french voters set to pick their next president. then this -- the campaign of one candidate says it has been hacked. thousands of emails posted on line. cnn is live in paris following the very latest on this important election. in the united states, while house republicans rejoice over a bill to replace obamacare, the senate is singing a different tune. they say their version would look a lot different than the one that they have now. plus, north korea claims the u.s. and south korea planned an assassination attempt on leader kim jong-un, but it isn't offering any proof. cnn is following the story live in seoul. from cnn world headquarters in atlanta, welcome. to our viewers here in the united states and around the world, i'm george howell. "cnn newsroom" starts right now.

a vote for change. france decides 5:00 a.m. on the u.s. east coast, less than 24 hours, voters head to the polls to pick a new president. an 11th-hour surprise. the campaign of one candidate, emmanuel macron, announced friday it had been hacked. cnn is following the important election with my colleague leading coverage in paris. >> reporter: it was surprising, indeed, to wake up to this this morning. not least because the official campaign is over. so with the way french politics and voting works, the saturday that comes before the sunday of voting is really a day of reflection. there's no more campaigning, and there's no more tv coverage of politics. really people are supposed to be alone with their thoughts.

you're not used to having what could be considered major campaign events. it was a real surprise. here's what we know -- campaign of the front-runner return, emmanuel macron, says that thousands of its files were hacked, posted on line. this just before the media blackout went into effect late on friday french time. according to the campaign, some files are authentic, but the campaign warns that many others are fake. let's bring in our paris correspondent, melissa bell. you've been covering a campaign that's had no shortage of twists and turns. today was supposed to be the off day, and we wake up to this. can it change things? >> reporter: that is the trouble. this arises in the period when neither the media nor the campaigns, nor ordinary citizens are meant to be campaigning in any way. it's almost a blackout of the campaign entirely. you're not meant to discuss it in case, you know, the things

like different forms of campaigning could seem to come through what is being said. so this is very awkward in a way for macron's team, but also for the journalists covering the campaign. there's been a warning this morning from the commission that has been set up to oversee the sort of watchdog of the campaign to warn the media to be careful about what they're reporting. we are reporting, of course, the facts of the leak. the content of those many thousands of emails that have been leaked is beyond what is reportable today. this puts the campaign, the movement by macron in an extremely awkward position. >> reporter: it's 11:00 french time. the middle of the night in the u.s. our american viewers have joined us for this. they're looking at this and thinking, well, this happened in the united states election, right? the campaign emails of hillary clinton and her campaign staff were hacked, and that was -- there was a constant drip, drip, drip of information that fed into the campaign and

considerably changed the narrative of the campaign. how similar is this french situation to what we saw in the u.s., and how dissimilar? >> reporter: there is definitely the sense of deja vu with this. it feels very familiar. and of course, the fact that the campaign was apparently watched, was apparently hacked, and that the contents of private campaign emails and documents were then leaked is precisely what went on in the american campaign just before the election itself. the differences are that it seems that the dnc, the democrats, were hacked for an extensive period. i believe the amount of information went on for over a year. the e-mail exchanges, documents, and so on. this appears to have been a much shorter period of time. emmanuel macron has been warning for months that he's the victim of hacking, fake news. back in march, a cybersecurity firm had indicated there was

phishing. the other big difference is that the leaking of the material comes even as we are in an impossible situation to look into the emails themselves. in the case of the democrats, there was time to look into the leaks, report that they were embarrassing rather than scandalous. for us, given the huge amount of information, the documents, emails, were leaked at about 9:00 p.m. last night, three hours before this blackout began, means that the contents will remain a mystery largely. at least when it comes to the mainstream media over the course of the next few hours. and until after the election. that is the big difference. >> reporter: most people won't have time to digest them. melissa bell, thank you very much. let's go straight to isa soares joining us live from the french rust belt, a stronghold of marine le pen's national front. emmanuel macron is considered, if you look at the polls, the

clear favorite in this runoff. do the far right supporters there where you are think that marine le pen still has a chance? >> reporter: let me sell you this -- let me tell you this, there's no champagne corks popping yet, no celebration. when we stop people here on the streets, those who were macron's supporters are openly telling us we are backing macron because we want to go against marine le pen. when we pushed those who sounded a bit more le pen supporters, when we pushed them, they said we are for le pen. she is the person to lead them. one man said, i think she's going to win -- i don't think she's going to win, but i'm still pushing her. she's the best person to bring change. there's saintment of -- there's a sentiment of holding back.

like people not telling us they were voting brexit. people here believe that french nationale is the best place to make changes for a town that has for decades been ruled by the socialist party. they've seen better days. once a prosperous mining town now facing a fight for survival. boarded up shops, high unemployment, and an aging population. there's hope in every corner here, and it's called marine le pen. >> translator: it's true that everyone including the media and the journalists call her a bad person and the villain. i'm sorry, look at all the towns governed by the le pen party members and front nationale. no one thinks like this. no one has any problems. >> translator: okay, i'm for marine le pen because of her promises of the limits on retirement age. >> reporter: while some are keeping their voting cards close to their chest, others are passionate and highly defensive

of marine le pen. >> translator: i am for you. there you have. it sorry to say it, but you asked me who i'm voting for. maybe it's not what you wanted to hear, but told you that i'm voting for her. >> reporter: there's a real sense of abandonment here by those at the very top, by the main political parties. it really explains the support for marine le pen. what is striking is how she's managed to do this. turning a town that for seven decades voted socialist, now turning overwhelmingly to the right. at the bellevue coffee shop, not everyone has been convinced by le pen's promises. had local train driver is one of them. >> translator: i am for macron, obviously, because he is against the front nationale and defends our values and those of north african descent and because of le pen's many lies. >> reporter: in a home to migrant, you'll be surprised to

hear any anti-immigrant rhetoric. a sentiment shared by many locals. >> translator: not all immigrants are the same. we are all created in france and proud to be french. look around here. you see people are open. there is no climate of fear, and people from all backgrounds get on. >> reporter: that's because the front nationale has muted the anti-immigrant mention here. focusing instead on social issues. a simple message that plays well in a town that enjoys the simple left. the way they've been able to achieve this feat is really working at grassroots level, grassroots activism that we saw the campaign with u.s. president obama. they're knocking on doors asking people what do you need. they're spending money on infrastructure projects, as you can see. the town hall behind my left shoulder. that's getting a major facelift. that's the scaffolding.

they're lowering taxes, 10% lower taxes. all this, people say, to translate as a vote for marine le pen. finally, they say to me, we're being heard, someone's listening to us. and that is not the elite, cy l cyril. >> reporter: all right, isa soares reporting from the northern town that's the french rust belt. thank you very much. isa will be with us throughout coverage of the french election on sunday on cnn. i'm joined by our panel. thomas vinecur, reporter in france, and dominic thom aaa friend of the show. we're happy to have you with us. you are professor of the department of french studies at the university of california, los angeles. you traveled to paris because this is what you study. so we just heard from isa and the kind of support that marine le pen has, even her supporters at this stage just not sure that she's going to make it. not very hopeful.

my question, i'll start with you, marine le pen has had very favorable circumstances. mass waves of immigration, relentless attacks. how come the far right that is designed, that is built to capitalize on this kind of thing, is not doing better? >> right. i think you're right. not only has she benefited from these policies, these discussions, the circumstances in front, she has also been treated as a legitimate candidate. she's participated in all of the debates. she's been allowed to campaign. in the second round we were not faced with the mass demonstrations that we saw in 2002 when her father made it through. and the republican front that came together almost unanimously in 2002 to block her father from going to the next round. he picked up less than one point between the two rounds. it is not going to happen this time. i think that we saw in the final debate when she came out sort of gloves off to sort of attack

emmanuel macron that she's been constantly focusing on a narrow set of issues. and when she gets beyond that, beyond the question of border control, beyond the question of sl islam and so on, she's not very good. she's not very good at outlining and explaining a clear and specific economic policy that will back up questions of control and so on. we saw her back down on the question of the euro currency and these things. there's a weakness there that i think is preventing her from breaking through beyond those items. >> reporter: did she run a bad sdman. >> i think that there's -- campaign? >> i think that there's a lot of problems with the campaign, and you're starting to hear it already when you talk to the rank-and-file campaign activists who have a lot of questions on strategy and how this was done, particularly between the two rounds. she had a roeal shot, favorable circumstances, but she wasn't able to convince big numbers of conservatives or left wing supporters to come on to her campaign. what they're starting to see is,

well, why didn't we do things differently? why didn't we make a big gesture that showed that us -- a protest party, an outsider party, was ready to govern. one thing they could have changed on was the euro policy, that the european union -- >> she wanted to end the euro in france. >> exactly. polling has consistently shown this is very unpopular with a majority of french people. it speaks to this sort of hard core base of supporters. and it isn't popular. they weren't able to adapt and transform quickly enough to become a real sort of mainstream governing party. >> reporter: does that mean she has a glass ceiling? that's a theory that's been prevalent in french political circles. that the far right can only go so far. dominic? >> she took over the party after her father had not performed very well in 2007. we saw the numbers go down. partially because nicolas sarkozy understood so well the sort of areas to which she was appealing and was able to

capture some of the vote. since she took over, her party already did better in the 2012 elections. since 2007, she has doubled from 3.86 million to almost 8 million in the first round. she has -- her political party, one could argue, is the main political party in france today. macron -- >> reporter: that's her argument. >> her argument. emmanuel macron has a movement, right? >> he got more votes than her in the first round. that claim has been -- >> it is. but as a political party, i think, to define what could be success for her is the fact that over the last few years her party has become deeply impregnated in the french political landscape. she's done well in european union election, she's done well in regional elections -- >> heavily in local politics. >> absolutely. she's becoming part of it. as we see the traditional two-party system break down and to make way for these new parties and movements and so on, i think that she has an opportunity to sort of defer --

strengthen the position. and those on the right have turned against her since the debate and so on, i think that they are afraid of the fact that she could become or that her party could become the only essentially viable political party on the right as emmanuel macron goes about building a new political party and organization that will capture members of the socialist and of the group on the right. >> nicholas, do you see the glass as half full or half empty for the far right now? >> i would say half empty. we recall some facts. a few months ago after the terror attacks, marine le pen was polling at 28% to 30% before the first round. she was way ahead of any other candidate. she -- support eroded for her by 6% to 8% points which -- which tells us that there was something wrong with the way that this campaign was led. she had the opportunity to grow her base of support beyond this kind of core of supporters. she has been extremely successful, as you've said, in

conquering this sort of rage, of the result belt in france. that's something her father could do. >> she's tapped into the anger? >> she's done that. that's been the work of six, seven years, we're talking about the presidential campaign now. she was within reach of power. and in the final reckoning, she wasn't able to capitalize on the favorable conditions that we said now. and i think that there is going to be a reckoning inside the party that says, well, it's two completely different things. it's two things to be a protest party, an outside party that feeds off rage. and someone that is actually trying to govern the country. and they keep saying, well, our ideas represent a majority. but the -- the polls are telling us that a majority of the french people don't want this solution. and i think the national front is going to have a real period of soul searching, possibly with people being fired, and all kinds of changes within the party after the -- after sunday. >> that's assuming, assuming that she loses as the polls have

predicted. just briefly, dominic, do you think there's still a path to victory? as people take this day of reflection, think about who they want as the next french president, do you think they might choose marine le pen? >> there's a possibility because there are only two candidates. the math is not in her favor. one could also argue that the other main political party are those who will abstain and not show up. we know that research shows that the -- the large, significant number of people don't show up, she does have a path to 50.1%. i think it's extremely unlikely. very unlikely that she'll make it through. >> all right. if i could add a quick point there, we wrote about this and said, well, there were two things that she was hoping for to swing the campaign. one was a possible terrorist attack, and one was a big hacking dump. she got both of them and still the polls show her losing on sundays. indeed, there is a path, but it's narrower. >> we don't know how the polls and people might react to the hacking episode since obviously there's no morel poeing allowed

in france -- no more polling allowed in france. gentlemen, thank you for coming on. obviously we'll continue talking to you over the next couple of days. dominic thomas pointing out how tu turnout could affect the vote. we'll keep you posted after the polling stations open. back to you. >> many questions. a great deal of insight. thank you very much. still to come on "cnn newsroom," new developments in the u.s./russia investigation. a news report suggests president trump and his former national security adviser, that he might have been in over his head dealing with the russian ambassador. plus, anger and outcry in venezuela as a new day of protests is planned. so ammara, you're a verizon engineer, tell me, what's one really good reason why the samsung galaxy s8 is better on verizon? well we have the largest 4g lte network in america. yeah that's a pretty good reason. and the most reliable. uh-huh. and, with unlimited, you get full hd video. oh wow, yeah, that's, uh, two, maybe even three reasons right there.

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that goes beyond assuming beingredients are safe...ood to knowing they are. going beyond expectations... because our pets deserve it. beyond. natural pet food. welcome back to "cnn newsroom." i'm george howell. we're learning more about the events that cost president trump's former national security adviser his position after just 24 days on the job. the "washington post" is reporting michael flynn was warned by senior members of the trump transition team back in november about the risks of his contacts with the russian ambassador. current and former u.s. officials told the "post" they were concerned that flynn did not fully understand the ambassador's motives and requested that he read a classified profile about him. it's not clear if flynn ever read that profile. his further interactions with

the ambassador ultimately led to his resignation. the "washington post" reporter covering the story provided more details in a conversation with my colleague, anderson cooper. take a listen. >> what happened in this case is the transition official approached the obama administration officials who were interacting with the transition team in the situation room in the white house. at the end of one of their meetings about the transition, this trump transition official asked for basically the cia's bio of kisliak, to provide that to flynn, so he had a sense of who he was dealing with and again to put him on notice that, you know, there is a chance -- a good possibility that if he talks to him on an open line, it's going to get sucked up. >> that was the reporter with the "washington post" speaking with anderson cooper. at this point, cnn has not yet confirmed his story. again, we are seeking all information from all involved and will continue to bring

updates as we confirm the information. moving to venezuela, the nation bracing for another protest in just a few hours' time. 36 people have now died in violence over the past few weeks. some scenes have been particularly shocking such as a recent image showing an armored military vehicle running over a protester. a warning here, with cnn's shasta darlington and her report, it begins with the video. the video is disturbing. [ siren ] >> reporter: dramatic images caught on amateur video. tanks plowing through crowds of venezuelan protesters as the roof burns and shots ring out. [ gunfire ] one man run over, somehow survived. separately a protester badly burned after a nearby police motorcycle caught fire. scenes of pitched battles repeated across the country over the last five weeks. killing at least 35 people and

injuring more than 700 as the opposition takes to the streets almost daily to protest against president mad euro, accuse -- maduro, accusing him of a dictatorship. president maduro remains defiant. >> translator: the people must decide if they want war or if they want peace. in the next weeks, we will have elections. you wanted elections, have them. >> reporter: instead of the regional elections demanded by the opposition, maduro has called for elections to create a constituent assembly that could, among other things, rewrite the constitution. critics at home and abroad say it's a blatant power grab as maduro's popularity dwindles. >> translator: it will be worse for the country in all ways. the financial crisis will worsen, and socially there will be more hunger. >> reporter: once the richest country in latin america with vast oil reserves, these are the images that you now find on the

streets of caracas. families digging through the trash. adrianna sanchez cleans houses but says she can't afford food for her two children. with inflation up 800% last year and more than 80% of families living in poverty, many like jose, an unemployed construction worker, are digging for scraps. >> translator: there are thousands of us looking through the trash to eat. thousands, not one of us or two or four. there are thousands who are on the streets looking for something to eat to survive. >> reporter: the situation at supermarkets is hardly better. endless lines and empty shelves. one of the main reasons venezuelans are taking to the streets. the other, they say democracy is being eroded. some opposition leaders like leo jailed. it's been more than three years, and still no trial. the latest wave of protests

really took off when the government banned another opposition leader from holding office for the next 15 years. maduro has tried to shore up support with his own pro-government marches, and a new tv program to show off his salsa dancing. ♪ moves ridiculed by his critics. cnn. north korea is making a remarkable claim about the u.s. and south korea. it's accusing them of attempting to kill leader kim jong-un with a biochemical substance. cnn is not able to independently corroborate the report. cnn's ivan watson following the story live from seoul, south korea, this hour. ivan, so i read that 1,800-word report produced by the korean state news agency, kcna. it was a long story. naming payments that with a list of allegations, but no proof to back it up.

>> reporter: no. but you know, the north korean state media continues to report now vitriol and reaction from north koreans angry about this alleged assassination plot. while also vowing to conduct some kind of anti-terror campaign in response to reports of this foiled alleged assassination plot. north korea's dramatic, unsubstantiated claim alleges that its security forces foiled a cia aplot to assassinate kim jong-un with military substances at a parade. cnn cannot independently confirm any of these claims. intelligence officials in washington and seoul dismiss them. according to north korea's state news agency, the alleged plot involves foreign agents recruiting a north korean timber

worker in eastern russia as a spy. it claims the foreign agents gave the north korean citizen identified only by the common korean surname kim more than a half million dollars and a satellite transmitter, supplied through a chinese border city. these claims should be treated with serious skepticism. pyongyang has not published images of the suspects or any other hard evidence to back the claims. the state news agency frequently publishes outrageous news propaganda. last year they wrote that a youth group would destroy north korea's enemies with five million nuclear bombs. the same day the agency published a separate dispatch that north korean weapons would kill all u.s. forces. while hurling accusations, pyongyang itself faces charges of a high-profile murder. authorities in malaysia accused north korea of the assassination

last february of kim jong-un's half-brother in cothe airport using a nerve agent. in 2013, north korea's leader publicly ordered the execution of his own uncle for treason. north korea is one of the most repressive regimes in the world, brutally crushing internal dissent while frequently threatening the us and its allies. and it's in this constant state of paranoia that pyongyang promises a fresh crackdown against alleged agents of its american arch rival. george, i want to pivot now from that alleged assassination plot to developments here on the southern side of the demilitarized zone in south korea which during a holiday weekend is moving full steam toward presidential elections that are scheduled to take place on tuesday. what's remarkable here is that the national election commission has confirmed that more than 26%

of the electorate have already participated in early voting. that's more than 11 million people. one of the key issues in this coming election is rising youth unemployment which has nearly doubled from 2015 to 2016. there is also still the backlash after the recent impeachment and jailing of the former elected president, park geun-hye, on corruption and abuse of power charges. and the front-runner in the polls is a left-leaning candidate named mun ja-yin who talked about bringing a new, sometimes described as sunshine policy to seoul's relations with pyongyang. he was a chief of staff in a former leftist president's cabinet. and that was a period of real diplomacy and improving ties between the north and the south.

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you can actually remember, instantly. add that premium channel, and watch the show everyone's talking about, tonight. and the bill you need to pay? do it in seconds. because we should fit into your life, not the other way around. go to xfinity.com/myaccount welcome back. to our viewers here in the united states and around the world, you're watching "cnn newsroom." it is good to have you with us. i'm george howell with the headlines we're following for you this hour. a new cease-fire is in effect for four designated safe zones in syria. it's part of a deescalation deal signed thursday by russia, by iran, and turkey. moscow says no warplanes will flay over those zones. the state department says the u.s.-led coalition will continue striking isis targets inside

syria. in venezuela, the nation bracing for another major protest. saturday's planned rally is being called the "women against repression" march. 36 people have died in violence aross the country in the last weeks. much of it linked to pro and anti-government demonstrations. north korea is accusing the u.s. and south korea of attempting to assassinate its leader, kim jong-un, with a "biochemical substance." pyongyang claims a north korean citizen was involved in the plot along with the cia and south korea's intelligence service. cnn is not able to independently corroborate this report. and the french presidential race, the campaign of emmanuel macron says it has been targeted by a massive hack. the apparent leak comes as voters are set to head to the polls on sunday. macron officials say the documents posted on line include real and fake documents. for more on this story happening yet at the 11th hour of a very important election, my colleague

is live in paris leading the coverage. cyril? >> reporter: george, it is indeed a pleasure to be with you and our viewers from central paris. this just hours really before french people go to the polls. it's about 11:30 a.m. local time now. people will start going to the polls tomorrow, sunday morning. i've got with me a historian and political scientist that knows french politics very well and u.s. politics very well. one thing that's peculiar about this election cycle here in france is how much it has in common with the u.s. election cycle. let's start with the endorsement of emmanuel macron by barack obama. why did he do that? >> well, you know, i don't know if it will bring him luck because barack obama campaigned against brexit. and you know how it turned out. they do have a lot in common. they're basically middle of the road, what the europeans would call social democrats. you could call them, you know,

mainstream democrats in the u.s. they are very close in their economic, social, international, philosophy. >> reporter: he doesn't choose to jump into the fray for every european election. i don't recall him saying anything about the dutch election which was also seen as pivotal just over a month ago. >> the popularity in -- popularity of barack obama in france was beyond anything. if he was elected, in france it could have been 95%. the french were so in love with obama. he certainly feels that he has an influence on the french that he might not have in other places. the other reason i think is that this french election is so decisive of the future of europe, and meaning the future of europe means the world order basically established after world war ii. so this is the decisive moment,

and barack obama ded what he could to nudge the french in the right direction. >> reporter: what about the other side of the spectrum, marine le pen? she claims a political kinship with donald trump, is she the french trump? >> she's pretty close. i see the kinship and the debate that we listened to on wednesday, there was a lot of trump. a lot of people around here say that she might have adopted what she thought was trump's winning strategy, to be very aggressive, very brutal, to what she calls the people. we don't really know what that means. to try to destroy the other candidate. her options in terms of protection is economic nationalism, sovereignty, borders, breakup of a european union. that sounds like trump to me. >> reporter: what about the hacking? less than 24 hours to go before french people start voting.

the campaign of the leading candidate, emmanuel macron, has been hacked. how similar is that to hillary clinton's emails being hacked? >> very similar. seems to come from the same sources. we don't have all the details yet, but everyone is talking about agencies that one way or the other connecting the dots would bring us back to the kremlin, so a campaign, an influence campaign like the russians say to basically support and help extreme right parties or extreme populist parties and destroy for fake news through rumors and allegations, mainstream candidates, there are a lot of similarities there. >> reporter: thank you very much for joining us on cnn. the results of the french election will be sunday, 8:00 p.m. local time. 2:00 p.m. east coast time in the u.s. do tune in for that. with the elections wrapping up

this weekend, rain could dampen some voters' commutes to the polling station. that's a significant factor. one of our earlier guests was telling us that turnout is important. now it's actually pouring here in paris. meteorologist derek van dam joins us now. >> it looks as if rain could be an impact for the polling stations opening up at 8:00 a.m. on sunday across france. massive presidential election, as you've been talking about, 50 million registered voters across the country of france. and as you mention, there's rain moving through paris right now. in the next 24 hours, we still have a potential for showers. that could impact things across central portions of france. here's the storm system impacting the country as we speak. we have had some stronger storms along the west coast earlier this morning near the bordeaux region. you see the showers in time for polls to open, again, again

early sunday morning. the heaviest showers from central and eastern france, lyon to nice, we're anticipating good chances of rainfall. from 25 to 50 millimeters of rain across that region. here's paris' seven-day weather forecast. you see wet weather continues for the day on sundays with temperatures cooler that they should be this time of year. you see in the higher elevations, precipitation could change to snowfall. an area in the world that has seen its fair share of rainfall has been the central united states. currently across the central u.s., we have 27 rivers at major flood stage. 61 gauges here reporting moderate flood stage conditions. this is all across the mississippi river, some of it's deltas. the forecast crest at the mississippi river near st. louis, we're anticipating a

forecast crest of just under 42 feet through the course of the day today. that is well above flood stage. similar conditions expected across the mississippi river, the further south you travel, that will continue to crest from saturday, being today, through the end of the weekend on sunday. look at the showers responsible for the flooding. there were two storm systems across the center u.s. that brought the inczyzent rainfall. it continues to move eastward, and we saw that rain inundate the mid-atlantic states with 19 daily rainfall rates set across the east coast. i've got to touch on this, this is important. new images coming in now from the world's busiest airport right here where cnn headquarters is located. atlanta's hartsfield jackson national airport was struck by an ef0 tornado. this is from thursday night. these are images coming out of the atlanta region. you've got to see the funnel cloud. you see it just in the distance

there. a little bit difficult will to pick up. the rotating column of clouds is a tornado. below that is a delta plane. not something you want to see just before you take off. picked up cargo shipments roughly about 500 pounds and threw them around like they were toys. >> that was a rough storm. good to see no one was hurt or injured. thank you. >> thanks. ahead on "cnn newsroom," we're following a story in texas. officials say a police officer shot and killed an unarmed african-american teenager. now he's been fired, and he's facing a charge of murder. also, safe havens in a country that has been torn apart by war. can a new cease-fire in parts of syria truly hold up? boost. it's about moving forward, not back. it's looking up, not down. it's being in motion. boost® high protein it's intelligent nutrition with 15 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals.

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in the state of texas, a dallas police officer is facing a murder charge after fataling shooting an unarmed african-american teenager. 15-year-old jordan edwards was a passenger in a car when he was shot and killed last saturday. officer roy oliver was fired three days later. he has since been charged with murder and released on bail. oliver's police chief says that body camera footage showed the car that edwards was in driving away from officers, not at them, when oliver fired at the vehicle. jordan's funeral is set for saturday. a cease-fire is now in place in syria, and it comes one day after russia, after turkey and iran, signed an agreement creating four designated safe zones where all parties are to suspend fighting.

russia's envoy says the deescalation plan will last six months and could be extended another six months. moscow says no warplanes will fly over the safe zones. syria's opposition says the plan is not legitimate and that the syrian president, bashar al assad, is trying to divide the country. following the story live in russia, cnn's matthew chance is live in moscow with us this hour. matthew, let's talk about this plan. it certainly has most of the major parties involved, but the opposition is not convinced that they can trust the intent of this agreement. >> reporter: that's right. and there have been some scenes that were played out at the peace conference taking place in the capital of kazakhstan yesterday when reportedly one of the rebel delegates, when he heard this proposal being tabled took his headphones off and marched out of the conference room saying i'll see you on the baffled or words to that effect. so yes, there has been a lot of

questions raised as to whether the rebel groups themselves are going to be in agreement as to whether they would accept this kind of partition, this kind of establishment of safe zones, what are being called deescalation zones. it will be partly up to the turks who have a degree of influence with certain rebel groups because they back them, to put pressure on the groups to comply and countries that aren't parties to the agreements, saudi arabia and qatar. and obviously negotiations or pressure will be put on them, as well, to try and get the rebel groups that they back to fall into line, as well. for the russian part, they will be pressuring the backers of the conflict to sign up. the syrian government is currently not a signatory of the agreement. it's signed by the russians, the iranians, and the turks.

the united states are not part of the agreement either but expressed positive sentiments toward the idea of safe zones being established, although they've expressed concerns that iran is involved in this deal. there's a lot of distrust between the iranians and of course particularly over the issue of syria. there's a lot of questions over whether this initiative is going to work. it's still the best plan that's been pushed forward over the past several months to try and bring an end to the fighting in syria. and of course stop the bloodshed that's not just ravaged syria for the past several years but cost hundreds of thousands of lives there. george? >> you touched on this a bit, but to talk a bit more about it, the u.s. efforts that are taking place in syria. what is exactly the russian response, the russian, you know, suggestion to the united states given that it is also very active in syria? >> reporter: i mean, one of the

aspects of the agreement to form the escalation zone is that there will be no flights out, from the u.s.-elderly coalition. the russians are saying there is not negotiable. u.s. led coalition aircraft will not be permitted to fly in these zones or carry out air strikes in these zones. all sides, of course, will be free to carry out air strikes against the designated terrorist groups, the al nusra fronts and isis in other parts of the country. indeed the russians say that's where their emphasis will be on majority isis areas in parts of syria. look, it doesn't preclude the idea that the u.s. and russia will be able to work together in syria, but it sets boundaries which the russians say they'll enforce when it comes to a no-fly zones in the deescalation zones. >> matthew chance live in moscow. thank you for the reporting. we'll be right back.

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much better runner than me. the two-hour marathon still stands as the holy grail for many runners. it's closer than it's ever been. a kenyan fell just short of breaking the two-hour barrier. the olympic marathon champion finished the nike-sponsored breaking two attempt with a time of two hours, 24 seconds, in manza, italy. look at that. the event used a team of scientists to help maximize conditions for potentially breaking the two-hour mark. he and two other marathoners wore the latest running gear including cutting edge clothing and shoes, of course, by nike. until now the fastest marathon time was two hours, two minutes, 57 seconds, set at the 2014 berlin marathon. thank you for being with us. i'm george howell at the cnn center in atlanta. "new days" is next, or for other viewers around the world,

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