>> good evening i'm antonio mora. this is allejandr al jazeera am. talking directly to the voters. marco rubio, ted cruz and ben carson talk to the people while donald trump participates this a separate event tonight. and the message to hillary clinton to voters in chicago. late word from the warehouse that president obama is expected to visit the communist island cuba soon. apple versus fbi, the fbi is fighting to unlock the iphone

of one of the killers. three days before the south carolina primary the republican presidential candidates are making their case to voters. marco rubio, ted cruz and ben carson took part in a town hall meeting hosted by cnn. each talked about why he is the most qualified to be president. >> my campaign is not about the past, about the future, about what we are going to do, i can sail this to you without any hesitation whatsoever. i'm as conservative as any other candidate but i'm a 15 year conservative, the willingness to take conservative ideas and turn them into conservative solution he. >> i've had to make life and death decisions, had to derive decisions from interns or residents who didn't know a lot but you still managed to get the right information make the right

decisions, put together teams, complex teams to accomplish things that have never before been accomplished before. >> we make the referendum so we come out of 2016 with a mandate for people and that's exactly what i plan to do. >> donald trump participated in a separate town hall meeting hosted by msnbc. different than his democratic rivals. >> i'm a much better business person than them, they've never employed anybody ever. i'm going to bring the curch together far better than they are going to do, far better than they are going to do. you talk about ted cruz, he's a nasty guy, he doesn't have one republican endorsement and he works with the senate. >> trump with a huge lead over his competitors in south carolina. those town halls came hours after south carolina governor nikki haley announced she is

endorsing marco rubio. after a disappointing showing last week, lisa stark has more. >> reporter: antonio, days before the south carolina primary and there was some thought that governor nikki haley would sit this one out, not make an endorsement. but in fact she has weighed in and it's a big win for the marco rubio campaign. >> ladies and gentlemen if we elect marco rubio, every day will be a great day in america. >> i'm so honored that she chose to join our team. because she embodies everything i want the republican party and the conservative movement to be about. >> even before marco rubio's campaign was attracting enthusiastic crowds. >> we love being here. these great folks are willing to come out and see me. >> he had already won the support of the state's african american senator, tim scott.

>> help me welcome marco rubio! >> like a prize fighter entering the ring. a well worn line. >> we are going to have to undue the damage that barack obama has done to this country. [applause] >> now, when i say that and i say it more than once and the press is, oh he's repeating himself. >> rubio trying to make light of his disastrous performance in the new hampshire debate, when he repeated a line four times. nikki haley who has an 80% approval rating in the state is a huge get. we asked reus rubio about it bee

the announcement. >> i'm hoping he is going to leave south carolina with a tail wind. >> jeb bush had been courting governor haley, bush is near the bottom with donald trump still in front but rubio's supporters like his low key style. >> he's the most mature guy, the youngest guy i believe bust not shouting and he knows his stuff. >> just bringing america to what it was originally, fixing what is wrong. >> sounds like donald trump. >> no, he's too hot-headed. >> the florida senator is hoping for second place fighting neck and neck with ted cruz. >> let's say he comes in second, best case scenario, as we see it today. then i think it gives him the opportunity to continue to fund-raise, continue to try to run a strong campaign in supertuesday states.

>> the once tea party favorite is now seen as more mainstream. he is touting a form of conservatism, beating the democratic nominee to become the 45th president of the united states. >> the score board was on, did they just have a game before, or is that the 45th president of the united states, hmm? >> these two elected officials hope they are the face of a broader more inclusive republican party. both are children of immigrants. and nikki haley has even been mentioned as being on the hort list -- short list of possible vice presidential picks. antonio. hillary clinton campaigned in chicago today with the mother of sandra bland. the event comes as clinton and rival bernie sanders continue to

court minority voters. ash-har quraishi reports from chicago. ♪ >> reporter: at a rally to get out vote in the bronzeville neighborhood. >> from now until november let's fiercely support this lady. i represent to you secretary hillary rodham clinton, our nation's next president. >> after an altercation with a police officer during a traffic stop she was later found handing in her jail cell. >> we ow owe it to theurs a youg woman named sandra bland is pulled out of a car and thrown about jail where she is found dead. >> some an wednesday's rally are still on the is fence. >> my mind is not made up but i

feel as though her heart is in it. >> after a narrow victory in iowa and a double digit loss to bernie sanders in new hampshire, clinton is looking to shore up support. in south carolina. >> it's important that we look at everything that holds people back and yesterday, my poor emphasis and commitment was to knock down the barriers to hold back african americans. >> both clinton and sanders have been criticized by members of the black lives matter movement. yet the civil rights legend representative john lewis. >> clinton has also aligned herself with president obama who has a 90% approval rating with african americans. on saturday she rebuked sanders

for not standing for president obama. >> this is not the first time he has criticized president obama. in the past he has called him weak, he's called him a disappointment. >> one of us ran against barack obama. i was not that candidate. >> it's a strategy some political watchers can help her win support of black voters a month from now. >> it's not lost on african americans, that he chose her to be his first secretary of state. that is a wise strategy for her to hue close to the president's agenda and to hue close to the president's spolts policies. this i-- policies. >> african american democratic voters, clinton is apology 68% to sanders 33%. important for the democratic candidate to be well beyond the

primary. ash-har quraishi, al jazeera, chicago. we're joined by bill schneider, good to see you bill. let's start with south carolina governor nikki haley's endorsement of marco rubio, could it make a difference on saturday? >> i think it could, he might beat trump in south carolina with this endorsement. she's very popular. she said something when she endorsed him. marco rubio has the back of military veterans and those on active duty. there are a lot of military veterans and military bases in south carolina. that could be a key, marco rubio is not a military veteran, but if he comes in second he could be in a position to be the anti-trump candidate. >> many felt the endorsement would go to jeb bush, but his

poor showing in new hampshire and they show jeb bush doing poorly. he had lobbied hard for the haley endorsement. if the polls are right how much of a blow would it be for bush to do badly there? >> it would be a very big blow. bush may try is hang on until the crucial florida primary. that's the one we look forward to, on march 15th, the first time when i can have winner take all primaries. that is like to be a steel cage death match between trump and rubio. >> do you think we're not going to see a narrowing of the republican feels until sometime in march? >> we might not. ted cruz is running second in most polls so far in south carolina, rubio could come in third just behind cruz, so the problem has always been this.

trump is number 1 among republicans but he never gets a majorities. he's getting close to 40% now. but if you can find one candidate who can rally the antitrump voters, that would be a real contest. and right now there's a very big contest to see who's going to be that candidate. >> talking about cruz, polls show trump way ahead in south carolina, three new polls today show him way ahead nationally but one for the first time shows cruz leading nationally. cruz did everything he could to highlight it today. do you think trump could have been heard by some of his harsh attacks against bush 41? >> everything he says could hurt him but yet it doesn't because he speaks for a lot of voters who are defiant. trump's style of speaking is defiance. he denice the republican establishment. he denice conventional wisdom.

he defies common decency sometimes. but republican voters are in a die phi ant move who see what they want in trump, who is the unobama candidate. he can make things happen and their problem with obama is he comes across as very i inaffect chul. ineffectual. >> a lot of latino voters where she's expected to do well in south carolina and nevada pep she's not doing well among anglo voters. sanders ties her for white voters, in south carolina, she is not doing nearly as well as most people expected. she's dependent on that minority vote but if she loses nevada

she'll have a big problem. >> bill snyder, always great to have you with us, thanks. sure. >> obama nominee to replace justice schea is stil schea scal possible. chuck grassley will wait until making a nomination. president obama will soon visit cuba. the trip will mark another milestone in the renewed relations between the two countries coming six months after the u.s. reopened its embassy in havana. the trip could come as soon as flex month. it has been 80 years since a sitting u.s. president set foot in cuba. apple in the middle. why the wants to bypass apple

security features. turkey is hit by a bombing that kills dozens, with the syrian civil war raging.

>> an attack in a turkish

capital killed 28 and wounded dozens more. targeting a bus carrying military personnel. no group has claimed responsibility. the u.s. and nato have condemned the attack. turkey's president is vowing to retaliate. the u.s. flew four fighter jets over south korea today in an apparent show of force to the north. f-22 stealth pilots did the fly over. the north claims it was launching a satellite. joint u.s. and south korea military drills are set to begin in march. apple is taking on the u.s. government, challenging a crednr federal court. al jazeera's jacob ward reports from san francisco. >> antonio what seems to be a

fairly simple? the fbi asking apple to help it break into a single phone has turned into a national debate over privacy. at best the phone waits as long as an hour, before allowing you to guess again. at worst, the phone erases itself. take as many shots at the pass code on saeed farook's phone as is necessary to unlock it. that phone is more than 24 million iphone 5cs many apple has sold around the world. as well as millions of others that could be affected. fbi says this is not a threat to privacy to nerc anyone else. >> they are simply asking for something that would have an impact on this one device. >> apple's encryption scheme

already makes that impossible for newer devices. but apple says it is drawing the line here and it will not comply. this seems like a relatively well bounded question, but this truth is this has implications for the rest of technology, increasingly the products and processes that you and i use to communicate with one another, are encrypted, build a back door into their own devices, priefers advocacprivacyadvocates say. >> it's about lgbt activists here, in the middle east, you name it, privacy is not juries a human right but it's a social good. >> reporter: the question is this: if apple creates software that a federal agency can use to break into a single iphone connected to a known terrorist,

is that worth the possibility that another agency, a foreign government or another terrorist could use the same technique to get into millions of other iphones? antonio, just this afternoon the ceo of google tweeted that it was an important post by tim cook the ceo of panel forcing the hacking, seems that google is lining up with apple on this issue and the battle is on. >> jake ward in san francisco. a los angeles hospital said it has paid computer hackers a $17,000 ransom to regain control of its computer network. the president of hollywood medical center said it paid off the lacquers in difficult to track bitcoins. federal investigators uncovered stock piles of explosives firearms and food at a national

wildlife refuge in oregon. investigators also discovered several military style trenches dug around the property. more than two dozen were arrested in connection to the occupation and one was killed. former head of the company responsible for tainting water supply of west virginia, will be going to jail. and pope francis brings his message of mercy to the u.s.-mexico border.

>> a new bill in south dakota is causing outrage in the lgbt community. requiring students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their biological sex. the governor is expected to sign the bill that would make it the first state to do so. manny pacquiao says, animals do not engage in same sex acts, nike last called the comment

abhorrent and pacquiao has since apologized. a company in west virginia contaminated the water of nine counts. robert ray reports from charleston, west virginia. >> antonio, it's all over for the former president of freedom industries gary southern today, but that doesn't mean a lot of residents in the west virginia capital charleston are happy with the outcome. gary southern arrived at federal courthouse flanked by his attorneys. he pleaded guilty, to charges, forcing tap water to be shut off for 300,000 residents. do you have anything to say to the peep of charleston? i know this is a nervous day, but is there anything you can say to us? nothing at all sir?

don't you think you owe it to the people of charleston just to make some apology or comment to the 300,000 people that couldn't drink water, don't you think, don't you think sir? sir, sir, can't you answer, can't you answer the questions, can you answer the questions? after nearly two hours inside the courtroom a federal judge handed down southern's sentence. he will serve 30 days in federal prison in florida, six months of supervised release and pay a $20,000 fine. federal courthouse has now sentenced six members of southern, and others have received sentences from operationprobations to fines. to jail sometime. >> to me it seems like a slap on the wrist and it was disheartening to hear he was

taking a private plane back to florida when he caused such disruption to people, i have mixed feelings. >> southern has faced the harshest penalty, up to 3 years in prison and 300,000 in fines. federal prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 21 to 27 months and freedom industries which filed for bankruptcy nine days after the spill was fined 900,000, but the judge says it's symbolic because the company doesn't exist anymore. antonio, southern did apologize in court today, not for chemical spill but for press conference he put on two years ago directly after the chemical spill. he held a bottle of water and took sips out of it while the press asked him questions and he cut that are conference short,

saying he didn't feel well. after his sentencing he boarded a private plane to go back to his florida residence. antonio. poacpope francis played andd mass in el punto. the focus of his homily. >> a step, a a path loaded with victims of violence, many of our brothers and sisters are the products of human trafficking. >> tens of thousands gathered oon both sides of the border to hear francis say mass. i'm antonio mora, thanks for joining us, for the latest news any time head over to aljazeera.com. ray suarez is up next with "inside story." have a great night. night.

>> have you heard? there's a vacancy on the united states supreme court. the top court of appeals in the country. the constitution of the united states lays out the rules for filling that vacancy, but one of the power centers involved in that task has already declared, basically, we don't want to. make no mistake. it's a high wire act for everybody involved. the president who wants to shape the court, a senate determined to avoid just that, and it's filled with constitutional and political risk. rolling the dice, it's the "inside story".