al jazeera is live this morning in las vegas and trump winning big and surprisingly with hispanics. >> dell, absolutely. a big surprise that he took the latino voted, although i think we have to be a little careful here, because there are not that many l latinos in the gop in

nevada. the spread is plus or minus 10%. having said that, he appears to have yet indeed taken the latino vote and trump himself said he's the winner winner wimp and in so many categories. he beat out ted cruz and marco rubio when it came to age, income, education levels, support across the board for somebody who's breaking all the political rules.

with nearly the double support of his nearest competitor, despite the latest results, the two candidates battling to be trumps challenger in the race are not ready to back down. senator ted cruz told reporters he believes trump is vulnerable. >> the first four states have shown that the only campaign that has beaten donald trump and the only campaign that can beat donald trump is this campaign. >> marco rubio left nevada to rally in michigan, which is not one of the states in next week's super primary, sending the message that his campaign is focused on making america better. >> we're going to take our message, our principles to people that live today the way that i grew up. >> with super tuesday looming, it could be a lot tougher for any candidate to pull together the type of support they need to topple trump. the latest survey show he's

already made headway in cruz's home state texas and leading in florida, rubes territory, a winning streak that increasingly seems unstoppable. >> we're going to bring in so much money and so much everything, we're going to make america great again, folks, i'm telling you, we're going to make america great again. >> something else about trump supporters, i had mentioned the fact that there was one lifelong democratic that we had met who said that he finally decided to switch party affiliations and vote for donald trump. another trump supporter, i asked do you agree with everything that he's and she said no, but no politician is going to be in complete agreement with her point of view and she's going for the guy who's unabashed and in many ways, the people we spoke to, there's this whole met at a thing. they've perfectly aware of the fact that he's playing the game and they respect that. >> on the issue agenda, what was the big issue for gop voters in nevada? >> in nevada, going from table

to table, immigration. the deem photographic has shifted to being more about immigrants. >> bernie sanders was up first, his main task convince voters he's not only a progressive who can get things done in washington, free education and health care reform among his priorities. >> do we have the guts to take on the power of the insurance be companies? do we have the guts to take on the pharmaceutical industry who has 1300 paid lobbyists in

washington? i believe that when the american people stand up and they say you know what, health care is a right of all people, not a privilege, i believe we can do that. >> with vital african-american votes in play, justice reform, another key sanders pledge. >> there is something very wrong when african-americans in south carolina and around the country get nervous about walking down the street or going into their car and being stopped by a police officer. that should not be happening in america. >> secretary clinton's far ahead in the polls right now especially with african-americans. sanders needs their vote if he is to win nodding in their direction with a personal reflection. >> my dad came from poland. i'm running for president. guess what, nobody has asked for my birth certificate. maybe it's the color of my skin. i don't know. >> clinton was forced to defend herself in the opening minutes of her turn. is she too close to wall street

banks like goad man sacks. >> why is there one standard for me and not for everybody else? i have a record. it certainly is far different from the republicans, because they think actually and have said that the causes of the great recession was too much regulation on wall street, which is an absolute joke. >> she may be ahead among vital african-american voters but clinton took no chance asking mother who have lost their sons to gun violence to stand up. >> racism along with economic issues, educational issues and all the rest have to be addressed. otherwise, we are never going to be the nation we should be. >> those state department emails, the topic just won't die down. clinton was asked to defend using a private internet server in her own home yet again. >> i have turned over 55,000 pages of emails. nobody in any cabinet position has ever been as transparent or open. i am not at all worried about it. >> john terrett, al jazeera, columbia, south carolina.

also this morning, president obama is out with a blog post defending his right to nominate a new justice for the supreme court writing: republicans are doubling down on their promise not to give any nominee any vote. al jazeera's jonathan betz has more. >> just days after justice scalia was laid to rest, the battle lines over his replacement are clear. the top two senate republicans said they will not cooperate with president obama. >> i believe the overwhelming view of the republicans in the senate is that this vacancy should not be filled by this lame duck penalty.

senator majority leader mcconnell should president obama against submitting the name saying he or she would not be considered or confirmed. that pick, republicans insist should be left to the next president. >> it's not about the personality, it's about the principle, the principle being that it's up to the american people in this next election, no matter who they choose to make the nomination for this important seat on the supreme court. >> republicans are also using vice president joe biden's own words against the white house. >> that if a supreme court justice. >> in 1992, senator biden urged the republican president to hold off choosing a supreme court nominee. >> president bush should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors, and not name a nominee until after the november election is completed. >> biden now said that was out of context and about a hypothetical, since the vacancy

didn't happen back then. >> understand joe has made a few statements over the years about a lot of things but in this one instance, it wouldn't mean a thing, because nothing was pending. >> did he make a mistake saying that? >> no, he has a right to speak. >> the white house has repeatedly said it will send a nominee to the senate. >> this would be an historic and unprecedented acceleration of politicizing a branch of government that's supposed to be insulated from politics. >> it's unprecedented ground. republicans refusing to even meet with a nominee and democrats refusing to back down. >> the american people sent us here to do a jab plain an simple. it's time for senate republicans to do their job. >> jonathan betz, al jazeera, new york. also this morning, thousands across the southeast are

cleaning up after severe weather. it brought with it tornadoes, leaving at least three people dead. al jazeera's hermela aregawi has more. >> the storms ripped through alabama, florida, mississippi and louisiana, knocking down trees and turning over vehicles and mobile homes. in louisiana, hundreds of trailers were destroyed, at least two people were killed and dozens injured. >> sounded like a train that was coming through here. >> emergency workers in the town west of new orleans are still searching for people believed to be trapped under the debris. >> a lot of debris is piled up in the areas. some of it we just couldn't get down into. we are hoping dogs and teams coming in now with more equipment, we can get down into those debris piles and try to find people if they're still in there. >> a third person was killed in mississippi. the storms then moved into southern alabama and northern florida late tuesday night. thousands in alabama were in

towns where trees were knocked down. drivers were urged to stay home. this morning, thousands across the region are still without power. hermela aregawi, al jazeera. >> that storm system now threatens part of the mid atlantic as it moves up the eastern seaboard. >> yesterday, we were cautioning of all the severe weather we were expecting. here's the look at that, as that storm system 20 through, all the different severe weather reports, wind damage the most profound and will stay so through the day. as the system develops, it's really in teensified and as the pressure drops, the pressure change becomes higher and can funnel those winds. we have over 20 separate tornado reports as this moves through. right now we are watching a broad area, snow on the north all the way to rain in portions of the south, still there have been some storms with this this morning and also areas of heavy rain, so watch for flooding

especially as we get closer to the appalachians. that's another concern as we get closer to the day today. as this lifts toward the main area in the coastline, that is now our risk for the course of the day. today afternoon and evening hours of more significant, but high wind damage, hail and even some more tornadoes we could see today. many not as many reports but definitely looking at more severe weather. on the backside, this is switching over with colder air to snow. it is heavy snow in some cases. we're going to watch particularly right next to lake superior some of those places could go over a foot, but those winds i was mentioning, that's what's really causing the problem here, so because of the testimonies, it's a heavy, wet snow, the stuff that is hard to shovel, hard on your heart for some specific groups, but we also have blizzard concerns because of the wind blowing it around, salt roads are treacherous with possible white out conditions. all this continues through

today, some transitions no the northeast by tomorrow. thursday, a little lingering fortunate northeast and then by friday, most of this is clear, but boy do we have a couple of days in the meantime. >> we're actually lucky it wasn't colder, because all that have rain and moisture would have been snow. >> in some places, it's been raining for three days. imagine that if it was a snowstorm. new concerns over the zika virus, health officials telling us that a growing number of occasions may have been transmitted through sex. a precedent for privacy, new details on the battle between apple and the f.b.i. the other times the federal government said it asked for help in hacking an iphone.

>> this morning, we're learning more about what happened before those deadly shootings in kalamazoo, michigan. the suspect went into a gun shop to buy a tactical jacket hours before the attack. the gun store released these images of dalton. he killed six and injured two others. many in congress are already saying no to the president's plan to close gone bay. house speaker paul ryan immediately rejecting the proposal calling it neither smart nor safe buff the president giving a number of reasons why he says that is not the case. >> seven years after first signing an order to close guantanamo bay, a bruised and

battled weary president obama was reduced to pleading with an unsympathetic congress to give his final plan a pass. >> i don't want to pass this problem on to the next president. if as a nation we don't deal with this now, when will we deal with it? are we going to let this linger another 15 years? another 20 years? another 30 years? >> over the years, 800 prisoners have been held at began fan toe employee of that, more than 500 were released to other countries during the bush administration. president obama transferred 147 more and now there are just 91 left. what the pentagon sent congress was a four-point plan to deal with those 91 and permanently clothes the prison camp, which president obama argues is a stain on america's reputation and a recruiting tool for america's enemies. the plan would transfer 35 detainees already cleared for release to other countries by this summer, accelerate

eligibility reviews for the other potential transfers, proceed with legal action against 10 detainees, including possible for the purpose prosecution and work with congress to find a way to bring the other 46 to a secure facility in the united states. obama argued moving detainees to a super max prison would safe up to $85 million a year of the cost of guantanamo and said cases such as boston marathon bomber dzhokar tsarnaev showed the u.s. can and does a convict terrorists in the courts. >> part of my message is we're already holding a bunch of really dangerous terrorists here in the united states, because we threw the book at them. there have been no i wants. we've managed it just fine. >> as the president marshaled his arguments for closing gitmo,

he didn't mention one thing, that the president as a lame duck in the final months of his term could under his authority as commander in chief issue an executive order bringing the remaining detainees to u.s. soil and closing guantanamo in defiance of congress, but that could provoke a constitutional crisis. >> we talked earlier to a guest who said most of the pen approved for release have been waiting for years. >> currently 35 of them have been approved by the administration, by the government's own intelligence defense law enforcement officials for transfer. most of those men have been approved since 2009 and waiting for release since then. they have phone calls, sometimes

men of transferred to different countries. many yemenese get on a plane and leave after 14 years of held at began fan mow without charge or a phone call to their families. they show up in a third country and that's the first contact they are able to have. >> republicans argue these people are a threat to national security, that they are terrorists. after september 11, so many people will say why even risk it? >> those claims are contrary to the fact and are not facts that organizations like mine have. they are facts that the administration, the government has, so it is false, it's inaccurate to say that everyone at goon tan mow is dangerous when the administration itself has approved for now, 35 of them for transfer. >> she goes on to say she families the president's plan is not really one to close

guantanamo bay because they may be transferred instead to u.s. prisons. there are no questions over how the zika virus is transmitted, the c.d.c. looking into more than a dozen cases that may have been transferred through sex. >> the c.d.c. hasn't confirmed how more than a dozen people contracted zika but say it may have been transmitted through sex. two cases involve women who had sex with men who had recently traveled to infected areas. >> it looks like zika virus can sort of collect in people's bodily fluid so it's more easily found in urine, saliva and also sexual fluids like semen, so it now appears that its sexual transmission might be happening more frequently than we thought. >> the virus is typically spread my mosquitoes causing mild

symptoms but is linked to thousands of birth fee effect in brazil. >> most people don't of symptoms. that means the virus doesn't show itself, right, it's more invisible to us so can spread farther and is probably more prevalent than we know. >> the f.d.a. put out new rules to protect the blood supply, calling for people who have involved to infected areas to not donate blood. doctors worry as summer approaches, more infections could happen including here in the u.s. >> with the right combination of abundant mosquitoes infected with a virus such as zika, a susceptible population that has not seen this virus before, and a lack of knowledge about the virus, things this virus could spread very rapidly. >> there is no cure or treatment for zika virus, but new rapid tests are hoped to detect the

virus faster. it takes blood, or nominee attic fluid and can detect the virus in minutes. >> apple fans supporting the company in its battle with the f.b.i. over cell phone encryption, small groups gathered at stores tuesday to support the tech giant. the f.b.i. wants apple to unlock a cell phone of one of the san bernardino shooters. apple lawyers are pushing back against the law that the f.b.i. is using at a make the request. apple is going to ask the judge in a separate case to rule whether the act applies. that is a law dating back almost 200 years. the f.b.i. asked for help in unlocking iphones in nine other cases since october. >> still ahead, the tennessee defense, head coaches from across the university speak out in hopes of repairing the school's damaged image.

the university of tennessee defending themselves over claims of sexual harassment, saying the school is safe for women despite a suit claiming otherwise. >> all head coaches together, defending their program against claims the school mishandled sexual harassment cases. >> i don't think everybody

sitting up here feels like there's a five alarm situation sitting here. >> the program's reputation tarnished by a lawsuit filed by six women who claim the university created a hostile environment and didn't investigate claims against male student athletes specifically in football and basketball. >> i've been here 18 years and women have never been treated better than they are now. the female student athlete has never had more resources and more support. >> i think they are probably surprised at what's being said about tennessee in the national media. that's not the tennessee that they lived. >> head football coach butch jones was apologetic. >> everything is about the alleged victims, and we take that very, very seriously. >> jones also got defensive. >> it's easy to sit out there and judge when you don't live our day every day. >> the university has now gone

on its own offensive, filing a motion to have u.t. alum peyton manning's name removed from the lawsuit. he cited for a 20-year-old incident in which a female trainer claimed manning sexually assaulted her, although he claimed the contact was accidental, he did reach a settlement with his fuser. in the motion, the lawyers say it would be jim material, i am pertinent and scandalous. >> some good news for chocolate lovers. researchers say regular chocolate consumption improves our brain function, saying eating chocolate improves memory, abstract reasoning and visual spatial memory. they say the darker the chocolate, the better for you. thanks for watching. i'm del walters in new york. the news continues live from london. you can always find us 74 hours

a day at aljazeera.com where the news never stops. >> announcer: this is al jazeera. ♪ hello from doha, everyone. this is the news hour on al jazeera. [ gunfire ] >> unholy alliances the u.k. says evidence the kurds are siding with president assad and russia is, quote, very disturbing. more momentum for donald trump. he celebrates a big win in