security concerns as americans hit the road for thanksgiving, the president talking about it from the white house. protests on the streets of chicago, anger and calls for action after a dash cam video is made public that shows an officer shooting a black teenager over and over again. and easing tensions, turkey and russia both urging peace after the russian war plane is shot down. ♪ this is al jazeera america live in new york city. i'm del walters. president obama addressing the nation last hour, reassuring americans going into the

thanksgiving holiday wkd. the president telling reporters there is no credible threat of a plot to attack the u.s. his says his security team is taking every possible step and working overtime to ensure the nation's safety and asking americans to go about their normal routines during the holiday weekend. lisa, tell us more about what the president had to say. >> reporter: well, del, the president's job this morning was really to be the reassurer in chief if you will as millions of americans head to the airports and highways to begin their holidays. he said the attacks in paris did strike a deep cord with americans, so he says he realizes that many people are feeling worried about their security and safety. here is president obama. >> it's understandable that people worry, something similar could happen here. watching the events in paris made the threat feel closer to home. so as we go into thanksgiving

weekend, i want the american people to know that we are taking every possible step to keep our homeland safe >> reporter: now the president said that they are continuing to monitor any kind of intelligence or threats against the united states. he even said if there is a credible threat, which is there is not now, if there is one, that the american public will be informed. and the president also said that the u.s. government is doing everything it can both overseas and in the u.s. to keep americans safe. as you said, they will be working overtime and won't have as much of a holiday as the rest of us. but he is trying to tell people don't be concerned, we are on the job, go about your thanksgiving holiday feeling reassured. 46 million americans taking to the road, and skies this weekend, what extra security

will be see especially at the airports? >> reporter: perhaps more bomb-sniffing dogs, the tsa has already been retraining its screeners and asking them to be zero tolerance of any alarms, if something alarms they need to check it. because there have been undercover tests that showed that they missed mock bombs and explosives. with the paris attacks and the downing of the russian jet liner, you can imagine they are going to be looking at everything and everyone very carefully. >> lisa, happy thanks giving. more protests are planned today in chicago after the release of a graphic video that shows a white police officer shooting a black teen over and over again. overnight there were loud but mosley peaceful demonstrations on the streets. the video shows the boy being

shot 16 times by jason van dyk. right now van dyk is in jail charged with first being murder. we are going live to andy in chicago. andy what is the latest? >> we're expecting demonstrators to show up here at city hall any time now. we talked to one demonstrator who said they are looking for what they call a coaching change. now that that officer has been charged with first degree murder they want more. they want the state's attorney who is prosecuting this case to be booted out as well. for the length of time it took to prosecute this case. earlier today the members of city council's black caucus spoke. >> as sad as it is, especially for people of color, we know there's more than one la quan mcdonald, while the individual facts of various cases may

differ, there are many whose riegss have been violated because their lives were deemed not to matter. >> reporter: the police superintendent says look, we have done things in city hall and any police department to put down on the number of police shootings, we have made changes in the last four years, he says that police shootings are down about 60%. and the state attorney has been arguing that the reason it took so long, is because she wanted this case to be airtight. the family of la quan mcdonald might be speaking today. they have been silent to the media in all of this so far. >> andy many, many people there angry. can we expect to see more protests after things calm down this afternoon? >> we're still waiting on that, del, and i talked to an activist today who said part of the

problem that the activists have is that many of the older black pastors he says are too in tight with the city administration. the city administration has always reached out to these older black pastors, and there is a younger group who are willing to go further to see change here. but we'll see, del. >> andy thank you very much. in many minneapolis the funeral for another african american teenager killed by police is underway. clark was shot by police ten days ago sparking tensions in that city. this morning three white men are in custody, all of them accused at shooting at a group of protesters. the united states army saying the bombing of an afghan hospital last month was fortunate and in their words avoidable. it released findings from an

investigation saying human error was to blame. the top army general in afghanistan explaining how the hospital was mistaken for a taliban target. >> the report found that fatigue in a high-operational tempo contributed to this trablgdy. it alls identified failures in systems and processes that while not the cause of the strike on the msf trauma center, contributed to the incident. the physical description of the building provided by the afghans to the u.s. commander roughly matched the description of the trauma center as seen by the air crew. >> doctors without borders has called what happened a war crime and repeatedly demanded an identify investigation. pope francis on the ground in kenya. security concerns there have many nations on high alert.

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operations with turkey, and kremlin, says it is ready to destroy any dangerous air targets. what is the latest on the diplomatic efforts by turkey? >> reporter: well, del, turkey since daybreak has been trying to give two messages with regards to the downing of this aircraft, the first says it stands by its actions and those actions were in self-defense, that they weren't specifically targeting the russian aircraft because it was a russian jet, but it was an unknown flying object approaching its air space. the other message is they are trying to de-escalate the situation. we heard the turkish foreign minister saying he will hold

meetings with his counterpart in the next couple of days, and the participate and the prime minister said this incident shouldn't be escalated into something more. however, the surviving pilot of that russian jet who came out and claimed that the -- that the aircraft had not entered turkish air space, that prompted the turkish authorities to release audio recordings of the warning signals that they gave to that aircraft, that they had warned them ten times within five minutes as they approached the turkish borders to turn around. they released the audio messages and radar footage which say they proves it entered into turkish air space. >> reporter: they are pointing fingers at each other over more than just that downed plane. where is all of this tension coming from? >> reporter: the essence comes

from the conflict in syria, and the war that has been raging on there for several years now. russia is a stanch ally of president bashar al-assad and his regime. that regime, turkey considers to be a dicker toal regime, a regimest ponsable for the destruction of syria, which has lead to millions of refugees, the bulk of which are being hosted by turkey. so that's where the basis of that tension comes from. what has made things worse is over the last year when isis, or isil, or islamic state came about, that has made things worse. russia as accused turkey of helping isil by turning a blind eye to militants coming through its borders, turkey have accused

russia of bombing the opposition and not isil, basically giving a free reign to isil to gain more territory. this is what president erdogan had to say about that. >> translator: they claim to be fighting against daesh, however, they are in latakia in the north area, which is populated by turkmen's there is no daesh there. do not deceive us. >> reporter: so this by all intents and purposes some sort of -- i would say proxy conflict in the sense that whilst yes the latest flaring in attention has come about because of the downing of the jet, but both turkey and russia sit on opposing sides. and that's why analysts are saying the real conflict is the syria war, and until that is solved, we could expect more

tension in the coming weeks and months, del. >> jamal as always thank you very much. pope francis is in africa. it is his first trip to the continent since he became pope. he was greeted by kenya's president and a host of bishops. he will also go to uganda and the central republic. los angeles is dealing with a stubborn crisis of homelessness. and the city is trying to do something about it. >> reporter: in the shadow of downtown los angeles on the destitute streets of skid row, the homeless tents, tarps, shopping carts tell the story of a crisis. >> reporter: you sleep here in the middle? >> all of these are blankets. >> reporter: l.a.'s homeless numbers have jumped by 20% since

2014. and the federal government has recently released its own assessment, saying l.a. has the highest number of chronically homeless people in the u.s. but the major has not declared an immediate state of emergency, despite an earlier announcement that he intended to take the unprecedented step. his office didn't say why he is not moving forward now, but said in a written statement: for itself part, the city council has agreed to add more beds to its winter shelter program, while also allowing people living in cars to sleep in designated parking lots. more than 70% of the city's homeless population are without shelter? >> if you walk down skid row you wouldn't think you are living in

america. >> reporter: in october this city council member who's district includes skid row told al jazeera he thinks an emergency declaration is needed to increase funding for housing. >> what we have right now is clearly not acceptable. it is something that has been neglected for many decades here in the region. in fact the problem is only getting worse. our past approaches have failed. >> reporter: homeless advocate agrees, but isn't convinced an emergency deg la ration is the answer. >> instead of declaring a state of emergency, in hopes of getting a federal and state contribution, we need to look at the resources that we're already spending, shave those resources, and apply them to things that really work, and of course that's housing, not arresting more people. >> reporter: the city already sends about $100 million a year combat homelessness, with the

majority going towards policing the streets. encampments like these must be removed by 6:00 am otherwise homeless people face arrest. it has happened to joe-joe smith. how many times have you been arrested for sleeping on the streets. >> probably 13, 14 times over the course of three years. we said we're not going to take our tents down just because y'all want us to take them down. >> reporter: smith has lived on these streets for nine years, but in the last few years he has seen more homeless, more camps, more arrests. he wants to see more housing. for you what is the solution? how does the city of l.a. get you joe-joe off of the streets? >> build low-income housing. that would be -- that's the answer. that's -- that's always going to be the answer. we need more housing. like house keys not hand cuffs. >> reporter: while stopping short of declaring a homeless

emergency now, the city continues to look at all options as it struggles to find a long-term solution for getting people off of the streets for good. gender london, al jazeera. and when we come back an out of this world achievement. the successful mission to launch a private spacecraft, but it's a what it did back on earth that is making headlines. ♪

>> we're here to fully get into the nuances of everything that's going on, not just in this country, but around the world. getting the news from the people who are affected. >> people need to demand reform... >> ali velshi on target.

♪ just in time for thanksgiving, parts of the west are being pounded with snow. nicole mitchell has your holiday forecast. >> it has been a potent system already moving through the rockies, and now more snow has started to move into the dakotas. some as far south as rain reported in san diego. this is on the move now, and as it moves into the mid-section of the country, getting warm moisture. this is more into the day tomorrow. and you can see how widespread that is, also some pink on the backside. that indicates where we could see ice anywhere from minnesota to texas. put this back into motion, getting us into the day on friday. a lot of people still out and on the roads, maybe hitting those sales and once again you can see how widespread it is. i would say as this goes through

the place that could see the most of that freezing precipitation would be into nebraska, kansas, watch for places up to a quarter of an inch, and that's when it starts getting trickier, possibly bringing branches down, and we also have the different weather advisories for slick roads. on the front side some of that heavy rain with all of the moisture. and there is a big temperature drop with this. that same flow is warming things up in the 50s, 60s, even 70s, behind that temperatures really drop. watch denver today at 44 versus pefrp temperatures possibly into the 20s tomorrow, but there are some good sides of that, if you are ahead of everything, macy's day parade, near 60 in new york, and the rain hasn't made it. >> nicole thing you very much. it has been 100 years since

albert einstein changed the world with the way he understood gravity. as tarek bazley reports it's the basis for a lot of modern advances including something a lot of us can't live without, our gps. >> reporter: ion sign's theory of general relatively came ten years after his more famous e equals mc scombared. it added the force of gravity to the equation, and predicted how it can bend light and alter the passage of time. this has been widely abserved by space telescopes, and allowed the calculation that more than a quarter of the universe is made up of invisible dark matter. >> that amount of gravity will not be enough to produce that distortion. you need extra mass that you cannot see. and that is called dark matter. and the analysis of dark matter

comes because einstein predicted that effect. >> reporter: his equations are also the basis of global positioning technology found on smartphones and used widely for navigation. the einstein museum in the swiss capitols other technologies he helped develop, incluesing this campus, still used on ships. the equations presented by einstein in 1915 changed frefrp our understanding of the physical world from the effect of gravity on light, to the existence of black holes. it was always the beginning of a period that would see him become a superstar, one of the most well-known thinkerings of the 21st century. after initially supporting the development, einstein later campaigned against nuclear weapons. he was also a vocal supporter of human and civil rights.

>> those were topics which really moved many people all over the world, and he had credibility. he had the pop star looks, also his personality. i don't think that he intended to be a pop star, but he really fit perfectly well into this need for a pop star. >> reporter: einstein's theories also had a philosophical side, one he often expressed in the tens of thousands of personal letters he wrote. >> if everybody realized that the things we do every single day are permanent, a perm nerpt part of the universe from that moment on, i think maybe everybody would treat each other better and try to make sure they were making a mark on the universe that they were proud of. >> reporter: einstein also challenged those around him to try each day to comprehend a little of the mysteries of attorneyty, of life, and the structure of reality.

the important thing, he said is to never stop questioning. it is being called a smile stone in the history of space travel. the blue hock ket the brain child of jeff bezos launched and landed safely back on earth. >> reporter: 110,000 tons of thrust and blue origin is on its way more than 60 miles up. the ship is backed by the owner of amazon.com, jeff bezos. you can just see him creeping into the control room to watch. >> it traveled into space and then came back down and the entire vehicle landed under its own power. >> reporter: the rocket gently

kisses the landing pad. bezos took to twitter for what many think may be his first ever tweet: the idea is to make blue origin and the new sheperd capsule named for the first american in space available to companies and individuals so that going to space becomes almost second nature. >> say you took an airplane and only used it once, and then you had to build a whole new airplane to take another flight. >> reporter: elon musk tweeted congratulations to bezos. his company has had two failed attempts. >> his vehicle went up close to 400,000 feet, so it actually went into space and then came back down and landed under rocket engine compulsion.

>> reporter: the crusade they made a controlled landing. they call it a full reused game changer, and a red letter day for private space flight. >> touch down. >> reporter: john terrett, al jazeera. and finally the baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger sounds like a story of christmas, but this one was found in new york. the 5-pound baby boy was taken to the hospital and is fine. and the church is getting calls from members, all of them saying they want to adopt the baby. a reminder you can check us out 24 hours a day by going to aljazeera.com. as for me, happy thanksgiving. ♪

>> it is 6:00 here in london. 18 hours gmt. wherever you're watching this al jazeera news hour, i'm david foster, these are some of the stories we'll be covering in the next 60 minutes. the pilot of the russian fighter jet said that he was given no warning before being shot down by the turkish military. the bombing of an afghan hospital last month in which 30 people were killed. isil says it carried o