the u.s. president goes off script at a conservative summit, tearing into the mueller investigation, complete with some words i can't say on television to you. that story ahead. plus in the state of california proerk te california, protests after the district attorney notes to charge two officers who shot and killed a man with his cell phone in hand. also ahead this hour, senator bernie sanders hosts his first big rally in his bid for the white house in 2020. we're live from cnn world headquarters in atlanta and we want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and all around the world.

i'm george howell. the "cnn newsroom" starts right now. 4:00 a.m. on the u.s. east coast and a developing story, we are following out of syria after intense fighting u.s. backed forces could be close to seizing all of the last isis territory there in an enclave we're following. live to our senior international correspondent ben wedeman on the front line, he's been covering the story for weeks. ben, what more can you tell us there? >> reporter: what we can tell you is we're about 500 meters from that encampment, that last bit of land, about a square, half square mile still occupied by isis and what we have been seeing this morning is intense bombardment, air strikes as well as mortar strikes as well. what we saw a little while ago was an ammunition dump, apparently, by the looks of it,

that got struck. there was one big blast after another. but what we also have been able to see from here is that there -- we can still see people through our telephoto lens moving among some of the camps, despite this intense bomb bartment thbart me bombardment, going on since yesterday. also we have been speaking to some of the soldiers at this forward position who told us that overnight there was an attempt by isis fighters using tunnels to attack this area. but they were able to repulse it. they also told us that there are still civilians inside. the civilians essentially being used as human shields. so we don't have any idea, even a rough estimate, about how many human beings are left alive inside this camp. but there won't be in more if this keeps up at this rate, george. >> ben wedeman on the front lines and from the distance we

can see the smoke, where the fighting is taking place. ben, you've also been reporting on those people there in those camps who still believe in the isis ideology, just to give a sense to our viewers again the territory may be winding down, but people still believe. >> reporter: yes, this is what we have talked to many people who have come out from a variety of different places. not only from syria and iraq, but also from azerbaijan, turkey, indonesia, canada, and these people who have come from around the world to join this absurd experiment in god's will on earth still believe in the idea of an islamic state. and even though that state is crumbling before our very eyes, the powers of the world have come against it to try to extinguish it, they keep that

flame alive with them, as they go out into the world. many of them are going to a camp called el hul north of here and these people are going to be kept in what amounts to an internment camp, not allowed to leave, the men have been separated and they're being held in different location where probably they will continue to be interrogated as not only the syrian democratic forces intelligence personnel, but also american, french, british and others try to get as much information as possible about this organization that is very soon, i think it is safe to say, about to lose its territory. but its appeal, despite everything, lives on. >> ben wedeman giving us a sense of what is happening on the ground. you see the smoke in the background, ben's team on the front line giving us firsthand

look, u.s.-backed forces, close to seizing the remaining territory of isis in eastern syria. ben, we wish you and your team safety. thank you for the reporting. we'll stay in touch with you, you all. now, turning to the u.s. president ending a very bad week for them, now turning to his crowds of cheering supporters with a campaign style speech that was the longest of his presidency. he had a lot to say. the occasion, it is called cpac, the conservative political action conference. and in his speech, he lost over the failed summit over kim jong-un, brushed off criticism for saying the dictator didn't know about the american student otto warmbier being tortured in a north korean prison. instead, mr. trump returned to familiar territory, he tore into the special counsel robert mueller and the russia investigation in a speech that, well, may make you want to cover your kids' ears if they're near. boris sanchez has this report.

>> reporter: early on during his speech at cpac, president trump said he was going off script and he certainly did that. the president giving the longest speech of his presidency going well over two hours. at one point president trump attacked the press, attacked democrats, he discussed the crowd size at his inauguration and also talked about the russia investigation, saying he believed that robert mueller's final report will vindicate him. the president also got into detail about why he believes that democrats on capitol hill are investigating him. listen to this. >> so they don't have anything with russia. there is no collusion. so now they go and morph into let's inspect every deal he's ever done. we're going to go into his finances. we're going to check his deals. we're going to check -- these people are sick. they're sick. i saw little shifty schiff yesterday. the first time.

he went in a meeting and he said, we're going to look into his finances. i said, where did that come from? he always talked about russia. collusion with russia. the collusion delusion. >> the president essentially gave a preview of what we're going to see going into the 2020 election. in fact, at one point during his speech, he said he wished it was 2020. he called on democrats to step away from the radical agenda and yet again as we heard during his state of the union address proclaim that socialism would not take root in the united states, it is a line that drew a lot of applause and one we'll likely hear again as we get closer and closer to november 2020. boris sanchez, cnn, at the white house. again, mr. trump had a lot to say, and he focused on all the things that his audience wanted to hear. like these. >> unfortunately, you put the wrong people in a couple of positions, and they leave people for a long time that shouldn't

be there, and all of a sudden they're trying to take you out with [ bleep ], okay. [ bleep ]. robert mueller never received a vote. and neither did the person that appointed him. and as you know, the attorney general said i'm going to recuse myself. and i said, why the hell didn't he tell me that before i put him in? if you tell a joke, if you are sarcastic, if you're having fun with the audience, if you're on live television with millions of people, and 25,000 people in an arena, and if you say something like, russia, please, if you can, get us hillary clinton's e-mails, please, russia, please.

please get us the e-mails. please. >> a lot to put into focus and let's do so with inderjeet parmar. good to have you. >> thank you. >> so hardly a mention of the summit with kim jong-un, but clearly mr. trump was having fun on the stage, tearing into the mueller investigation. playing to the crowds, cursing. what do you take from it? >> well, as your correspondent said, president trump is now in campaign mode. he's going back to styles and themes which got him into office in first place. and he's trying to salvage a large number of failures in the very recent past. the big defeat in the midterms,

the disastrous government shutdown, the collapse of that kim summit, a few days ago, and the national emergency, which has got defeated in the house. and is going to go to the senate and may well be defeated there too. so basically what president trump is doing now is he's kind of sharpening all the tools for 2020 and he's drawing the boundaries, the sort of modalities of that particular campaign and trying to paint the democrats and anybody against him as against america itself, and in effect president trump himself is the savior of the united states and he's trying to paint himself, cover himself in the flag in that kind of way. >> it is interesting you mention campaign. i'm reminded of the quote that rang so loudly after mr. trump won the presidency, that some take him seriously and not literally. others take him literally and not so seriously. so the cursing, the lies, the

mistruths, the allegations of affairs, of misconduct, even mocking a southerner, jeff sessions' accent, do any of these things make a difference for his diehard base, some southerners, some evangelical voters to name a few, who say he's getting things done, they say he's cutting regulations, they say he's building a wall they want, and so on. >> yes. i think that's one of the key things there are many academics and others who are now claiming that this is an ordinary presidency. this is just a normal republican president doing what republican presidents do. that is they deregulate, cut taxes and so on. but president trump, i think, is doing more than that. that cpac rally, the meetings, the conference yesterday, in the last few days, it tells us something. that basically president trump is building a movement outside of the political process as well, outside of the party

system. and in a way that is system mmpc of a deep crisis. what he's doing is preparing the ground for not only a kind of mass movement outside of the party system, but he's also using whatever leverages he has to try to ramp up and has ramped up the authoritarian character of government and the much more coercive character of the agencies of the government, when we look at agencies like ice and other agencies at the border, he's put military at the border and declared a national emergency against the constitution itself, i think what we have seen is a very dramatic shift to the right and i think that's what he wants to continue to do. and that's why i think he's ramping up that same kind of rhetoric from the campaign. the u.s. is in a cold civil war and i think president trump is at the heart of it. >> it was also interesting to see president trump on one side of the screen, cpac and on the other, split screen, many networks showing bernie sanders as well making his case for his

campaign, both represent the polar sides of their party. is this shaping up to be the race of 2020 for president and do you see room for centrists like former vice president joe biden, should he choose to run? >> that's the biggest question. and i think we're going back to 2016 and polarization. i don't think you can bury 2016 because 2016 wasn't the kind of year zero american politics. it was a culmination of many decades of disillusionment of the two main parties. when we know historically when the sort of main establishment ways of doing things and saying things and running things loses legitimacy, then charismatic men of destiny tend to appear on the stage. those are very violent and dangerous times. i don't think 2016 can be buried. 2020 is going to be a similar kind of election campaign. that is why if you like president trump is elected to talk about socialism as the

biggest threat to the united states. he says socialists in america are like -- want to make america like venezuela, socialism is the biggest threat, part of the establishment against the american people. we can see many, many forces sort of polar opposites if you like, which are emerging and i think that's the kind of shape of things to come. joe biden is steeped in the past. it would be very difficult for him to establish anything radically different and claim that he's going to change the levels of inequality that the u.s. have suffered which are at the core of this legitimacy crisis. >> will be an interesting election to come. inderjeet parmar, thank you. an african-american man with only his cell phone in hand shot dead and no charges for the police officers who shot him. we hear from an attorney for stephon clark's family still ahead. stay with us. gotcha!

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now to the u.s. west coast, the city of sacramento, california, and an announcement by prosecutors that outraged

many people in that community. the decision that two police officers who shot and killed an unarmed african-american man won't face criminal charges. stephon clark was gunned down in his grandmother's backyard almost one year ago. and our dan simon has this new update, the announcement from the district attorney, parts of this report are graphic. >> reporter: we're here in sacramento, we're going to be watching to see how the community reacts to the district attorney's decision, you can see that a protest has taken shape here at the sacramento police department on saturday evening. for the most part, things have been peaceful. we did see some protesters burn some police flags, some blue lives matter flags. this is a shooting that absolutely roiled the sacramento community. you have a 22-year-old african-american male, stephon clark, who police believed was breaking into cars, they followed him in the end to his grandmother's backyard, and as you see there on the police body camera video, police believed that he was pointing a gun at

them, but in the end, he did not have a gun. he had a cell phone. the question for the d.a. was did the officers' actions amount to a crime and this is what she had to say. >> when we look at all of these facts and circumstances, we look at all of it, everything. we ask our question that we started out with again, and that question is, was a crime committed? there is no question that a human being died. but when we look at the facts and the law, and we follow our ethical responsibilities, the answer to that question is no. and as a result, we will not charge these officers with any criminal liability related to the shooting death and use of force on stephon clark. >> reporter: while the d.a.'s decision seemingly puts an end to the formal investigation, we should note that the clark family filed a wrongful death

lawsuit, a $20 million lawsuit against the city of sacramento. so this will continue in the legal arena for some time. and we're just going have to do see what happens here in sacramento in the hours and days ahead. dan simon, cnn, sacramento. >> dan, thank you. in the background you saw the protesters in dan's report. the news also hitting clark's family very hard. there are reports that an ambulance was called to his grandmother's home on saturday, you can see the video here taken from our affiliate kovr in sacramento. relatives say that she has a heart condition. here's what clark's mother said about justice for her son. >> we're outraged. we're outraged. they executed my son. they executed him in my mom's backyard and it is not right. it is not right. >> we also heard from clark's fiancee speaking to the media and through tears she said she believes police murdered clark.

>> on march 18th, 2018, stephon clark, my fiance, and the father of my two sons, aidan and cairo, was shot to death by police officers, by two sacramento officers and my family's world was turned upside down. today the d.a. announced that the officers who shot my unarmed fiancee won't face any charges. >> it's okay. >> continuing the shameful legacy of officers killing black men without consequences and breaking my family's hearts

again. it is about the officers who murdered him. >> that's right. >> murdered him because he had a cell phone in his hand. >> that's right. that's right. >> and now he'll never come back to us. >> clark's fiancee speaking out after that decision was announced. and now i'd like to bring in one of the attorneys representing stephon clark's family, benjamin crump joining us this hour. we appreciate your time today. we just heard that very emotional statement after this decision was reached. i'd like to get your reaction first to this decision. >> well, george, oftentimes in these police shootings of unarmed black man you find this playbook they use where after they assassinated his person, they then assassinate his character. but this district attorney took it to a whole other level.

it was almost disgraceful the lengths she went to do try to justify a shooting by these two police officers. it is just simply outrageous, the family is outraged, the community is outraged, and we're going to make sure that his children, his family know that we're going to get justice for him in the civil courts. >> you touched on this here, put, again, during the investigation, the family did complain, they felt that it focused much more on stephon's personal life rather than the incident itself. >> absolutely, george. it is almost as if stephon was the person who shot officers. he is the deceased person. he's the person, unarmed, dead on the ground. when you listen to the d.a.'s justification, you knew -- if

you believe her, you have to say stephon was shot eight times in his front. but he was shot eight times in the back. so the question really becomes why did the district attorney in her hour long press conference not -- at all about the shots coming to his back. eight shots. to the back. the reason why she didn't do it, george, because it did not -- it will show these officers were -- used unnecessary and unjustified with deadly force when they shot him, executed him at his grandmother's backyard. >> and it is good to have you on. the audio is a little rough, but we're understanding what you're having to say. it is good to get your insight into this investigation. so the question i have for you next, just briefly, what is next? you say you take it to civil courts. how does that play forward?

>> we filed a lawsuit on behalf of stephon clark's parents and his two children. we believe clearly that a jury looking at this evidence will conclude that this was an unnecessary, unjustified shooting where they shot him eight times in the back. >> i want to apologize to our viewers, the audio and the video not the best, but it is great to get the insight here to understand where this case goes next to get the attorney, one of them representing the family, benjamin crump on with us, thank you for taking time with us and we'll stay in touch. >> thank you, george. still ahead here on "newsroom," bernie sanders delivers some of his most deeply personal remarks at a campaign rally as he reaches, again, for the u.s. presidency. plus, the united states and south korea scale down their annual joint military exercises to help calm tensions in that region. the question, though, will that

work? we take a look. glad to have you with us. be right back after the break. ♪ t-mobile will do the math for you. right now, when you join t-mobile, you get two lines of unlimited with two of the latest phones included for just one hundred bucks a month.

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do you guys sell, other dogs? now that's simple, easy, awesome. customize each line by paying for data by the gig or get unlimited. get $250 back when you pre-order a new samsung galaxy. click, call, or visit a store today. welcome back to our viewer here in the united states and all around the world. you are watching "cnn newsroom" live from atlanta. i'm george howell with the headlines we're following for you. this hour, the u.s. president spoke to a crowd of conservative supporters on saturday, again complaining about the special counsel robert mueller, tearing into the russia investigation. mr. trump said relatively little about his summit with kim jong-un and brushed off criticism for siding with the north korean dictator over the death of american student otto warmbier. there will be no criminal charges filed against two

california police officers who killed an unarmed african-american man, stephon clark. gunned down almost one year ago in his grandmother's backyard. the d.a. described him as having a shooting stance and police thought he had a gun. turned out, just a cell phone. u.s. backed forces report heavy fighting as they push into the last isis enclave in syria. the footage exclusive footage shows blasts lighting the night sky on saturday. the terrorists were cornered for weeks. at cpac, the president said the caliphate would be defeated within days. however you'll remember that isis was already 100% defeated, clearly video shows that's not the case but it is winding down. on monday, the u.s. and south korea will start the first of their new scaled down joint military exercises. this comes just days after the failed u.s. north korea summit. paula hancocks is following the

story, joins us live in seoul, south korea. what can you tell us about the new exercises? >> well, george, these are going to be a lot smaller than the previous exercises. every spring for decades now the u.s. and south korea have been holding these very large, very visual military exercises for a couple of months, and every single year it has annoyed and we did in past see an increased number of rocket and missile launches by north korea as these drills were going on. but what we're seeing now is these drills are no longer going to be held. the key resolve, the defense ministers of both the u.s. and south korea announced they will end and they will be replaced by something much smaller, that it could be just a unit level that we see this as opposed to large battalions. and also saying that a lot of it could also be virtual training.

so it is really an effort according to the two defense ministers to help the diplomatic process along, and they believe that they will be battle ready, they will have enough training to be able to be battle ready. but, of course, it has raised eyebrows, the fact that this is considered a fairly significant concession by the u.s. to the north koreans after last week's summit ended without an agreement. now, we know how the u.s. president donald trump thinks about these drills. he said in his press conference on thursday, i gave that up a long time ago, talking about these military drills, saying they cost $100 million every time one is carried out. also complaining that south korea doesn't pay its share as far as the u.s. president is concerned for these drills as well. certainly this will be welcomed by north korea. and it would be seen as a concession by the u.s. at a time when really the process of denuclearization is not moving forward and they couldn't even

agree on anything last week. george? >> paula, i'm curious to know, if you had a chance to get a sense of what people think about this, or what is the general mood about the fact that these drills that typically are larger in scale, that they have been scaled down. >> well, as far as i can gauge last week, george, these drills were being planned as normal, this is a relatively new occurrence that they are going to be -- they are going to be canceled, these large scale drills. the plans were going ahead for them to be held as normal. we know certainly from a military point of view that they were welcomed by many of the military on the u.s. and the south korean side, that it is necessary for these two allies to be prepared and to be fighting alongside each other. so these kind of drills have always been -- i've been told in the many years i've gone along to film them, that they were

essential for the two militaries to be able to fight side by side. of course, now what we're hearing is that these much smaller drills are going to be -- they're going to suffice. so certainly i think everybody is trying to put a positive spin on it. we're hearing both defense ministers saying it will be fine and this is necessary. but i think certainly from a very basic military point of view, the two militaries would be better according to what i've heard over many years from these soldiers training on a large scale. george? >> paula hancocks with the reporting and some insight there. paula, thank you for the reporting. now back here in the united states, the u.s. senator bernie sanders has set the stage for his first large scale rally of his 2020 presidential bid. this the scene, not far from where sander was born, brooklyn, new york, and making a point, contrasting his blue collar upbringing with president trump's more upscale childhood, sanders also giving a great deal of credit to his immigrant father. listen. >> unlike donald trump who shut

down the government and left 800,000 federal employees without income to pay their bill s, i know what it is like to be in a fam t paycheck to paycheck. now it is true i did not have a father who gave me millions of dollars to build luxury skyscrapers, casinos and country clubs. i did not come from a family that gave me a $200,000 allowance every year beginning at the age of 3. as i recall, my allowance was 25 cents a week. but i had something more valuable. i had the role model of a father

who had unbelievable courage, in journeying across an ocean, with no money in his pocket to start a new and better life. >> bernie sanders again, preparing for his presidential bid for 2020. it has been more than a month now since the u.s. government reopened from the longest government shutdown in the nation's history. but we're learning now that more than a thousand tsa workers, those very essential workers in u.s. airports, they're still waiting on their back pay. rene marsh has this report. >> reporter: as we know, many tsa employees impacted by that government shutdown live paycheck to paycheck. they were depending on food banks, some received eviction notices, so it was really unbelievable when cnn learned more than a month after this shutdown ended, more than a thousand tsa employees are still owed back pay. this includes screeners, inspectors, canine teams. here is the thing, the reason

for the delay stems in part from an unusual move by tsa administrator david percase to pay a partial paycheck to workers in order to help keep them on the job. hundreds of tsa workers called out from work during the shutdown. the current problem with the back pay was the subject of a phone call that tsa headquarters held with field offices across the country on wednesday. and according to a partial transcript of a call, obtained by cnn, the agency said the partial payment to employees coincided with the end of the shutdown when funding got restored. and i'm quoting, they said on this call, our timing could not have been poorer in terms of when we executed partial pay. well, the result is an administrative mess. now the agency is working to make corrections in its system to reflect that some employees have already received a partial payment, so that the balance that is owed to them is

accurate. as one frustrated tsa official put it, this cheated the purpose of the shutdown. during the shutdown, people are intended to basically not receive a paycheck because it is not supposed to be comfortable, it is a way to ensure that the shutdown does not last very long. but what we saw was agencies looking for ways to soften the blow of what was the longest shutdown in u.s. history and now as this official put it this created more problems for employees and they are dealing with it more than a month after the shutdown is over. we did reach out to the agency and tsa tells cnn in a statement, of tsa's 60,000 employees, approximately 1,000 throughout the country require some sort of pay correction. and the agency says that it is continuing to process those corrections, but no clear deadline from when everyone will receive their back pay. reporting from washington, rene marsh, cnn. >> thank you.

now to south america, venezuela's self-proclaimed interim president is wrapping up his tour across latin america, juan guaido met with leaders to build up international support in his bid to unseat nicolas maduro. he's now in ecuador and said he will return to venezuela after his trip is finished. he hasn't said when or how he will return. but when he does return, he could be arrested. the eu is urging the maduro government not to threaten his freedom. the impact of last week's border skirmishes are being felt. a second person has died. desperate people are now crossing illegally. nick paton walsh has that report. >> reporter: a lifeline crossing, barricaded, formerly closed. here, the border is still bustling. and in the distance, people seem to be getting across. how?

clashes exactly a week ago closed that border. it is now almost fortified. but people desperate to get food back to their loved ones inside venezuela, they found another way. down we follow the tide as colombian police stand calmly by. these are steps of necessity, of desperation, by people in need of everything. endless in number, down to the river bank. but these don't seem to be steps of just salvation, helped as they are at first. across the border, past the treeline, we're told, sometimes venezuela soldiers but mostly gangs who charge for each crossing. 50 cents per person and $2 equivalent if you're carrying goods. cars and trucks wait for me over there, he says, it is mostly just guys, not soldiers. it is pesos, they ask for.

another said it is not soldiers. i don't know who gets the money. dead go back to be buried in their homeland and the living feel the slow collapse of their homeland bury them. traffic both ways, but with one shared venezuelan burden f y. if you leave, it is more or less empty handed. those who go back do so with everything they can carry. up on the bridge, where thousands once crossed daily, pellets fired last week, to keep opposition protesters back who below still carry on with their skirmishes and defenses. a people whose world is measured in varying degrees of nothing and whose suffering here finds only further exploitation. nick paton walsh, colombia. europe's biggest port is bracing for brexit. rotterdam, why they say life is going to get harder for people trying to buy groceries if there

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welcome back to "cnn newsroom." i'm george howell. well, less than a month to go before the day many in the uk rallied for, a day that half the country fought against, brexit, the planned withdrawal from the eu and the biggest port is concerned about what could happen if there is no trade deal. rotterdam works like a well oiled machine and the uk benefits greatly but that could all come to an abrupt end come march 29th. atika shubert has this. >> reporter: at 42 kilometers long, rotterdam is europe's biggest and busiest seaport and the uk is the fourth largest customer. now that a hard brexit looms, rotterdam port is sounding the

alarm. >> we were hoping for a transition period, but we said together with the dutch customs, prepare for the worst and prepare for a no deal scenario the 29th of march. >> reporter: that could hurt british supermarkets first. this is peak loading time at daily fresh logisticlogistics, going straight to the uk after this. they run about 150 to 200 trucks a day. after brexit, this is all going to slow down. 90% of the business is delivering fresh produce across the uk within 24 hours. here's how it works. a british supermarket calls in the morning for an order of radishes, peppers, lettuce, tomatoes. by closing time on the same day, this will arrive on supermarket shelves. that's pretty fast. but after brexit, won't be happening like that anymore.

peter trig remembers waiting hours for customs before the uk joined the eu. >> always waiting, waiting, waiting. when the day came, we don't have clear customs anymore, everybody was happy. >> reporter: those waiting days are back. daily fresh will see delays of 48 hours initially as truckers will have to fill out eight times more paperwork just to get on the ferry to britain. still, it is determined to keep supplying the uk after brexit. >> two years ago, you thought we still have two years and then you think we still have one year. but, yeah, now it is only one month. and you think, oh, that's going to be tight. >> reporter: no fresh tomatoes may be the least of it. and rotterdam, when it comes to brexit, the phrase you hear most is hope for the best, prepare for worst. atika shubert, rotterdam, netherlands. >> brexit is upon them, coming soon.

still ahead, get ready. another winter storm slamming north america with more than 52 million people under a weather alert. we'll have all the details for you. stay with us.

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alongside my colleague and good buddy, derek van dam, here to tell us about heavy rain an storms that are affecting the southern part of the u.s. >> you know, the severe weather that we're expecting later today is going to coincide with a lot of outdoor events, recognizing and honoring the civil rights anniversary, the selma bridge crossing, which took place over 50 years ago. there are going to be a lot of political contenders on site and drawing massive crowds as well. so hillary clinton, bernie sanders will also be on location, and unfortunately the timing couldn't be worse. so look at the graphics here, because you can see the severe weather that is expected to settle in right into alabama, as well as georgia, selma in the middle of the tv screen. and we also had a lot of mardi gras festivities taking place, fat tuesday coming up this upcoming tuesday. so you can imagine the weekend festivities across the south and the east. here is the potential severe weather threat today. damaging winds, isolated

tornadoes, the latest information, the latest 2:00 a.m. update, selma included in that moderate risk including albany and much of southern and southwestern sections of alabama and georgia. here is the storm system moving through. you can see the severe risk across the deep south. it is in the warm sector of the storm. on the north side, the colder part of the storm, that's where we're focusing our attention on the potential of a full on snowstorm. a battle of the seasons here taking place. spring to the south, winter to the north. look out, new york, boston, philly, all the way to portland, maine. potential for several inches of snow. more on that in one second. if you find yourself in selma, alabama today, perhaps watching some of the festivities online or on your television set, this is the weather forecast, you can see how it is going to be impacted by showers and thunderstorms and some of which could be strong to severe. here is a live look at times square in downtown new york city. yesterday at this time, the

streets were covered in snowfall. i tell you this because they have had no rest from the winter weather over the past few days. we had significant amounts of snow. several inches piling up over the past few storm systems, within about two days. now an additional storm coming. you can see the national weather service just hoisted winter storm warnings for this area. unbelievable amount of people impacted by winter weather. 85 million americans under some sort of winter weather advisory. that's the newest figures coming into us. look how fast this storm system moves through the ohio river valley. again, rain to the south. severe weather as well. but a band of heavy snow will set up right along that i-95 corridor, a heavily traveled area. it is all dependent on how much warm air starts to intrude in along coastline. that will determine our exact snowfall figures, with the potential for six or more inches of snow exists. by the way, some of the coldest air we experienced in a long time, settling in from the

midwest all the way to the east coast. and you'll appreciate this, 14 for chicago tomorrow. >> derek, thank you. one thing you'll appreciate, the iditarod in alaska. >> okay. i have been watching this. >> let's look. the video is really interesting. this in anchorage, alaska. on streets, crowds of people line the streets saturday, cheering the 52 mushers and their dogs. the trek officially starts sunday. a thousand miles or 1600 kilometers across the state. the course was lengthened a bit this year, but, derek, this is interesting, to bypass a section of the behring sea, that is not frozen. >> very interesting. so last year they broke the record and this year they don't expect to because there is too much snow for the dogs to traverse. >> interesting. thank you. thank you for being with us for "newsroom." back after the break with more news for you. stay with us. so, it was me, one other mom and twelve boys.

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and see how you can have an even better x1 experience. simple. easy. awesome. the last isis stronghold in syria on the brink of falling. u.s.-backed forces working to recapture that area in eastern syria. cnn is live near the front lines for you. plus, the u.s. president delivers his longest speech ever. it was long. targeting his usual enemies, and railing his supporters with it. also ahead this hour -- >> the fearful part is you might not come back. that's what i fear most. >> disturbing stories. fishermen in guiana torturing children, using them as slaves. we'll have that exclusive report