries that are preventible. according to the center for catastrophic sports injuries, five football players died last season playing football. they're more likely to suffer from catastrophic injuries and concussions than college athletes. an autopsy shows murray died of a lacerated spleen. he took a hit during a game lastfully and walked off the field with the help of team plaits. he later died at a hospital. >> this is a flack jacket and it's worn like this. >>reporter: mark harris says his store has seen an untake in flak jacket sales since murray's death. >> this protects your whole area here, spleen, ribs, back. if anyone hits you in this area, you're protected. >>reporter: but harris says getting players to gear up in extra equipment is a challenge. >> players want to wear as little equipment as possible? >> yes. >> why? >> because they want to be as quick and light and mobile and agile as possible. these jackets are not mandatory for high school players. it's not clear if murray was wearing one. if evan murray was wearing this, do you think it could have protected him from a lacerated spleen? >> yes. yes. >>reporter: medical experts say one way to make high school

football safer is to increase the presence of athlete lettic trainers from not just the games but alleges the also the practices. evan measure 37% of public high schools employ full time athletic trainers and about half of schools have them at daily practices. >> they're multimillion dollars athletes but that doesn't mean a high school athlete doesn't deserve the same care that a professional athlete is receiving. >>reporter: this season the nfl is contributing to a $2 million program to fund athletic trainers and equipment in underprivileged schools that's the news at this hour. thanks for watching. i'm adam may. the news continues next with antonio mora.

campus massacre. >> we know that other countries in response to one mass shooting have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings an exasperated president obama calls for stricter gun laws and blames congress in action after a mass shooting at an oregon community college dualling strategies. >> russia