taken by the new horizon space craft reveal a surprising history of particular interest is the planet wide canyon stretching over a thousand miles, it is four times bigger than twice as deep as the grand canyon. police in oregon search for a motive after a shooting at a community college leaves at least ten people dead. our thoughts and prayers are not enough. >> the president again calls for action after the 15th mass shooting of his presidency. the anger and frustration at the white house as a community mourns. hurricane joaquin batters the bahamas, east coast communities are ready. the real risk they face today may be flooding. and syria takes the podium

at the u.n. general assembly. what's next for the civil war that is now causing a standoff between washington and moscow. this is al jazeera america live from new york city. i'm john henry smith. this morning authorities in oregon are trying to figure out the motive for a mass shooting at a community college. police say at least nine people died, seven others were injured. the shooter was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police. the incident shattered yelt another community. roseburg is a small city in western oregon about 70 miles south of eugene. the umpqua community college is a center part of the city with 3,000 students, nearly everyone

knows someone that goes there. the president said it's not enough to offer prayers to victims of the families. >> somehow this has become routine. the reporting is routine. my response here at this podium ends up being routine. the conversation in the aftermath of it. we've become numb to this. >> alan is live this morning in roseburg outside the public safety center. alan, are investigators any closer to knowing a motive for this attack? >> reporter: john henry, we really don't know at this point. we don't know much more than we did last night just a couple of hours ago. we know that the investigation has continued through the evening hours, but the sheriff here is not saying anything about whether they made any progress at all in terms of the motive of this shooting. also, they have not released any

details of the actual second to second process that happened when that gunman came on to community college campus. we're still getting reports of people at that location when the gunfire started. here's some of the descriptions of that chaotic scene. >> i heard crying. i heard pretty much just like nonstop breathing and can't catch your breath. i was doing the same. everyone was shaking. i just heard i love yous. >> i've been hearing from a lot of people that the gunman was actually asking what's your religion before he was killing people. >> reporter: and i talked to two different people last night who repeated what that young lady said. that they'd heard people saying that the gunman was questioning people about their religion before he was shooting. these are people who hadn't heard or seen that themselves but heard from people at the scene. still a lot of questions,

obviously, to be answered here, and many people hard at work at that. john henry. >> alan, you were at the vigil last night. how is the community dealing with all of this? >> reporter: pretty remarkable scene last night. i estimated 1500 to 2,000 people. that would be about 10%, maybe a little bit less of the entire city of roseburg at that vigil, a candlelight vigil. local stores have donated food, water, wraps for people to wear if they got called, candles, et cetera. pretty remarkable scene there. a lot of heavy hearts and a lot of tears and hugs. quite frankly, a lot of strength demonstrated by the people that came there. people said they had to be together and that helped to fill the void left by the lack of information coming out about the detailed circumstances of this shooting. the sheriff, who we expect to talk to very soon, described

some of what happened yesterday. here are the wores of scherff john hanley. >> let me be very clear. i will not name the shooter. i will not give him the credit he probably sought prior to this horrific and cowardly act. media will get the name confirmed in time. you will never hear me mention his name. >> reporter: sheriff hanlin maintaining that stance again this morning saying he's never going to name that man. john henry. >> alan, that sheriff has been quite outspoken about gun control, hasn't he? >> reporter: yes, he has in the past. he's been very public about opposing extended government efforts to institute new gun

control laws. we're going to talk to him in a couple of minutes and plan to ask him about that. we should remember this is a very rural county and a lot of gun ownership. we don't expect to hear a lot of people here pushing for greater gun control, and we don't expect to hear sheriff pushing for that, either. >> so frustrating we're going through this all over again. thank you very much. as he has 14 times before, president obama came out to speak after this shooting, and he was angry that the country has not done more to prevent this from happening. >> this is a political choice that we make. to allow this to happen every few months in america. we collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction. when americans are killed in mine disasters, we work to make

mines safer. when americans are killed in floods and hurricanes, we make communities safer. when roads are unsafe, we fix them to reduce auto fatalities. we have seat belt laws because we know it saves lives. >> the president said we as a nation have become numb to mass shootings. mike viqueira has more on why the white house has been unable to change the country's gun laws. >> reporter: after each shooting i think the president's statements get progressively more visceral and more emotional, and after the charleston shooting earlier in the summer, president obama gave an interview and he said, it's the most frustrating thing he's experienced in all of his presidency, in the seven years since he's been in the white house, and that is inability to move gun control legislation, any kind of restrictions on a federal level through congress. many people thought that after

the unthinkable tragedy of newtown, that that would be the thing that finally brought congress around. again, the background checks, the gun show loophole, the assault weapons ban, the restriction of large capacity magazines with ten or more roundses, all of those things that have been on the table since many provisions expired in 2004 were unable to pass. again, the effort collapsed then. the president made reference to the fact that after each shooting in tucson, in newtown and most recently in charleston he has come out and gives a routine statement. he said it himself. the reporting on it is routine and the people have become numb to it. he once again asked americans to vote on the basis of this issue, which obviously has not been done. this is the recurring theme of the president. he admits once again as he did after charleston there's 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 is not moving through a congress right now that, of course, is controlled by republican in both the house and senate, and the frustration that the president feels after each incident and each appearance in the white house briefing room is quite evidence. >> mc mike viqueira is reporting from washington. in the last year alone over 33 americans have died from gun violence. we'll have the latest for you on al jazeera america. to other news. hurricane joaquin is pounding the bahamas this morning as a powerful category four storm. it unleashed heavy rain and a strong storm surge with waters battering oceanfront homes. the 130-mile-per-hour winds bent palm trees. here in the u.s. emergencies have been declared in five states ahead of the storm, but the latest track could have it going out to sea. let's bring in nickel mitchell for more on joaquin's path.

how worried should we be here in the states? >> you want to take it seriously, because even if doesn't have a direct landfall, we'll have some side impacts to to speak. here's a look at the storm from space. you see it over the bahamas and a bit of the eye and the periphery of the storm. the hurricane-force winds extend 100 miles and tropical storm-force winds about 300 miles across. this is what we consider a bigger storm although i've heard a lot of comparisons to sandy. sandy was a much larger storm and had a few other things happening with it. it wouldn't be a sandy scenario, but this is slowly moving over the bahamas and it has been for the last couple of days, probably at least one more day of that slow movement. so this is really the place taking the brunt of everything, and that's why we have so many different tropical storm warnings up for the areas around and then right in the midst of it, the hurricane warnings of course. about that track. we've always been watching something to steer this.

as i said, it's been meandering and there's that low pressure developing off the u.s. coastline. that trough it looks like will turn it to the north. this has sat and hung out long enough by the time it does this, it looks like it will steer out to sea. a lot of people are happy to see that, but some moisture could find some waves and we have to watch the exact direction once it gets going. i'm more concerned about that front where the low is developing because we've had persistent heavy rain. that, when you get it days on end and saturates the ground, especially the carolinas over the next couple of days, we can be talking record-setting amounts in some cases and over a foot if you look at it cumulatively after a few days. i'm very concerned about the situation in this area regardless of whether or not we get some of that tropical moisture. >> if only we in the east could split the rain with the people that need it in the west. >> they'd love that, yeah. >> thank you so much. as american and russian air strikes hit across syria, the

world waits to hear what the assad government's response will be. syria takes the podium today at the u.n. general assembly . the u.s. pauses two of its anti-isil programs. the reasons and why it matters.

we're finding out more this morning about the pope's conversation with kentucky clerk kim davis. the vatican says the clerk

jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses was part of a large group of several dozen people invited by the vatican ambassador to meet the pope in washington. her lawyer initially claimed the meeting was private culminating in a hug and a note of encouragement, but the vatican says that's not the case. in a statement the vatican said, quote, the pope did not enter into the details of the situation of mrs. davis, and his meeting with her shouldn't be considered a form of support of her position. today it's the syrian government going before the u.n. general assembly, and it's expected to talk about the civil war there. that war and the millions of refugees it continues to produce have dominated this year's global meeting. they've also been a main source of tension between world powers including the u.s. and russia. john is here with more. john, what can we expect from the syrian address? >> hey, john henry. good morning. well, here we are at the end of

leaders week at the u.n. general assembly, and we go out with a bang because the syrians aren't going to speak and it will be in the form of the deputy prime minister and foreign minister. he's been filling in for bashir al assad for the last couple of years at turtle bay because he can't make it at the moment. look for a familiar line from the syrians, which is that terrorism is a global problem and the world community has not done enough to curb it but it's particularly affecting syria at the moment. he's likely to see syria preks its minorities like the sunni and shia and christians and drews. and he's likely to see the u.s.-led air strikes over syria are illegal, and he might have a point because they didn't go to the security council before commencing them opposed to the russian air strikes which are legal in theory because the al assad regime invited the russians in. although he controls 40% of the country, we're likely to hear he's the man to lead it out of the present woes. the foreign minister is likely

to point to the chemical weapons treaties of 2013 and 2014 when syria worked with the international community to get rid of weapons. we may hear a call for awe security council resolution on terrorism last year. >> what are other major players saying about the war? >> every year at the general assembly there's one story that absolutely dominates. this year it has, of course, been syria. we've seen top leaders giving huge chunks of time in their 15 minutes and sometimes more to the issue of syria. from president obama to president putin and president rouhani from iran. we say the first face-to-face meeting in a year between putin and obama earlier this week. ever since the peace accord regarding syria collapsed shths the international community has not been looking syria's way.

it really hasn't. that's changed. that's the big take-away from this week at the general assembly. there's been countless meetings about syria. everybody at every country level is talking about it. although there are only talks about talks, nothing substantial yet, at least they are talking. that's a big change. john henry. >> thank you so much. and we will bring you continuing coverage of the u.n. general assembly including the syrian address later this morning. russia's president is meeting with european leaders this morning trying to find a way to bring an end to the syrian war. vladimir putin is in paris for talks with french president francois hollande and german chancellor angela merkel days after his current began air strikes in syria. a new round of strikes hit overnight. russia says they targeted 12 isil positions, but washington has been skeptical accusing the russian military of targeting rebel positions instead.

jamie mcintyre has more from the pentagon. >> reporter: russia launched the latest strike against a number of groups in syria with varying ideologies, including the army of conquest, a coalition of people that oppose isil includes the al qaeda-affiliated nusra front. at the united nations sergei lavrov insisted they were fighting a common enemy, a terrorist. >> if it looks like a terrorist, acts walks and fights like a terrorist, it's a terrorist, right? i would recall that we always were saying that we are going to fight isil and other terrorist groups. >> reporter: 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 question of deconfliction, sorting out what language is used when russian

and coalition pilots talk to each other 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. the u.s. says despite conducting only a handful of air strikes in syria in recent days, the russian campaign is having no effect on coalition efforts. >> it's lower than our average but it's because these are dynamic targeting processing, and there's one of the targets. we're continuing our strikes. we not offered accommodations in syria to accommodation new players on the battlefield. >> john mccain argues that the deconfliction talks add nothing. in a statement he asking are we

trying to deconflict with russian air operations that target u.s.-trained rebels, kill innocent civilians, or to keep the assad regime in power? back in may 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 they are effectiveness, and we would exercise that. >> reporter: the u.s. did bomb the al nusra front, but now with russia allegedly targeting u.s.-supported group, the pentagon won't make the same pledge. >> there were unique circumstances whether that was discussed previously, and i'm not going to get into a situation of 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. >> welt not invite it.

we will not ask. we are polite people, as you know, and don't come if not invited. >> reporter: that on a day when iraq's leader expressed dissatisfaction with u.s. air support and steamed be to be issuing an invitation. >> fe wet get the offer we're consider it. >> reporter: jamie mcintyre, al jazeera, the pentagon. >> pentagon officials say the u.s. has paused its program to train and equip syrian rebels to fight isil. steve warren says for now no more u.s.-trained rebels are being sent into syria. the half a billion dollar program has been criticized amid reports that rebels have been handing over their u.s.-issued weapons to the al nusra front. the pentagon also admitted iraqi troops trained by the u.s. were not trained in conventional warfare. a spokesman said isil used land mines in the capture of ramadi in a way iraqi forces were not trained to handle.

the u.s. has now begun teaching the iraqi forces how to deal with those types of mines. africa's first elected female head of state has tackled the women's right and won a nobel peace price. what she says about beating ebola and the darkest time of her presidency.

>> our american story is written every day. it's not always pretty... but it's real. and we show you like no-one else can. this is our american story. this is america tonight. millions of t-mobile users may be at risk this morning after the phone company suffered a major data breach. a hacker broke into a server at the credit monitoring service expeerian last month, and the company says that exposed the records of 15 million t-mobile customers and other people who had applied for credit. connecticut's attorney general

is looking into the breach. this week for "talk to al jazeera" stephanie sy spoke with ellen johnson surleaf. sheets in power fon almost a decade, and she said one of the biggest challenges was dealing with last year's deadly ebola outbreak? >> was that the darkest time of your time in office so far? >> without a doubt the darkest time. every other difficult i face, i knew. i have the means to find a way to deal with it. ebola was an unknown enemy. i didn't know what to do. nobody knew what to do. nobody could tell us what we were faced with. how would we react to it? people were dying. people were running. people were crying. i cried, too.

i didn't know what to do. we turned to prayers. we did everything in those very early days, but then, you know, we -- then came the pronouncement that 20,000 of our citizens were dying by january in the three affected countries, and i think that just -- that just brought out everything in me. so i got on the air and said, this will not happen. we are not going to die. >> you can watch stephanie's full interview on saturday night here on al jazeera america. a new satellite is heading to outer space this morning on board the atlas 5 rocket that launched from cape canaveral in florida an hour ago. the satellite will help to provide enhanced cell phone service in rural parts of the

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

a campus massacre in oregon. police and a community try to understand why drove a gum man to open fire at a community college. at least ten people are dead. >> it cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun. >> the president voices his anger after the 15th mass shooting of his presidency. will it lead to changes in gun

control? hurricane joaquin hits the bahamas with strong winds and heavy rain. the threat it poses to the east coast of the country this morning. and a sense of regret at the holy see. the vatican clarifies what happened and what was behind a meeting between pope francis and kentucky clerk kim davis. this is al jazeera america live from new york city. a small community in oregon is trying to make sense this morning of a mass shooting at a college there. police say a lone gunman opened fire at umpqua community college on thursday killing nine people and injuring seven others before being killed in an exchange of gunfire with police. alan is live this morning at the roseburg public safety center.

alan, are officials there any closer to finding out why the shooter carried out this attack? >> reporter: well, if they are, they're not sharing that information with us. no details today from the folks handling this investigation about what might have led to the shooting. also, we haven't heard any of the victims identified yet. we may get those names later on today. we may not. it may be tomorrow before the authorities here begin to name the victims. meanwhile, this town of about 22,000 here in southern oregon is waking up today to just an awful day after. morning classes were interrupted by gunfire, the first 911 call came in shortly after 10:30 a.m. >> somebody is outside one of the doors shooting through the door. >> reports of a shooter at umquua community college in

oregon. >> once i heard the sound and saw people running, i knew exactly what happened. my parents said stay alert, be alert, be aware of your surroundings. once that noise happened, i liked around to see what's going on. that's probably what saved my life. >> reporter: students are running everywhere, holy god one witness posted on twitter. police say officers made it to the scene within the next four minutes, but the worst had already taken place in the college's science building, schneider hall. the gunman had opened fire inside the building and was then killed in a shoot-out with police. >> i've been hearing from a lot of people that the gunman was actually asking what's your religion before he killed people. >> let me be very clear. i will not name the shooter. i will not give him the credit he probably sought prior to this horrific and cowardly act. [ bagpipes ] >> reporter: a candlelight vigil

in roseburg last night, this shattered community came together struggling to try and make sense of what had happened, many are at a loss over what to tell their children. >> it's heart-breaking. it shouldn't have happened. to explain to a child who thinks the world is good and beautiful that sometimes horrible things happen can -- it's shaking -- it can shake your whole world, but it's important for them to know it, to know that they can stay be a part of supporting each other and it can make us stronger. >> reporter: so many people there at that vigil and around the country looking for some kind of answers this morning. extraordinary feeling of strength and warmth on that hillside in that city park last night. all those people holding candles and ending the evening by chanting "we are ucc. we are umpqua community college." extraordinary scene. the law enforcement has made a

point of trying to deflect attention away from the specifics of the case and away from the shooter and focusing on the victims' families and trying to support them. as part of that effort, they have been paired, each family, with specific law enforcers who can be their conduit for information and perhaps for some kind of healing in these early days after shooting. >> alan, i know you met with some of the families waiting to find out about loved ones. how are police dealing with those families now? >> reporter: boy, it's very, very difficult scene yesterday at the fairgrounds. we spoke to one woman who hadn't heard anything from her daughter all day long and was getting very little information from authorities about what had happened. the last i saw her had never heard what she most was -- was most wanting to hear, which is that her daughter was safe. a lot of different scenes like that yesterday. they're hoping that linking

these families up with specific, dedicated law enforcers who are committed to them and will focus on them can help open up the channels of communication both directions and help get information to those folks. they're going to need a lot of support and a lot of information. we do not expect, again, to get many more details about the specifics of the shooting, at least from these authorities here at the public safety center. we may, in fact, hear those from people at the scene, but we don't expect investigators to share with us many details of what happened moment to moment on that campus. >> alan, when mass shootings occur like this it brings up the issue of gun control. this sheriff is very outspoken about gun control. what has his position been? >> reporter: sheriff john hanlin has been very public in the past that he does not favor extending government efforts to control

people's guns or to lessen their gun rights. he's been very open about that. anybody asking about that today will get a quick pivot from sheriff hanlin. he says that's a conversation we'll all have in the next couple days, and we'll do that. today we're going to talk about the victims and what we can do to support them. he's just not addressing that issue directly today saying the focus needs to be on something else. >> all right. understood. thank you very much. that's alan in roseburg, oregon. thanks again. since the sandy hook school shooting in december 2012, there have been at least 34 fatal school shootings in the u.s., 20 elementary school students and six teachers were killed in that attack in connecticut. last night a clearly frustrated president obama said people have become numb to the shootings. he pleaded for americans to demand changes in law whether it comes to gun control. >> somebody somewhere will comment and say, obama

politicized this issue. well, this is something we should politicize. it is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic. i would ask news organizations, because i won't put these facts forward, have news organizations tally up the number of americans who have been killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade, and the number of americans who have been killed by gun violence. post those side by side on your news reports. this won't be information coming from me. it will be coming from you. >> and we have those numbers. since the beginning of 2013 alone, more than 33,000 people in the united states have died from gun violence. in the last 14 years by contrast, a little more than 3,000 people have been killed by what the government defines as

terrorists. that includes the people from died on september 11th. the national rifle association has yet to formally comment on the tragic events in oregon. an nra spokesperson tells t"the new york times" it's the organization's policy not to comment until all the facts are known. we will continue to follow this story throughout the day and have the latest for you here on al jazeera america. an investigation is underway this morning in afghanistan after 11 people died in the crash of a military transport plane. six of them were u.s. airmen. the c-130 went down in eastern afghanistan along with the crew there were five passengers on board. the taliban says it shot the plane down, but u.s. officials say they're confident enemy fire was not involved. russia's president is talking with european leaders today about how to end the syrian war. vladimir putin is in paris for

talks with french president francois hollande and german chancellor angela merkel days after his country began air strikes in syria. a new round of strikes hit overnight. russia says they targeted 12 isil positions, but washington has been skeptical accusing the russian military of targeting rebel positions instead. as james bay reports, it's been a key topic at the u.n. this week. >> reporter: for over a week world leaders have been in new york and all the key figures have all set their priorities to get peace efforts going in syria. while they've been here, what's changed? the answer is this. whether they were timed to coincide with this global gathering or not, russian air strikes in syria are a game-changer. the u.s. says they add gasoline to the fire of a war already four and a half years old. russia says it's a positive step aimed at those they label

terrorists. given the russians were invited in by president assad, does that mean all his enemies, even those group directly supported by the u.s. i tried to get clarity from the russian foreign minister. in addition to isil, which groups in syria do you believe to be terrorists? >> if it looks like a terrorist, acts like a terrorist and walks and fights like a terrorist, it's a terrorist, right? the representatives of the coalition command have always been saying that their targets are isil, al nusra and other terrorism groups. this is basically our position as well. we see eye-to-eye with the coalition on this one. >> reporter: on the biggest issue of all, president assad's future role, there is no agreement. to explain the reasons for russia's policy on this, mr. lavrov used the recent history of the arab world. >> saddam hussein hanked.

is iraq a better place, a safer place? gaddhafi murdered in, you know, front of viewers. is libya a better place? no we doom demonize assad. we try to draw lessons, urn. >> reporter: there are two new initiatives, but nort is one that can stop the bloodshed in syria. one is a new draft resolution russia is putting forward to the u.n. security council on coun r countering isil and the other is a contact group on syria involving key international and regional players. as they arrived for a meeting, a diplomat from one of the countries told me a contact group is usually used to advance an agreed plan. right now there's very little the u.s. and russia agree on,

and despite over 250,000 deaths, there's no real international strategy. james bay, al jazeera, at the united nations. the vatican is responding this morning to the public uproar over the pope's controversial meeting last week with kentucky clerk kim davis. the vatican says the clerk jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses was one of several dozen people invited by the vatican ambassador to meet the pope in washington. her lawyer initially claimed the meeting was private and that it ended in a hug and a note of encouragement. the vatican says that's not the case. in a statement the a vatican spokesperson said the pope did not enter into the details of mrs. davis and his meeting with her should not be considered a form of support of her position. at least one vatican officials has said they feel regret over the meeting and controversy it has caused. tracking joaquin.

the powerful hurricane targets the bahamas, but will it spare the east coast of the u.s.? the fight for kunduz. the taliban calls it a symbolic victory even if afghan forces retake the city.

hurricane joaquin is pounds the bahamas this morning as a powerful category 4 storm. governors along the east coast of this country are warning residents to be ready, but this morning the forecast seems to send this powerful storm out to sea. john henry smith has more. a lot of people are really worried and tense about this storm. >> a storm this strong is nothing to be trifled with especially on the east coast where it brings up memories of superstorm sandy.

that's why people continue to prepare just in case. this slow-moving storm has been battering the bahamas and its taking its time doing it. >> we're getting ready to head into hurricane joaquin here. >> here in the u.s. with the memories of superstorm sandy three years ago still fresh, several governors have already declared emergencies, including those in north carolina, south carolina, virginia, maryland and new jersey. >> now is the time for you to begin to prepare for hunkering down and dealing with the storm. >> reporter: people along the eastern seaboard have been doing just that as they track joaquin. >> already shelters set up. all the stuff is planned already, where last time we started to learn how to do that while it was happening. >> a separate weather system is the more immediate threat. heavy rain is falling from the carolinas are two people are died all the way to maine. even more rain and significant flooding is likely even if joaquin heads out to sea. that's why so many are still taking precautions.

>> one day it's slowing down and then it's picking up. i don't want to chance that. >> like that gentleman from hoboken, the governors from new york and new jersey referenced the many lessons learned from superstorm sandy. they say it has it better prepared to whatever joaquin might do. >> thank you so much, john. where exactly is joaquin, and will there be issues there on the eastern seaboard? will it be spared? nicole is here with the latest. nico nicole. >> even if there's not a direct landfall, you can have periphery impacts from a storm like this. it's a big one meandering through the bahamas. that's why the track once it gets out of here is a little malleable. as we continue over the next couple of days, plenty of watches and warnings here because we still deal with it in this region at least for the next 24 hours before it starts to get a little bit more movement. we have different computer models that ingest all the data and predict where the storms go.

more of them now saying once this is picked up by the syrian flow it will steer out to sea. a couple outliers bring it to the united states, but more consistently looks like it stays away. even if that happens, close enough we could have high winds, coastal flooding and some of the moisture adding to what we already have. we still need to monitor this very closely. i mentioned the moisture we already have. here is that long, broad front that john henry was talking about, especially with a low developing on the southern end of that, places like the carolinas are in for a lot of rain the next new days. back to you. >> thank you so much, nicole. we'll have more on preparation r for that hurricane in a minutes. let's turn to our top story this morning the campus shooting in roseburg, oregon. we have alan there with more. i understand you have the sheriff with you? >> reporter: that's right, sheriff john hanlin joins us for a couple minutes this morning.

very busy man yesterday and overnight. first of all, sheriff, how are your people holding up with this? they've been at it for many, many hours now. >> that's right. they're holding up well. we're fortunate, however, that we've got support and assistance from a number of law enforcement agencies locally, statewide and federal agencies. so certainly without their assistance and help in this investigation we'd have a difficult time. >> reporter: i'm curious about that. did you ask for federal assistance? there seems to be a heavy emphasis on atf and fbi here. did you ask for that, or did people show up knowing you would need help? >> both. we asked for assistance, and a lot of them showed up knowing this was going to be a massive investigative effort. >> reporter: the question on everybody's mind here and around the country, of course, is why? any more information today? i don't expect you to tell me if you've discovered something that would lead you to know the

motive behind the shooting, but are we making any progress in that area? can we say that? >> it is early in the investigation. i'm confident that we will be able to answer those questions as the investigation progresses. last night i can tell you that officers continued work doing follow-up investigations and interviews both at the scene and in the neighborhoods around the scene as well as around the neighborhood of the shooter's residence and at the residence. as a result of that investigation, they've recovered a number of firearms today compared to explain specifically how much and what type of firearms. additionally the state medical examiner's office worked all night long identifying the victims. >> reporter: is the examiner going to wait until all families of all victims have been notified before any of those

identifications are made? >> absolutely, yes. >> reporter: you've been very publicly opposed in the past to further government efforts to restrict access to guns, to control guns and affect people's guns rights. any change in your opinion this morning on that stance? >> right. right now i'm staying focused on this investigation and finding answers to all the questions that the victims and the families of the victims deserve to know. so keeping that focus and keeping a focus on the families and ensuring that they receive the mental support and the support that they need to get through this very difficult time has been and will continue to be my focus. that being said, i know that that conversation around firearms will occur and needs to occur. now is not the time. >> reporter: in terms of focusing on and supporting the victims' families in this case, what specific things are being

done to try to do that? >> right. well, we right away yesterday assigned a detective and a victim's assistant worker to each family to be with them during the, you know, coming hours while they're waiting to hear final confirmation that their loved one was one of the victims. >> so one on one contact with a specific, dedicated person within your department with those families? >> not necessarily within my department. an investigator with this investigation. >> reporter: was this gentleman known to police locally? any brushes with him in the past at all? >> again, that's information that will be determined as this investigation continues. >> reporter: i've heard you elsewhere this morning say that there just weren't any red flags you were aware of. is that the case? >> i'm not aware of any. that's just me speaking.

the investigation could eveal tlfrp, in fact, numerous contacts. i don't know. it's too early to tell. >> where do we go from here on out? what do we expect them to do. >> last night i taendzs the candlelight vigil in stewart park and thousands showed up for that. that's an example of the support that this community has, and in these kinds of events they come together and get through this. it's dark days ahead, but we will come through it. >> reporter: businesses were donating goods for that event last night and reports of people lining up to donate blood yesterday. they want to be vovmd somehow and this is a close-knit community. >> we've seen this repeatedly throughout the years when some kind of a catastrophic event or tragedy occurs. the community steps up and

they're there to help one another. >> reporter: any indication whether we will get names of people shot today or tomorrow? >> that's unclear at this point whether they'll be identified today or tomorrow. hopefully within the next 24 hours or so. >> reporter: okay. thank you very much. i really appreciate your time. sheriff john hanlin joining us this morning to describe a little bit about what's being done to support the victims as we move forward here in roseburg. much more to come today. we don't know, again, whether we will find out the names of people killed or whether we'll find out more about the types or number of weapons found in the course of this investigation overnight. still a lot of work going on here in roseburg. >> thank you, alan, from roseburg, oregon. thanks again. virginia has executed a convicted serial killer who was on death row in two states. alfredo preto was injected with a lethal three-drug combination.

it was received from texas. he was on death row for killing a virginia couple and a california teen. a law designed to help september 11th first responders has expired. congress failed to extend that act that covers medical care for those who responded after the attacks. it is named for james drogo, a new york police officer that died from a respiratory illness attributed to his work on recovery operations at the world trade center. the program will operate until it runs out of money expected to be sometime this year. the street drug he can tacey has been linked to a high number of overdoses and deaths across the country. many may be do you to the growing market for a synthetic form of drug. this week on tech know, we look at an unconventional method to top these overdoses. >> reporter: it's friday night in hollywood.

the dance clubs along hollywood boulevard are starting to fill up with partiers. molly is part of the scene. a team of volunteers from a nonprofit called dance safe has hit the streets, too. as members of the harm reduction movement, they're on a mission that they think is very important. so you use this term harm reduction. what does that really mean? >> it's acknowledging the fact that despite zero tolerance drug policies, people will use drugs. the end goal is to keep people safe, alive and prevent overdosing deaths. >> reporter: having attended hundreds of concerts across the country this summer, they know firsthand it's been a deadly festival season. in several states high-profile media reports of overdoses and deaths associated with the drug often mistakenly called molly or x underline the importance of their work. so dance safe volunteers are armed with information about the dangers of taking unknown

substances and carry self-testing drug kits. they will test anyone's drugs on site for free, no questions asked. they let me try a kit for myself using a sample of a white substance a volunteer found lying on the ground at a raef. rave. the test kit is really simple to use. you take a tiny amount of the unknown substance and scrap it onto any white, porcelain s surfa surface. there are four re-agents involved to narrow down what the substance is. one drop is all it takes, and the reaction will occur within 5 to 30 seconds maximum. it looks like it's kind of an orangish color. so it's possibly either methamphetamine or am met feign. >> you can watch tech know saturday at 6:30 eastern here on al jazeera america. syria takes center stage at

the united nations as they launch air strikes across syria. the world will watch for the assad government's response. i'm on mexico's soeft pacific coast where hundreds of thousands of turtles arrive each year. the majority of their eggs are being stolen.

welcome back to al jazeera je america. the time is 8:31 eastern. taking a look at today's top stories. authorities in roseburg, oregon are trying to figure out the motive for a mass shooting at a community college. the shooter they say was killed in an exchange of gunfire with

police. russian president vladimir putin is meeting with french president francois hollande and german chancellor angela merkel days after his country began air strikes in syria. a new round of stroo i can strikes hit overnight. the obama administration accused the kremlin of targeting rebel positions instead of isil. the vatican today is clarifying the pope's meeting with kentucky clerk kim davis. it says the pope did not offer support to the clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses. the church says davis was part of a group of several dozen people invited by the vatican ambassador to meet with the pope in washington. today the syrian government is going before the u.n. general assembly and is expected to talk about the civil war there. that war and the millions of refugees that it continues to produce have dominated this year's u.n. meeting. it's also a source of tension

between world powers including the u.s. and russia. john is live for us this morning. john, what can we expect from the syrian address? >> good morning. we're going to end this leaders week at the general asem reply with a bang, because we hear from the syrian and it will be the deputy prime minister or the foreign minister. he's been depp tied for the last couple of years on behalf of bashir al assad who can't make it over to turtle bay. what will he say? we expect he'll say terrorism is a global problem and accuse the international community of not doing enough to stem it. he's going to say terrorism affects syria at this time. we think he'll say that the u.s. air strikes are illegal over syria, and he may have a point because they didn't go to the security council before doing it. that's completely distinct from the russian air strikes going on this week. they were invited in to do that by the assad organization as we

know. they're going to say he's a good guy only in control of 40% of the country, he's the man that should be maintained in power. the rest of the world apart from the russians have got it wrong. now it's time for an apology because yesterday all of us at the u.n. thought we would hear less about iran from prime minister benjamin netanyahu. we were told we would hear about other issues. it wasn't so. thank you, mr. netanyahu. we were all wrong. he devoted almost his entire speech to iran including a moment when he did a staredown with the delegates in the chamber. take a look. speaking before the united nations general assembly, netanyahu reiterated his country's alliance with the u.s. is unshakeable but stop him from blasting the 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 weapons 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 tiger into a kitten? >> reporter: the israeli leader along with u.s. lawmakers opposed to the deal failed to prevent the accord from going forward and insisted the agreement, which does not entirely dismantle the nuclear program, would only increase the threat 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: he further punk indicated his opposition by scolding the world body for what he called being silent in the wake of continued threats by tehran to destroy israel. he further illustrated his condemnation by standing in s h silence and staring out at the gem assembly for a minutes. his speech wasn't just about attacks on iran. netanyahu is back to get on the negotiating table with palestine. wednesday palestinian president abbas threatened to no longer honor agreeces from the oz low agreement 20 years ago. >> i'm prepared to immediately, immediately resume direct peace negotiations with the palestinian authority without any preconditions whatsoever. >> reporter: a tough sell for some palestinian politicians. they continue to criticize israel for not honoring the oz oslo accord as 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 reneglected on all of it and it turns around and blames the palestinians who are the victims. >> it's worth mentioning that with both sides blaming each other for the stalemate, it seems that any talks that may eventual take place between israel and the palestinians is still a very long way off. in a way, i think it's worth mentioning what wasn't said this week. president obama on monday did not mention israel, palestine, or the twin state solution in his address to the general assemb assembly. >> john, thank you, from new york. we will bring you continuing coverage of the u.n. general assembly including the syrian address later this morning. this morning government forces are still fighting the taliban for control of kunduz. according to witnesses, afghan fighters are going door-to-door

in the city trying to find taliban members. the streets are said to be empty. fighters captured the city on monday with both sides claiming control of the town. the new afghan taliban leader tells the associated pred the capture of the city is a symbolic city. the east coast this morning is bracing for heavy rain and possible flooding while the states also prepare for hurricane joaquin. let's bring in meteorologist nicole mitchell for more. nicole. >> as you look across the broad country in a couple of spots of rain until we get to the east coast, look how broad this area is zooming in a little more. this is before we get moisture from the tropical system, joaquin. i'll get to that in a minute. heavy rain along the coastline with a frontal boundary and then in addition we see a low pressure area off the southeast coast that will continue to intensify, and that's going to funnel more rain into that area specifically. so that will be our heaviest amount of rain. the whole coastline has chances for a few days.

so it's not great beach weather for a couple of reasons. you can see this continuing and we have to monitor the tropical system. in the meantime with the heaviest core, ilsa i places like the carolina, south carolina over the next coupumulative days over a foot rain possible. we have a serious flood kwern with all of this and behind that the temperatures cooled. a lot more 50s today up and down the coastline. i mentioned the tropical entity wive been watching, hurricane joaquin. it's 130 miles per hour right now, so it's on the cusp of a cat 3 and cat 4 and is slowing meandering its way and causing problems in the bahamas. these are so many islands and some of them barely habited or uninhabited. we won't get all the reports back on the devastation there. we go out to sea versus a u.s. landfall. that's good news, but we need to be prepared for this. even if there's not a landfall, things could change, but if it's

close enough it can add into the flooding moisture and we could have coastal problems like flooding and get close enough to get some of the periphery flooding with all of that. a few different things we need to need to watch as we watch the system but right now it has winds 300 miles across tropical storm force. this is causing a lot of problems through the islands. back to you. >> thank you so much, nicole. back to the preparations under way for joaquin as we reported for many in the northeast the hurricane is bringing back memories of the devastation unleashed by superstorm sandy almost three years ago. megan is the assistant commissioner and planning preparedness spokesperson with the new york city office of emergency management. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> as nicole was just stating so far five states from the carolinas up to new jersey declared a state of emergency. what do east coast states need to do to be prepared for a storm of this magnitude? >> what we're doing is making

sure that we have our emergency operations center open. we're preparing for if there was a need to pull the trigger on any of these -- on any of our operations that we're ready to do that. even though the forecast has gotten a little bit better overnight, we're still tracking this closely and monitoring and making prepares and we ask new york city residents to do the same as well. >> in what ways can people be pr upped for something like this? >> in your city we have something called know your zone. one of the first things people need to be aware of is if they're in an evacuation zone. you can find out by nyc.gov to find out. the way we track it, we want our city residents to be tracking that as well and heeding any of the warnings, getting ready, having a go bag if needed and also talking to friends and family. should they need to evacuate, they know where they're going to go. >> what do you think about a city the size of new york with

millions of people here with a suburb. the way you prepare, you go about it differently. can you explain those differences? >> we do. as you mentioned, it's the scale that et cetera very different. but we have a system built so that we can scale ponder as needed and we're ready. we bring all the partners together, and we also have a lot of resources that we can bring to bear. we try to make sure we have everybody together preparing for that. >> what can you tell you about the lessons on the east coast that can be learned whether we go back to sandy? >> sure. for us anytime we have an emergency, we do an assessment afterwards to determine what we can -- ways that we can improve and thing that went well and we want to codify as well. so we've added items to our stockpile. we've reassessed our sheltering and evacuation center needs, and we're making sure that we're more ready this time around. >> all right. certainly will be. thank you so much, megan. we appreciate it. >> thank you, thank you.

the u.s. head of volkswagen will testify before congress next week. ceo michael horne will likely face a grilling over the violations of federal emissions standards. vw has admitted using engine software to cheat on diesel car emission tests in the u.s. where there are about half a million such cars. the scandal has prompted france to now launch an investigation into the german carmaker. millions of t-mobile users may be at risk this morning after the phone company suffered a major data breach. a hacker broke into a server at the credit monitors service expeerian last month. it exposed the records of 15 million t-mobile customers and other people. a documentary premieres tonight looking at the life and controversial art of chinese artist iwawa.

he spent 81 days in solitary confinement. he was accused of tax evasion in 2011. he said he was targeted because of his political stance and criticism of the kie chiez neez government. the director will have its national broadcast premiere on the pbs series "pov" tonight. he joins us via skype from copenhagen. how difficult was it to gain access to ai wei wei. it was something that needed to be negotiated. there were a lot of people at the time that wanted to talk to to him. when he saw a film i made in

nicarag nicaragua, he was convinced. he liked the way i approached the situation. >> doing reading up on him, he's very controversial dealing with a world renowned artist like this whose art and politics is so public, was there a sense of danger that things could get critical for him and maybe you while you were shooting? >> well, i started shooting with wei wei back in the summer of 2010, and back then he already told me that, you know, activists were disappearing. there were kidnappings that took place and stuff like that, and that it potentially could happen to him as well. >> i want to take a moment for a minute to take a look at the documentary. >> it's very advantageous to take photos in china. people are quite scared. >> and did you get a sense of how chinese people view him? is he as revered at home as he

is in internationally? >> in china they mostly know them from the propaganda that the state media is spreading about him, that he's a criminal and bad person and not loyal to his mother land and so forth. for the younger generation that are connected to the internet, of course they know him more as an activist. so outside of china, we know him for his work and more recently for this. there's definitely a difference. >> and ai wei wei has mentioned the time in jail had an impact on his son. does he go into how that impacted him? >>le with, at the time whether i finished the documentary, his son was still too young to know what happened. actually, when i finished filming it was in march 2013. he didn't know that wei wei had

been in prison. he just thought he was away on a long journey to europe. >> my last question for you is then what are you hoping that this documentary will do in terms of international reaction? >> well, of course, i made this film to give an insight to what's going on in china and similar places, but i hope that it can inspire people all over the world to, you know, of course, stands up for their rights and what they believe it like wei wei. >> thank you so much for joining me this morning. you can watch it tonight on the pbs series "pov." a controversial piece of street art by the anonymous artist banksi sold for $150,000. he graffitied the piece in detroit five years ago amid the ruins of a destroyed factory. it says, i remember when all this was trees. anon muss buyer purchased the

piece yesterday at a beverley hill auction. that price tag was tens of thousands of dollars less than expected. still ahead, the monthly job numbers are out. what they say about the state of the economy. plus, turtles under threat. the big effort in mexico to protect them from poachers.

time is running out for negotiators trying to close the trans pacific partnership deal. the u.s. has asked trade ministers from a dozen pacific couldn'ts to stay in atlanta through this evening as they work to finalize the deal. the tpp would make it easier for 40% of the world's economies to trade. if they don't make an agreement today, the entire future of the deal may be in doubt. new numbers out health of the u.s. jobs market are just out, and they show a big

slowdown in hiring last month. our economics and global affairs correspondent patricia sabga has been looking over the labor department's numbers, and they don't look good for september. tell us more. >> it doesn't. this is a disappointing report across the board, and it's a bitterly disappointing report. the economy added 142,000 jobs last month. that was far less than economists were expecting. even more crucially if we're talking psychology here, for 2015 this number here, when you take it with the revisions for august, august numbers were actually revised down to 136,000 jobs created. the july numbers were revised down as well. the average for the year has been pulled to below $200,000 a month created. compare that to last year when the average was 260,000 jobs a on month. what you see is a slowdown in the u.s. jobs machine. the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.1%.

the labor force participation rate declined to 62.4. now, that is a measure of the labor force participation rate. it measures the number of people in work or actively looking for a job. it's gone done even more. that is not a good sign, either. in terms of job creation, we saw the mining sector continue to get hammered. this is a weak sector all year because of low oil prices. basically another really disappointing is average hourly wages. average hourly wages stagnated down 1 cent to $25.09 an hour. this is a very disappointing jobs report across the board. >> how does this impact the federal reserve? >> okay. so, of course, the federal reserve held off on raising interest rates aat their meeting last month. they cited weakness in the global economy is a big concern and also the strong dollar harming u.s. exports abroad because a strong dollar makes u.s. goods more expensive to buy overseas and really what we see

now is this ill health, if you will, and the global economy is now working back into the u.s. >> that's what i was and you. exactly how are the pressures around the globe impacting the u.s. you see that there's clearly a direct link. >> there is a link. let's look at the feds dual mandate, which is full employment and price stability. they want to see inflation of about 2%. that gives the economy enough room to grow and prices are depressed. the thing that depresses prices are global prices. there's two ways to work their way back in. one is through commodities and we see oil prices down from $115 a barrel to below $50 a barrel in one year. that's one way. the other way is by cheaper goods. as everyone devalues the currencies overseas, it makes their goods cheaper. it increases the competition, if you will. it keeps inflation low and makes u.s. firms less competitive in the global marketplace. that's what we see play out here. in terms of federal reserve

policy, now the federal reserve has a policy meeting this morning and then another one in december, and at the last meeting most fed officials thought there would still be a rate hike at some point this year, but who knows? with a disappointing jobs report they could hold off a little bit longer. thank you so much. appreciate it, patty. the obama administration is cracking down on pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory problems. the epa set new standards for ozone comes from smokestacks and tailpipes. the restrictions are slightly below the old limits for ozone release, but health and environmental activists say the new rules don't go far enough. business groups say they will harm the economy. authorities in mexico are struggling to protect hundreds of thousands of endangered nesting turtles. they come ashore on the pacific coast to lay eggs. as john holman reports, keeping turtle eggs safe is a challenge

in a place where poaching is a tradition. >> they arrive one by one, lit only about a sliver of moonlight. a million of endangered turtles gathers on the beaches of southwest mexico each year, one of only two species to stage this mass invasion and season. they lay their they goes into dug holes. it's the only protection against the danger of night like these men. they scour the beach scooping on eggs to sell as local delicacy even as the mothers lay them. it's illegal, but people from poor and isolated communities say they have little choice. >> translator: i'm here because i need this work. we all have families. we don't have education or papers to get regular jobs.

>> reporter: over 70% of the eggs on the beach were recently taken, and the number of turtles worldwide has halved in the last 50 years. the eggs these turtles are laying are up against it. apart from human predators they're at risk from animals and birds, and that means that less than 1% make it to adulthood. middlemen sell the eggs for ten times or more what they pay in the market where they've been part of traditional cuisine for centuries. the elicit trade flourishes in full sight of the mayor's office. the navy used to guard these beaches year-round but was pulled off to battle mexican cartels only returning when massive numbers of turtles arrive. they're stepping up efforts again. >> translator: we've just signed an agreement with the navy,

federal police and army to support us, and we also are using drones to protect the turtles. >> reporter: the government also offers occasional work programs to give poachers other options. while full-time jobs are scare and eggs seemingly plentiful it's hard to resist temptation. coming up in just two minutes from our newsroom in doha, more on the meetings today over how to end the syrian civil war. we will continue to bring you the latest on the campus shooting in oregon. that's it for us in new york. thank you so much for watching. >> our american story is written every day.

it's not always pretty... but it's real. and we show you like no-one else can. this is our american story. this is america tonight.

>> announcer: this is al-jazeera. >> hello there. good with to have you with us. welcome to "the newshour." i'm live in al-jazeera headquarters in doha. a third day of russian airstrikes inside syria. turkey accuses russia of escalating the conflict in syria. the prime minister says he'll talk to putin about civilian casualties. plus -- >> we talked