that's it for this week's show. thanks to my panel, especially to all of you for watching. hope to see you right here next week. 300,000 people in charleston, west virginia experiencing their third day now without any usable twater with officials in nine different counties ordering people don't use it for any purpose under any circumstances. imagine that. trying to get by without water. >> my goodness, that's tough. >> welcome everybody to america's news headquarters. last you're with us. >> thanks for joining us. so the toxic chemical spill is not only forcing businesses and restaurants to close, but it may also be making people sick. boy, doug live in charleston,

west virginia with more. so, doug, do we know for a fact that these hospital visits are a result of the chemical spill? >> reporter: you know, i'll get to that question in just a second. i did want to alert you we just learned of some news that there's a press conference going to be happening at any moment now with a whole number of the key players from the governor's office, various environmental officials, water company involved. if any news happens from that, we'll get to it right away and let you know what happened. now, to your question, we cannot definitively say that these hospital admissions -- i think there were four of them yesterday that were associated with this, are directly caused by the chemical spill. the patients apparently were complaining of nausea and vomiting but also symptoms associated with the flu or any number of stomach bugs. so we can't say that definitively. we can say, however, that emergency rooms in the charleston area have been flooded with patients. so much so that many emergency rooms are referring patients to other hospitals that are less crowded. last night in his first appearance before the media, the

president of freedom industries told people that the chemical in question is relatively benign. it is a foaming agent used in the processing of coal. here's the president of freedom industries. >> toxicity. so if you look at the technical states available on the product, it has no effect on aquatic life. >> reporter: but the centers for disease control presents a very different picture. it says the agent may cause respiratory system and skin, headaches as well. and in animals it can cause what's called narcosis which is an unconsciousne nesness induce chemicals as well as damage to the liver and kidney. that's no small concern in a rural region where a lot of people have livestock, a lot of

people's livelihoods depend on their livestock. >> no small concern at all, doug. water's the key to life. i know you mentioned there's a news conference that may be coming up. you probably get some answers then, hopefully. but at this point is there any indication when the water service will be restored? >> reporter: until we hear from this press conference, which is slated to get underway in just a second, nobody has definitively said when and at what time water may be safe to drink again. here's the latest word we got. >> no, i haven't heard anything. you hear months, weeks, days, i'm hoping it's within days. but like i said, we're waiting on an all clear from them. it's something we're not going to put out until they give us the all clear on it. >> reporter: a consortium of local, state and federal agencies are conducting tests on the water to make that determination, but nobody wants to say it will be good by a certain date and then have that dashed. fema and local emergency

responders are in the meantime providing water from trucks. there's been a steady stream of people coming here all afternoon. there are 16 such distribution sites across the county. many, many more in the other surrounding counties around charleston. already yesterday six lawsuits were filed against the west virginia american water company, and also against freedom industries. one of them by a man who was scheduled to have a kidney transplant yesterday. his operation had to be delayed because the hospital can't use the water either. back to you. >> oh, my word. okay, doug, we'll standby for that news conference and get back to you when you have an update. thanks so much. luxury department store chain neiman marcus says hackers may have stolen customers credit and debit card information during the holiday season. neiman marcus says its credit card processor notified it last month about potentially unauthorized charges. no word yet on just how many people had their accounts compromised. this is the second of course

major data breach in retailers recent weeks. target also says hackers, get this, may have stolen the information of as many as 70 million more customers than they previously reported including their names, phone numbers and addresses. get out your calculator, that means roughly 110 million americans affected by that security breach at target. >> oh, boy. well, following months of complaints and controversy over the botched rollout of obama care, we're now learning that the white house is dropping cgi federal, that's the i.t. contractor who built the glitch-ridden healthcare.gov website. the white house is saying it wasn't effective enough in fixing the complex computer system. the maintenance contract worth about $90 million will reportedly now go to a technology management and consulting company. some extreme weather to tell

you about. powerful storms moving into the southeast bringing the threat of tornadoes in some areas. and folks out there also watching now for potential flooding as well. meteorologist janis dean is live in the fox weather center covering it all. >> you saw the picture, the imagery here where we have tornado watches up, severe thunderstorm watches as well for the risk of tornadoes. we've certainly seen some isolated tornadoes through the afternoon hours. but the latest until 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. stretching all the way up towards the delmarva peninsula. we could see very strong winds, heavy rain and tornados, several tornado warnings just east of raleigh right now. doppler radar indicating some rotation on these, so we're going to be watching this very carefully through the afternoon and evening hours. because we have all this warm moist air that's riding up from the south, a low pressure center, a very strong jet stream to give us that extra oomph in the atmosphere, and that's what's giving us potential for some of these strong storms. going through time, i mean,

temperatures 50s and 60s across the eastern seaboard. by monday this system is out of there. the temperatures drop somewhat, but we're still relatively warm. i mean, we're talking just within the last week a warm up of at least 60 degrees in some of these areas. tuesday it was 9 in raleigh, 68 today. minus 7 in cincinnati, 48 today. minus 9 in pittsburgh, 53 today. so incredible warmth surging up from the south. also, watching this major storm system across the northwest bringing all sorts of weather here, very gusty winds, heavy snow upwards of three feet and extremely heavy downpours across the northwest. so we'll continue to monitor this as this moves eastward across the central u.s. by later this week. back to you, gregg and arthel. >> it's really nice in the caribbean. let's go. >> are you paying? >> no. >> he doesn't have to pay. let's just go. >> i'm there. >> pretty drinks.

>> yeah. >> thanks, j.d. >> all right. bye, j.d. >> a-rod is having his suspension reduced. he'll be out for the entire 2014 season still, but an arbitrator for the mlb is dropping his suspension down to 162 games, which is down from the original 211. rodriguez is vowing to continue his fight against the suspension in federal court and try to lessen his suspension even further. the three-time american league mvp was sidelined for his involvement with the clinic accused of distributing performance enhancing drugs. >> federal court historically by ballplayers almost never works. it is a real uphill battle for the lawyers in that one. all right. israel is mourning the loss of former israeli prime minister ariel sharon. plus a fire wreaks havoc on an ancient town. we'll tell you the extent of the damage in the popular tourist

destination. and a new tell-all pitting ex-pentagon chief robert gates against the white house. we've got more new details on the political fallout from his former boss next. >> most families who read this book will be shocked at the ineptitude and the amateurishness of those at the very highest levels of our decision making.

more fallout from an upcoming new tell-all book by the former defense secretary robert gates. in it gates claims that president obama lost faith in his own afghan strategy. and now the ex-pentagon chief giving more insight into tensions between the president and his military commanders including the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff

admiral michael mullens. gates writing in his memoir, and i'll quote, "mullen and i repeatedly discussed with the infuriated president what he regarded as military pressure on him. is it a lack of respect for me? obama asked us. are petraeus, crystal and mullen trying to box me in? i've tried to create an environment where all points of view can be discussed and have robust debate, i'm devoted to it. what is wrong? is it the process? are they suspicious of my politics? do they resent i never served in the military? do they think because i'm young that i don't see what they're doing?" joining me now democratic political consultant, advisory to hillary clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. good to see you both. when you listen to this, especially the last couple of lines that i just read and assuming that gates has it

right, but he does have a reputation for honesty and being very, very steady and forthright, but if it's true, is there sort of a paranoid quality to president obama? >> you're absolutely right. and president obama, he reminds me of the roman emperor character from the movie "gladiat "gladiator," when he made the line that they don't respect me how will they love me. president obama, he's showing the characteristics of a failed leader, gregg. this is very concerning. he's questioning himself in front of others and questioning his ability to lead. to me that's the characteristics of a failed leader, which is very unfortunate for our country. >> you know, richard, what do you make of that quote that we put on our screen? do they resent me because i wasn't in the military? am i too young? you know, ed klein wrote a book called "the amateur" which was the title was essentially stolen and allegedly made by bill clinton who said in a conversation, again allegedly, that this president, president

obama, is a complete amateur who has no business sitting in the oval office. >> you know, it's funny, gregg, the quotes that you put up. we've seen these other quotes from the gates book, right, this week where he said -- gates said he agreed with every single decision -- policy decision, that president obama made in connection with afghanistan. he said that president obama's decision to send in the troops to get bin laden was one of the most courageous decisions he's ever witnessed by a president. so, look, i think president obama was lucky to have bob gates decide to stay on. he's a top guy. i do question whether at a time of war, you know, if the tables were turned and it was a democrat that had been held over by a republican president and had written this book criticizing a commander in chief at a time of war, people on the right would be ap plektic. >> that has happened. and you're absolutely right about it. let me go to another quote. a lot to squeeze in here. all this is brand new. you can go to "the wall street

journal," they posted the latest excerpt just out a few hours ago. here it is, the atmosphere at the white house was getting poisonous, especially on the part of donilon who had questioned as insubordinate and in revolt. it steamed me, writes gates, someone that had never been in the military, had never been to afghanistan was second guessing commanders in the field. did he? >> well, listen, look at the facts that are out there in terms of what gates is telling america, which we already knew as a matter of fact. and when you look at iraq, for example, you have the al qaeda who are taking over cities. you look at syria, obama erased his own red line and he had putin basically bail him out on that. and then there's afghanistan where there's no direction. i'm telling you, gregg, i feel bad for our military men and women who are putting their lives on the line who don't have clear cut directions.

if they know they don't have clear cut direction, we know they don't have clear cut direction, so does our enemy. >> richard, i want to go to one last quote. again, these just came out a couple hours ago from robert gates' book. the president -- here's the time frame, the president is about to announce belatedly and reluctantly a surge of troops in afghanistan. and here's a moment apparently in the oval office. "then came an exchange that is seared into my memory. biden said he was ready to move forward but the military "should consider the president's decision as an order." i am giving an order, obama quickly said, i was shocked, writes gates. i had never heard a president explicitly frame a decision as a direct order. with the u.s. military it's completely unnecessary as secretary of defense i never issued an order to get something done, nor had i heard any commander do so. obama's order at biden's urging demonstrated the complete

unfamiliarity of both men with the american military culture. your reaction, richard. >> i think secretary gates is offended by process. but as i said earlier, the quote is that there was not a decision that barack obama made about afghanistan that he didn't think was the right one. now, let's assume that he thought every single decision that president george w. bush made about iraq was correct. you know, talked about being sorry for the troops. i'm sorry for the troops that went into iraq under false pretenses. we now know everything we were told at the beginning was false. so let's assume the military and the white house got along just peachy. what did we end up with? we ended up with a mess. a war that we had no business fighting where al qaeda didn't exist when we went in. and now when president bush left office there was in spain. come on. >> we were talking about afghanistan and the surge there. remember president obama when he was a senator running for president said this is the right

war in afghanistan. i've got to leave it at that. >> okay. >> we're out of time, richard goodstein. and janine, take care. remembering the life of ariel sharon, the former israeli prime minister's impact on the middle east. dan gullman standing by for us. that's coming up next. i'm nathan and i quit smoking with chantix. when my son was born, i remember, you know, picking him up and holding him against me. it wasn't just about me anymore. i had to quit. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven o help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke. chantix didn't have nicotine in it, and that was important to me. [ male aouncer ] some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal tughts or action while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these, stop chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of mental health problems, which uld get worse while taking chantix. don't take chantix if you've had a seris allergic or skineaction to it. if you develop these,

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it left a horrible sense of grief and this is a very sad day for me. sharon was an officer and a gentleman. he was a military hero who battled for israel and saved it on the battlefield and a political hero who on the international arena made very far reaching sacrifices. and i think -- you know, i've known sharon for maybe 40 years, but i was fortunate to spend with him what he described as the happiest week of his life, which was just a few weeks before he got the stroke. he came to the united nations

for the u.n.'s 60th general assembly, which was a very festive one with 177 heads of state ranging from ahmadinejad and chavez and bush and putin. how this person to a great extent was demonized for years on the international stage became the superstar of this megaproduction. it was just after disengaging from gaza. it was amazing to see how world leaders were clambering to meet him, to hug him, to shake his hand. i spent eight days with him from morning until night. and i could sense the great happiness and joy and satisfaction he received from this international recognition and being so prominent on the international stage.

he was ready to make further painful sacrifices for peace. i iranian threat or the palestinian conflict, sharon's leadership, his charisma, advertise church, the support he had with the people and the trust he had even from his enemies could have made a big difference and enabled him to

take very bold steps toward a settlement. >> if you could give me this one in 30 seconds. is it possible that maybe he is a man with no regrets? do you think sharon had any regrets? >> you know, i don't think sharon ever looked at the past. he was just looking at the future. i don't think he had many regrets. even if he did he referred to them always as a sense of humor and light smile he had. he may have regretted some things he's done in the past but i thought he made up for whatever ris takes he made by being such a bold, courageous and inspirational leader. >> we leave it there. sir, i have to cut it short. farmer: hello, i'm an idaho potato farmer.

and our giant idaho potato truck is still missing. so my dog and i we're going to go find it. it's out there somewhere spreading the good word about idaho potatoes and raising money for meals on wheels. but we'd really like our truck back, so if you see it, let us know, would you? thanks. what?

hello, everyone. so glad you can join us. welcome to america's news headquarters nks topping the news this hour, bland new details out on the chemical skill crisis gripping west virginia. we're going to go live to charleston. officials there have been holding a news conference. luxury retail giant me man marcus saying that its customers may have become the victims of a massive security breach, this coming hours after target announced that its own breach affected millions of more customers than initially thought. new details on alex

rodrigue rodriguez's drug suspension. so we'll get more on those stories in a few moments. we begin here, the white house on the defense this weekend on a new tell-all back by former secretary of defense, bob gates. in it gates praises the administration for going after osama bin laden but suggests that all too often politics was the main driving force behind many of the president's decisions. all of this coming amid growing tension in u.s./afgan relations. >> president obama according to former defense secretary rabbit gates' book suspected that his military leaders didn't respect him in 2009 because they kept bringing up send more troops to

afghanistan. general stanley mcchrystal, then the top commander in afghanistan. gates write, quote, mull long and i discussed with the infuriated president as what he regarded as military pressure on him. is it a lack of respect for me in are they trying to box me in? what's wrong? is it the process? are they suspicious of my politi politics? do they resent that i never served in the military in do they think because i'm young that i don't' what they're doing? gates goes on to say the atmosphere in this white house is getting poisonous. it a steamed me that someone who had never been in the military and never been to afghanistan was second-guessing commanders in the field. the white house said about the gates' book that there were

debates against afgan staen and the defense stat gri and that made for stronger better policy. the president's spokesman said that the chief weighs policies. he is extremely conscious of the responsibility that that authority bestraws upon him and those who hold his office. and therefore he would not make decisions about surging u.s. troops without a thorough debate. >> but gates seems to have a different take on it and says he saw a white house with a quote lack of appreciation from the top down of the uncertainties and inherent unpredictability of war. the list of retail cyber attacks is growing and growing now. luxury department store neiman

marcus saying that hackers have indeed broken into their computer system stealing customer credit card, debit card information and in the meantime, the retail giant admitting it's worse than they thought. the information of as many as 70 million more customers than previously reported may have been stolen. you got to get out your calculator for that one. dominic denatally is with us. she's crunched the numbers live in los angeles. >> yeah, big numbers. let's deal with neiman marcus first because they're not telling us how many customers have been affected. no doubt after the numbers we've seen coming from target, everyone is going to want to know how bad it is there. target at least coming clean on what is a second breach of cyber security there saying the additional 70 million customers had their names, mailing addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses stolen and they uncovered that in the

investigation over the ho mill job people who had their pin numbers stolen during the holidays. there's a chance that some of the customers may have been hit twice. hear's what target told fox news today in a statement. these are two distinct groups. while there may be some overlap between the groups, we do not know to what extent at this time. they've said that much of the data is partial. that means whoever took it doesn't have everybody's entire details. but in cases where the company does have e-mail addresses of people it is going to reach out to them and tell them what happened and of course people are hearing from their banks about this as wul. targeting add that consumers will have zero liability for the cost of any fraudulent charges that have been occurred from this breach. no is surprise at all that the target customers are shocked at this latest information. >> 70 million they're saying now? i don't know how they can go through all of that information

but i'm sure i'm part of that. >> i did have to close my account down and receive a new credit card for the account. >> i would imagine just about anybody is susceptible to some of this now. that's what makes me uncomfortable. >> well, here's swift action you can take if you are affected. check your credit card statements very carefully and respect any suspicious activity. and well, there's you need a different password for every single site you go to.

>> you're going to have 20 of them. you're going to have a long list and keep them in your socks. >> what's happening now is a lot of browsers will generate a password for you. >> i think i get that. do you get that in. >> yeah, do. also you can get like a password manager on your computerary it will regenerate a really long crazy hard to detect code for you as well. >> and it will load it for you. >> if it loads it for you, that's fine. show me how to do that? >> yeah, i'll try. >> bless you. dominic, thank you very much. there was an insult in there somewhere. >> it was an undertone but it was there. >> our legal panel is going to examine the legal ramifications of all of these cases. the american population, 313 million, so 110 million, that's one third of the population that

have been ripped off. >> it's really unbelievable or at least made vulnerable. in the meantime we're going to get you back to the story we've been covering. 300,000 people in charleston, west virginia experiencing their third day without usable tap water. with officials in nine counties ordering people not to use it. the toxic chemical spill is not only forcing businesses and restaurants to close but it's also making a lot of people sick. doug is live in charleston, west virginia. did you get any information out of that press conference that just took place, doug? >> reporter: it's still going on to the best of my knowledge now. here's the bottom line. a lot of people are involved all speaking of the various components. bottom line they say that the west virginia american water company is a big company, is system is extensive. it's going to take extensive study and testing. that means it is probably going

to be a matter of days before the water service is restored and it will probably happen in a phase-in approachal consumption of the water being the last phase. as a result of that, charleston people and the surrounding counties will continue to get their water the way you see it behind me right here, from trucks np is one of 16 distribution centers here. there are many others in the surrounding counties. people are behaving very calmly here. yesterday when the alert was issued, however, that was not necessarily the sas everywhere. listen up. >> a lot of people rushed the big box stores were the convenience stores to get water. first people got it and the people who got there later did get it. so it caused some civil disturbances in some areas. we had to get law enforcement involved. >> last night the president of the chemical company that caused this spill met with reporters for the first time at the site

of the spill. here's what he had to say. >> i've prepared a short statement and then would like to start by sincerely apologizing to the people in the affected counties of west virginia. our friend and our neighbors, this incident is extremely unfortunate, unanticipated and we are very, very sorry. >> those apologies may not go very far. even just yesterday there were something like 800 calls made to poison control centers. there were six lawsuits filed yesterday, one of them by a man who was scheduled to have a kidney transplant. the transplant was canceled. he had to go back on dialysis. the pain and suffering he suffered are named in the suit. also named in the suit are the wf west virginia american water company and freedom industries which caused the spill. let's talk about the chemical involved here. it's a foaming agent that is

used to clean coal before it goes off to the market. we're hearing conflicting stories about the toxicity of the stuff. here again is the president of the company that caused the spill. >> the chemical has a very, very low toxicity. so if you look at the technical data that's available on the product, it has no affect on aquatic life. >> but what about to human life? the cdc says the agent may cause irritation to the eyes, to the skin, to the upper respiratory system and it may cause headaches as well. and in animals it may cause narcosis which is a form of consciousness. we're hearing of at least four hospital admissions. we don't know for a fact that they are specifically connected to this. people complaining of nausea and

vomiting. but of course that is also a symptom of the flu. but in the meantime, the water alert remains in effect. we're expecting it to last several days. no word officially about when this water crisis will end. but undoubtedly, nerves are very calm, they may become frayed depending on how long this continues. >> absolutely. that's unstandable. thanks a lot for the update. meanwhile, we're going to get you here. there is growing anger now over a newly signed budget deal in washington that cuts down benefit increases for thousands of veterans. republican senator kelly ayotte says she's come with a plan to fund the program and restore those cuts. but her proposal is being met with serious push backs. byron york is here with us now. i understand you like this idea?

>> where he will, ayotte wanted to solve a couple of problems. he wanted to restore the military pension cuts and two, she wanted to help pay for the unemployment insurance extension that everybody is fighting about here in washington. and she said how can we do that? she focused on a tax credit called the additional child tax credit. government pays out billions of dollars every year and it's not very careful about who it pays. >> 1.2 billion in 2011. >> there's a lot of fraud in this, especially involving people who are not in the country legally. and they don't have to give a social security number in order to collect the credit. and ayotte pointed to a group of eight addresses in north carolina, eight houses from which 1,000 tax returns had come. if we can stop this fraud and the treasury inspector general estimates it can save $20

million over three year. if we can stop the fraud simply by having people provide a social security number, stop that fraud, save that money, pay for the pensions and pay for the unemployment insurance. >> they have to have not the social security number but a tax identification number. so what's the pushback that ayotte is getting in. >> well, democrats have rejected these proposals in the past. there have been stand alone proposals to require social security numbers in the past that weren't related to these pension cuts. they're reject them saying they would hurt the most vulnerable. they had a spirited debate on the floor and senator boxer accused of ayotte of taking the food out of the mouths 0 children. it got heated. so they say it has a terrible effect on children and they will not stand for it. >> so this is part of the budget that was brokered by senator patty murray and respective paul

ryan, the bipartisan agreement. and to be a little more specific, the cut that we're talking about, it's a 1% cost of living cut that would affect a working age veterans, those veterans who are 62 age and over, they won't be affected. >> yeah, you have to be really careful about this. because a number of people serve in the military, they can retire after 20 years and they do that in mid life. you still collect a pension. what this cut would do is for those people who have retired in mid life, it could cut by 1% the increase in cost of living that happens every year until they reach age 62 at which time bang, their pension goes back to up what it would have been any way. a lot of people think it's really quite a reasonable cut, but it's really gotten a lot of opposition from veterans groups. >> i'm sorry, producer, how much time do i have? am i done?

a money. good. what do you think the outcome will be, byron? >> it's extremely unpopular to cut veterans' pensions. only one in eight of enlisted men and women actually stay 20 years or more in the military. most of them don't collect the pension any way. but it's very unpopular to go after this and certainly representative ryan and murray have taken a lot of heat for this. >> how quickly could it happen that it's restored? >> it could happen in the next couple of weeks. harry reid said he was not going to allow any amendments to this unemployment insurance bill, now he says he might add some. it could happen next week. >> we'll be watching. thanks a lot. thank you. >> you're welcome. there's a new report out finding that the number of murders falling sharply in some of the nation's largest city.

in 2013 both in new york and in america's murder capital, chicago, murder rates dropping to levels not seen since the 1960s. brian yen nis joins us live to tell us what's behind the decline. >> it's a major indication of how safe or nation is. in 1992 los angeles said about 1200 murders. in 1993, new york city nearly 2,000. but today the numbers are strikingly lower. take a look at this. new york city had 335 homicides in 2013. that's down 20% from 2012. the nation's second largest city, los angeles, saw a drop of 251 murders, something's murders are down 18% to 415 and in philadelphia homicide fell by about 26 president to 247 in 2013. now criminologists say that police departments are better utilizing data and technology to more effectively police.

>> we know that hot spots policing working. hot spots are areas where crime is concentrated. but they're now moving to hot individuals, repeat offend eers, so the police have real-time data now by beat, by shift, time of day that allows them to focus their energies where the crime is. >> other major component is kplab ration. big cities are learning strategies from one another. in houston squads go out and aggressively serve warrants. in philadelphia police have implemented a strong foot presence and in los angeles the lapd has cut it murder rate through its own gang fighting strategies. >> it's not just about policing, you have to have other strategies, wrap around strat y strategies that then address the kids that are in a gang in a

nonpunitive manner. in other words keeping the peace, reducing the violence. >> now bottom line is experts say a shift from this mass imprisonment approach in the 1990s to a more methodical preventive strategy is making a big difference. >> some good news. thanks. coming up we'll talk about this former israeli leader ariel sharon has died. we have a live report from gentleman r jerusalem. >> what people in pakistan are planning to do for a teenager. the flu is spreading rapidly. the latest report from the cdc and what you should do to stay healthy. >> flu shot is the number one mechanism for spreading t-- stopping the spreading of flu in the population. i was going to the library to do my homework.

it took a lot of juggling to keep it all together. for some low-income families, having broadband internet is a faraway dream. so we created internet essentials, america's largest low-cost internet adoption program. having the internet at home means she has to go no further than the kitchen table to do her homework. now, more than one million americans have been connected at home. it makes it so much better to do homework, when you're at home. welcome to what's next. comcastnbcuniversal. welcome back. time for a quick quick of the headlines. a massive fire destroying an ancient town in southwest china. the fire engines could not get through the narrow streets to gain access to the flames. it's not clear what caused that fire. pack stinian police are saying that a teenager should

receive an honor. he was killed in an explosion but his actions saved the lives of his other class meats. the giant panda born at the san diego zoo is being sent to china. they're on loan from china. adorable. >> love it. so a nonprofit christian watchdog group opened doors showing a number of countries where christians still face serious religious persecution. laura green is now in our n news room. >> the most dangerous places in the world for christian is north korea and countries with islam is the majority. the christian watchdog group open doors released its report to the nation's capital this week raising awareness of the polites of christians worldwide.

communists north korea tops the list for the 12th straight year. it is estimated that between 50 to 70,000 christians are locked up in concentration camps, sometimes whole families are incarcerated. >> they would arrest you, your children and potentially your grandchildren and hold all three of these generations for up to 20 years or long. many people die in these camps. >> open doors says believers are the most persecuted in countries where they have a minority. 36 of the top 50 countries on the watch list are majority muslim. top five were syria and iraq with churches have been bombed, afghanistan. >> the philosophy of many of these islamic extremists is to push out chris chance from this

region, make their life difficult and we see a giant squeeze in the middle east. >> neither the u.s. represents for north korea or the oic replaying to our request for a comment on this study. so sad and so complex. thank you very much for that report. president ronald reagan's former press secretary larry speaks has died. he spent six years at the podium for the reagan administration and passed away after a long battle with alzheimer's. nancy reagan said she was quote saddened to learn about larry who served ronnie with great loyalty in one of the toughest jobs in the white house. speaks is survived by his daughter, two son, six grandchildren and two great grandchildren. larry speaks was 74 years old. growing concerns for americans attending the winter

olympi olympics. we'll tell you about that. target admitting more personal data from shoppers may have fallen into the hands of hackers. we'll ask our legal panel what rights you have as consumer against identity theft. >> it still is scary because you don't know if these criminals are getting yourous and now the you live. that really is a big fear for me. huh, fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. yeah. everybody knows that. did you know there is an oldest trick in the book? what? trick number one. look-est over there. ha ha. made-est thou look. so end-eth the trick. hey.... yes.... geico. fifteen minutes could save you... well, you know. ♪ legs, for crossing.

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it's the bottom of the hour, time for the top of the news. russian officials arresting five people allegedly belonging to an international terror group who were found in possession of gra kneads, ammunition and a self made explosive device. the arrest are part of a crack down in weeks before the

olympics. and we are now quote in the thick of flu season. that's according to the cdc which says the virus has spread to at lease 35 states. that's up from 25 in the last week. cdc officials saying it's too early to tell if this year's flu season will be worse than normal. and a-rod vowing to fight a new ruling today. alex rodriguez was forced to set out the entire baseball season. the ruling stems from his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs and cuts down his says spengs to 162 games. ariel sharon has died. the former prime minister suffered a stroke l years ago from which he never recovered. he was 85. sharon is regarded as one of israel's most famous generals to

devoted his life to the security and survival of his country. connor powell is live from jerusalem with more. >> reporter: there's no doubt of the power he had here in israel. was beloved, he was hated, he was controversial but he was a real man of consequence here in israel. he was nicknamed the bull doser. sharon was a former special forces commando turned politician, held just about every top political job here in israel. he's considered the last of the great israeli leaders who was willing to take tough decisions. in the height of his power sharon suffered a stroke in 2006 and has been hanging on in a coma for the past eight years. he husband controversial and that's in way of escaping that. his actions helped spark the second palestinian uprising when he entered one of israel's most

sacred places. he later in life did a 180. as prime minister he united the left and moderate right here in israel championing the total disengagement from gaza in 2005. that was a controversial move and still one that's debated here in israel. it sent shock waves through israel have israeli troops pulling israeli settlers out of gaza. sharon concluded that the israeli media, political class and society needed to disengage from the palestinians before the international community forced some type of agreement on israel. he wanted israel to make its own decisions. funeral arpths are up in the air. it appears that they will probably be on monday. right now we're getting word that vice president joe biden will lead the u.s. delegation when the funeral services are set which appear to be on

monday. thank you very much for that report. growing new concerns over the massive security breach at target, the retail giant saying hackers may have stolen the information of as many as 70 million more customers than previous you lis reported, including names, phone numbers and addresses. while these numbers are staggering, attorneys are having a field day falling all over themselves racing to the courthouse filing a variety of claims against target. so will any of these charges stick? let's bring in our legal panel, mercedes colin, david schwartz, defense attorney. david, let me start with you. american banks and retailers are in the stone ages when it comes to credit and debit cards. they use a magnetic strip on the back of the card. in europe they use these little chips which are almost imboss to

believe steal from. is that per se negligence for americans to still be using magnetic strips? >> well i'm not sure it's per se, but certainly it goes towards the proof that they were not acting reasonable here. they didn't take the reasonable steps to protect this private information. and these lawsuits that you spoke about, the lawyers running to the courthouse, that's the great equalizer against a company like this who is acting with negligence. >> well, it could be greedy lawyers who will take a large share of any damages that are awarded. >> could be both, sure. >> let me ask you this question. somebody said to me recently, you know what, can you really blame target for this? what if really skilled thieves back into a bank vault and get away with money. are the banks held liable?

>> whatever europe does, these not the standard in the united states. >> but it's a global economy these days. >> understood. >> the standard is global. >> hopefully they'll have you as a plaintiff and you can hammer that home. they're going to say we've done everything to protect these names. we have the state of the art security intarget because they're such a large employer and sophisticated outfit. the more sophisticated criminal ring, the less likely it will be that farragut will have to pay anything. >> i'm wondering what the damages really are because target indem any fies the card holder as well as the banks and the debit card owners. so what are the damages? >> you have some serious emotional damages. when you private information is stolen, taken from you and you know that controls have that information -- >> what's that worth? >> it may not be worth per

individual. >> and when the lawyer's fees. >> when you're talking about 70 million people -- >> you're talking 110 million now. >> there's no conceivable way that somebody hagd a card is not going to say i can't sleep anymore, i can't eat anymore, they have my address. >> target has gone out of its way to mitigate the damages. they are now offering credit card monitoring and all sorts of other things to help people ensure the security of their credit cards. so again, where are the damages? >> right. another part of the damages that i was going to talk about were the mitigation damages. if target is already covering that, then there may not be any mitigation damages. but the bottom line is the emotional distress. i know you minimize it but the emotional distress involved with

having your private information stolen is tremendous and whatever it is, when you look at it in a macro point of view, target is going to pay the price here. >> certainly but it will be because it's a pr nightmare not necessarily because they truly believe if they push it they will be a defensible case. >> my family loves target. we're still going. m m . >> i just got a delivery from target today. >> had to be shoes. >> no. pant. i move on. the december jobs report showing a new drop in the jobless rate. why that's not a good thing for the economy or the millions looking for a job. al-qaeda links terrorists take control of the country,

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some new unemployment numbers showing job creation is at a crawl. employers add only 74,000 jobs last near. the job rate falling in 7% in december to 6.7% but that's

dropped because many people have stopped looking for work. we're bringing in the managing director. let's start here. we're talking about at least 126,000 fewer jobs added than the economists expected yet the unemployment rate has dropped to 6.7%. break down the numbers for us, todd. >> on the surface the jobs number was dismal. if anything for the millions of job seekers out there, it's demoralizing. when you look at turn employment rate dropping to 6.7%, the reason for that is because we had so many americans that stop looking for work. you're asked a question of whether you found a job, whether you're looking for a job and you had a lot of people out there, up to two million more americans that actually said neither. that's why the unemployment rate dropped. >> was the weather a factor at all? >> not at all.

i think a lot of economist were thinking it might have been colder weather only because we lost 16,000 construction jobs in december. but you have to start thinking, what's going to happen in january. here we had the polar vortex to hit the country. if weather was the deciding factor in december, what that means for january. but realistically, though, this is usually a peak hiring season. >> so let's talk about the impact on the economy going forward. are you thinking this is going to be a robust 2014 or there will be a regression to the days of recession or whether l the economy hover where it currently is or do we have to wait for the jobs report on february 7th? >> if you look at the last ten years, the rolling three-month period from december through february, that is the peak hiring season. that's when companies are going to be hiring or actually limited in their firings and layoffs. realistically if we have january

that's going to have a poor number that only signals a lot of negative things, changes in fiscal policy, monetary policy, how the fed will react then we also have the midterm elections. there's aloft impacts that can happen when you look at that january report and thou that coincided with the december negative number. so it remains to be seen but it's not looking good right now. >> if you would forecast for penl income. so many underemployed out there. do they stand to make more money in 2014? >> well that's the thing because everybody is worried about inflation and we're not quite seeing inflation as far as it pertains to wages. so you don't have a lot of people that are making even more money and they haven't been over the last few years. and if you look at two thirds of all of the jobs that were created last year, they were all the low-income variety jobs, jobs in retail, leisure, hospitality. going forward you still need jobs, created but you need the

high-income jobs and those are nonexistent. how does that bode for incomes this year? probably not well. i think people really need to prepare themselves, especially the ones that do have a job, prepare that your incomes are not going to be rising as much as you wish. >> todd shone burger i will leave it there. thanks a lot for your insight on this sad afternoon. al-qaeda linked militants have taken over several towns in iraq and government troops struggling to recapture the areas. we'll take a look at the growing crisis in iraq coming up next. [ male announcer ] this is the story of the little room over the pizza place on chestnut street the modest first floor bedroom in tallinn, estonia and the southbound bus barreli down i-95. ♪ this magic moment it is the story of where every great idea begins. and of those who believed they had thpower to do more. dell is honored to be part of some of the world's great stories. that began much the same way ours did in a little dorm room -- 2713.

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the pentagon announcing the deployment of a small group of military personnel to somalia. military trappers and advisers have been stationed in mogadishu since last fall. it is the first since 1993 when 18 people were called in the blackhawk down. mark degrees is here with us. it is good to see you. it doesn't mean it will end up

like vietnam. military advisors were sent other places and the vietnam war lately followed. what do you expect given the reticence of this president to deploy any kind of military personnel anywhere? >> greg, we've had military advisers in somalia in 2006 who were assisting ethiopian groups to go after al shabab. and it is known that al shabab is a deadly terrorist organization and a threat to the united states. it is a commitment to continue to fight al qaeda on a global scale. >> it is not just somalia. you have yemen, nigeria, tunisia, are we sending military advisers and more than that to those locations? >> greg, the harsh reality of 2013 was it was a successful

year for two of america's most deadly jihadist enemies, the al qaeda and the iran regime. and in somalia and iraq and around the region, that al qaeda is on the ascend, the iranian regime is emerging across the middle east and syria and elsewhere. this is a long war far from over and there is a serious vacuum in the middle east as american power waypow power paines -- wains. >> do you think there is no strategy in the administration. >> i think they have defined al qaeda as osama bin laden's al qaeda. and it is operating through an affiliate and they are a lethal force and the administration has been unwilling to recognize that

al qaeda has metastasized around the world. let me turn to iraq. failing to reach a status of forces agreement and as a result all american troops were pulled out and the result of that has been as we've seen over the last few weeks, al qaeda has taken over fallujah and ramadi and now they have their eyes set on bagdad. does it appear the hard-won american games in -- hard won gains in iraq have been lost. >> i would say not just fellagea and ramadi and bagdad, they are a close ally of the regime. so hard-fought victories against al qaeda in an attempt to rollback the iranian regime is being surrendered in iraq to a

somali regime with tehran and with al qaeda taken over the sun sunni annbar provinces are increasing. >> if they pull out with any forces left at all, do you think the taliban will take over? >> you know, the death of ariel sharon is a reminder, if you have the will and commitment he did, you can defeat terrorism. he did defeat terrorism in 2002-03 when he went back into the west bank and refused to allow israeli fuel the flag or destroy his society. i think the middle east has judged our will and found it wanting. >> mark, it is good to talk to you. thanks for being with us. >> thank you very much. >> that does it for us.

and a healthy you and carol alt will be with you. >> and who dat. >> who dat? new york are going to beat some saints.

welcome to a healthy you. i'm carol alt. the therapeutic health benefits of saaba -- saunas have been known for centuries and now there are next generation of saunas. infrared. which is better, the traditional or the model. plus we all want to eat better and look younger and look like a million bucks, right? well i have a few body builders stopping by to give you tips to keep in tip top shape and one of them is a mom of two young kids.