the government's piloting the project in at least 30 schools, but critics say priorities should be textbooks and providing proper facilities. you'll find much more on many of the stories we're covering on our website, as ever, click on to aljazeera.com, aljazeera.com. ♪ the senate is getting ready to vote on whether to let syrian refugees enter the u.s. another brutal day for investors across the globe as business leaders meet in switzerland for the world economic forum. >> we will not stop working for the people of flint until every single person has clean water every single day no matter what. >> reporter: michigan's governor trying to make amends after that disastrous handling of the flint

water crisis. and sarah palin backing donald trump's bid for the white house. ♪ you may not want to look another rough day for wall street as more than a thousand stocks on the new york stock exchange now hitting 52-week lows. all of this happens in the first 20 minutes of trading. right now the dow is down 531 points. adding to the market turmoil is oil which is trading at levels that have not been seen in more than a decade. you are watching al jazeera america live in new york city. and i'm del walters. this afternoon the senate expected to end debate and move forward on that refugee bill that brings iraqi and syrian refugees to the united states.

the house passing the bill in november. the crucial vote even has some presidential candidates leaving the campaign trial because they say they want to be in washington. lisa stark is there, and what does this bill entail? >> reporter: the president had wanted to admit about 10,000 syrian refugees, 15,000 iraqi refugees, but after the paris attacks in november there was a lot of concern raised about whether we can be sure that these folks were in fact safe, didn't pose any kind of a threat. that was the genesis for this bill, and this morning, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell today it should be passed. here is mcconnell. >> our country has a proud record of admitting the oppressed as refugees to our shores, yet the debate about how to safely admit refugees from syria and iraq is a serious conversation that deserves a serious response from washington. it's difficult to effectively

vet immigrants from a war-attorney country where records may sometimes no longer exist at all. >> reporter: opponens say, look, it would be impossible to admit any refugees under this bill, because it would require that the head of the fine, department of homeland security, national security intelligence agency, that they all certify that each refugee is not a threat. here is harry reid. >> we agree the refugees should go through a robust screening proce process. this bill, though, has -- is stressing bureaucracy and paperwork. each refugee that comes to this country, and there's about a hundred a day, would have to be signed off by three cabinet secretaries, that's 300 personal signatures a day. we don't want more paperwork. >> reporter: as you heard, reid

wants some amendments, but one of the amendments would ask the senate to denounce republican candidate donald trump who, del, as you know has called for barring muslims from entering the u.s. so that's one of the things that reid says the democrats need to allow a vote to proceed. that may be a tough sell. >> who has the votes and what is the likelihood that this bill is going to move forward? >> the vote we're waiting for is procedural. but there has to be 60 votes to allow this bill to proceed to debate and vote. so six democrats would have to join the republicans. both sides trying to come to some kind of agreement to move the bill forward. >> lisa thank you very much. and the refugee crisis far from over. below freezing temps and snow in

central europe not stemming the tide of desperate syrians. as many as 2,000 migrants continue to cross into serbia every day. officials say they are arriving without the necessary cold weather gear, some have pneumonia, many are just plain sick. ash carter making a new push today in the fight against isil. he joined in counterparts in paris. >> by the power of a global coalition, wielding a mighty suite of capabilities, ranging from air strikes, special forces, advice, assistance, equipment, and training to local, motivated forces, cyber tools, intelligence, mobility, and logistics. >> carter emphasized the need for arab coalition forces to

contribute to the fight. it looks like the effort to hurt the group economically could be working. newly leaked documents talk about a pay cut for soldiers in syria and iraq. in pakistan, at least 19 people are dead following a sdaedly attack at a university there today. it was about 86 miles away from the capitol city. authorities saying a number of attackers scaled the walls around the campus, before unleashing a barrage of gunfire. the head of the pakistani taliban strongly condemning the attack. >> reporter: security forces now patrol the fields alongside the university. gunmen had earlier taken advantage of thick winter fog to scale the walls, storm

buildings, and open fire on students and teachers. >> translator: we heard firing from the back of the campus. we thought maybe some people were fighting. then the gunfire increased. we said stay in the rooms. don't go out. then the security forces came. >> reporter: classes had begun for the day. 3,000 students study here. and there bureaucrat hundreds of others at the university too. 600 special guests were there to mark the death of the man whom the university is named after, he was the founder of the liberal anti-taliban political party. university is in the province that is the same region where fighters attacked the school in december 2nd, '01, skilling 134 children. that attack was linked to the pakistan taliban. reaction spurs pakistani government officials to crack down on the taliban and other fighters. hundreds of suspects were killed or arrested.

in this latest attack, security forces combed the campus for hours, looking for gunmen. they say they are now confident they have killed them all, and an investigation is underway, leaving families and thousands of students to mourn the dead. speaking at a mayor's conference in the last hour, flint's new mayor giving the reasons she says her city still doesn't have clean water. >> we talked about would this happen in a different community and what we believe is that we know -- we know flint is predominantly african american but it is also a social -- it's a class issue as well, and we have got high unemployment, and so we just need people to step up, speak up, and speak out about what is going on in flint. >> meanwhile, michigan governor saying he will hand over all emails related to that crisis.

he admitted his government failed the city. the state epa also says it did not respond quickly enough. >> reporter: last night, the governor asked the state legislature for $28.5 million to help flint fix its broken water system. he apologized for the crisis. he spent most of his speech on it. he promised that he would fix this. in the meantime, the health and human services department on a federal level is sending a coordinator to flint to help coordinate the efforts to fix the water problems and help again with the health needs of its children, still protesters here and critics alike protested outside of the state of the state address last night, calling on the governor to resign or maybe even face criminal charges for his role directly or indirectly in the flint water crisis. andy thank you very much.

emma lives in detroit's neighborhood that is considered the most polluted zip code in all of michigan. she wrote about the flint water crisis on our website, aljazeera.com. she says that the crisis shows that black lives don't matter. >> we have had just a culture of dismissal in terms of black people saying we're hurting, we're dying -- or possibly dying, and there's been nothing done, an apology is not good enough. i think the governor should resign, and i think they need to completely rework our environmental department, because it is not working. i am shocked by what is happening in flint, but not surprised. and that's kind of a pathetic situation. she says the residents deserve evidence that there was no crime perpetrated on the people who live there. in baltimore another pretrial hearing in the case of freddie gray.

porter was tried first on manslaughter and other charges in connection with gray's death, his trial was declared a mistrial. the prosecution wants porter to testimony, the defense does not. also in baltimore police are putting plans in place to start wearing body cameras. they are providing cameras for nearly 3,000 officers, but the details are still being worked out. president obama heading to the detroit auto show. up next, we take a look at the industry seven years after the bailout. donald trump welcoming the support of sarah palin in the final push before iowa. and this is not a welcome site, the dow down 528 points right now, and it is not pretty. stay with us. ♪

it is another sea of red today for stocks globally. crude at a 12-year low. the bad news spreading across the global markets as well. in asia down almost 4%. patricia sabga joins us now. our economics reporter. obviously what they are trying to do in china is not working. >> it does not appear to be

working, but really, del, when we take a look at the selloff, it's just one piece of bad news on top of another peace of bad news, and really what we're seeing is a change in sentiment. so much of stock trading has to do with mow mem um and sentiment, and emotion and perception, and when people are positive about where the u.s. or global economy is going, then they tend to want to invest in markets, but when sentiment turns sour because of all of the bad news, and we have had tons of bad news lately with oil prices and china. >> the markets elsewhere are doing worse. >> there are other countries that are certainly getting hit far worse. but let's take a look at oil and what the implications are. we have seen this dramatic slide in oil prices. from june 2, '014, we were at 1a

barrel, and they have just slid since. the oil market is in danger of drowning in oversupply. you have a serious rivalry within oh pack between saudi arabia, and iran, and non-opec producers are also pumping with abandon. so you either need a boost in demand, well, that's unlikely, considering china is slowing down, and the global economy is slowing down, and emerging markets are under serious pain right now. the only other way to get prices up is for producers to cut their output. and imagine what that would take. >> when we look at these markets today, is this an indication that wall street has lost confidence in anybody, and i'm talking about china, europe, to get a handle on this global financial crisis? >> what you are seeing right now is people going -- investors are

going into safe haven investments, u.s. treasuries. you see them going into gold. you see them going into currencies like the yen. they are going into the safe haven until basically the negative sentiment lets up. even when good news comes through, it's not enough to change the sentiment in the market. but a lot of what is weighing on the market right now, the emerging market debt crisis, that's the result of so many investors pouring money into emerging markets, driving up, getting a lot of emerging markets took out loans and can't afford to pay them now. low oil prices, falling commodity prices, these are things that we have known for a very, very long time, but the sentiment has now turned. and so now there's agreement, like, yes, there are serious, serious headwinds ahead. and probably one of the biggest

are commodity prices, because commodities were oversold because of the engine of china, and china is now slowing down. so this could take years to work through. >> an indication i called on my 401k and the line was busy. thanks for being us with. the supreme court taking up a case that could change how some financial crimes are prosecuted. they are being asked to decide what is needed to prove insider trading. a california man convicted after making trades based on tips from his brother-in-law who worked at citigroup. in this detroit nearly overschool is closed today after another day of those teacher sickouts. 88 schools out of 100 shutting their doors. this is the latest and largest in a string of recent stick-outs, the teachers are trying to call attention to problems in the district. they are expected to rally all day today. and president obama is in

detroit to visit the auto show. air force one touching down just moments ago. his goal is to celebrate the administration's role in reviving the auto industry. 2015 marking one of the best years ever in terms of sales. the bailout costing taxpayers less than expected. most of the money was paid back, taxpayers were left on the hook for a little more than $9 million. experts say the bailout saved more than 4 million jobs. todd at automobile magazine says consumer confidence helped as well. >> i think you have seen in the last five or six years greater increases in the sale of luxury and premium cars. obviously you could get to the question of, you know, economic distribution in this country, the -- erosion of the middle class, but you are seeing a lot

of good sales in the luxury and premium brands, and that brings a lot of profit. the thing about oil -- low oil prices is that, yes, we're buying a lot more suv's these days, but those suv's are cross-over utility vehicles, and generally people who were buying mid-sized sedans, ten years ago are buying compact suvs now, those compact cuv's get more or less the same fuel mileage as say an accord. millions of gm cars said those faulty ignition switches and exploding air bag, effecting a number of japanese brands as well. donald trump is in iowa of getting an endorsement from sarah palin. she made that announcement during a racous speech in iowa.

>> only one candidate's record of success proves he is the master of the art of the deal. he is beholden to no one, but we the people, how refreshing. he is perfectly positioned to let you make america great again. [ cheers ] >> are you ready for that iowa? [ cheers and applause ] >> no one pussy footing around. our troops deserve the best! you deserve the best! >> palin is very popular among evangelicals a group that trump has been trying to court in recent days. just 11 days to go before the iowa caucuses. palin endorsed cruz back in 2012. there are new questions about hillary clinton's emails when she was secretary of state. the intelligence inspector general saying some of those emails were more sensitive than top secret. they were described as classified emails that contained information from special access program. the clinton campaign dismissing

those findings, saying the emails were not classified at the time they were sent and received. and bad news continues for clinton in new hampshire. there is a new poll showing bernie sanders surging ahead. voters go to the polls in less than three weeks. next, picture this, customs officers begin using facial recognition technology in new york. and a shark new warning about what is filling up the oceans and pushing out the fish. the only way to get better is to challenge yourself,

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new york's jfk airport unveiling facial recognition technology. a reader that matches a person's face to their passport. it will be used on countries where travelers visas are being waived. we're following a storm system that is threatening to dump as much as two feet of snow along the east coast. parts of the system already bringing snow to the south. nicole this one is going to be massive. >> yes, and one of the big players is the fact that the temperatures have gotten colder since last week. so it supports more snow versus rain. here are some of the temperatures which have been cooler than average. we have had a little bit of moderation versus the deep freeze, so minneapolis at 22 today versus some of the

negatives we saw a couple of days ago, but still cold enough to support the snow versus the western side of the country, where the northwest, temperatures in the 50s will make that more of a rain storm. what we're already dealing with today has been a few inches of snow south of the great lakes, also freezing precipitation on the southern end of this. as this moves towards the coastline, mostly light snow once it gets to the coast. but it's actually what is coming out of the rockies that we are watching closely. in that will start to interact with gulf moisture, more rain and then snow into the midwest with all of this. strong enough system that it could produce severe weather tomorrow and then really cranks up into the day on friday, and then this pulls off of the coast gets even stronger, more wind associated with it, and moves that snow northward on saturday.

the forecast over the next couple of days, i mentioned a new storm coming into the west coast. a lot of rain. snow in the higher el vaguses, but the one we are watching, wind, hail, maybe isolated tornado possible, and as it moves the next couple of days, heavy snow on friday some places could get easelly over a foot, and then more wind on the saturday. there is a disturbing warning today involving the world's oceans, they are filling up with plastic, and soon there could be more plastic than fish. ines ferre has our story. >> reporter: researchers working for the world economic forum say about 8 million tons of plastic end up in the oceans every year, that's about one garbage truckload of waste every minute, and by 2050 there may be more plastic in the ocean than fish. >> from whales being entangled,

dolphins, turtles, et cetera being choked and drowned. >> reporter: ocean explorer has long warned about the effects of plastic pollution. >> we have to stop the mess, because beach cleanups are essential, but until we stop creating the mess in the first plays in we are just going to be picking up other people's garbage. >> reporter: organizations have been talking about the problem for years, and studying debris collected from the water. some like micro plastics, smaller than a finger nail are difficult to clean up. >> i had a handful at the end of a five-minute search. >> reporter: but more plastics are being made and dumped every year, and production is expected to double over the next two decades, the certain is adds stress to the oceans and plastics ending up in the food supply. >> cut down on single-use plastics, cut down on the bags that we use, and recognize that

marine debris is a problem that we're all part of, and it's something that we can all take responsibility for. >> reporter: the report agrees, and suggests creating ways to row psych -- recycle and reuse plastics. and finally, if you ever got sick after a night of heavy drinking, north korea say they have your answer. the first hang-over free beverage. they say it leaves the drinkers feeling, quote, suave, and north korea also claiming in recent years to have a cure for czars, ebola, and cancer. before we go we want to take a last look at the markets. they are down big. off of their highs, which were above 500. crude now trading at $28 a barrel. that is a 12-year low. thanks for joining us.

the news continues live from london next. ♪ announcer: this is al jazeera. hello everyone, i'm felicity barr, welcome to the newshour, live from london. coming up in the next 60 minutes, more needs to be done. defence ministers in relation to i.s.i.l. discuss ways to step up the fight the talibani attack a university four refugees camping out in calais must be allowed into