what to do about the law or how to fix it or how to alter it, but i hope that others come along to that view as well. avik roy and jonathan cohn. that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" begins now. good evening, chris. thanks, man. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. we have breaking news on the story of malaysian airlines flight 370. although there's been a lot of heated speculation about the fate of that plane and what might have happened to it, there has been very little news since the plane was lost, in the technical sense of the word news, meaning new information about what actually happened. tonight on "nightly news" nbc's brian williams and tom costello reported new information which may not tell where the plane eventually ended up, but it does give us more information than we had before, potentially crucial information about what happened in the cockpit, the sequence of events in the cockpit before the plane vanished. this is new information tonight just reported by nbc news. watch.

>> we get the very latest on the investigation including new details tonight on the crucial turn in the flight from nbc's tom costello in our d.c. newsroom. tom, good evening. >> hi, brian. we knew whoever made the u-turn in the plane did so with the help of the onboard computer. tonight we've learned when the turn was programmed in. at least 12 minutes before the co-pilot calmly said good night to air traffic controllers. that would further indicate the u-turn was planned and executed in the cockpit before the controllers last contact. tonight, nbc news learned flight 370's u-turn manually programmed into the plane's computer from the cockpit was transmitted via the acars data system to the ground at 1:07 a.m. that means the u-turn was premeditated. programmed before acars went down and executed only after the last radio call and after the transponders went dead. if the pilot entered that turn, why?

>> some pilots will program in an alternate flight plan in the event of an emergency. we don't know what the reason was for this particular flight plan, whether to go back to kuala lumpur or take the airplane somewhere away from beijing. >> coming up. >> flight deck flight simulator in anaheim, this retired american captain helped recreate in a 737 what we know. someone turned off the transponder with the flip of a switch. >> you can see i can press the button, acars and that would bring it up. >> they switched off, then disabled the acars data system possibly by pulling the circuit breaker. >> circuit breaker would be on one of these back panels behind the pilots. >> easy steps for a pilot. total time, 20 seconds. then making a u-turn back to kuala lumpur. >> we want to go back to kuala lumpur which is behind us so all i have to do is spin this knob for the heading around and the aircraft will turn around. >> sources tell nbc news whoever turned the plane programmed the flight management system and knew what they were doing.

>> this would be a very elaborate scheme. they would have had very, very extensive training to pull this off. >> again, that is the breaking news tonight from nbc's tom costello and nbc news managing editor, brian williams. this is not speculation on where the plane might have ended up of what in history might be allegorical to the disappearance of this plane. this is concrete new information that nbc news has learned about what actually did happen to this plane before it was lost. again, the key new development here is that when the plane turned west, when that plane flew west, when it flew so dramatically off its initial course, when it took that left turn instead of heading on its initial course toward beijing, number one, that turn was executed by the flight management system which essentially means it was done automated systems. it was programmed to make that turn. that much information we actually knew last night. what's new now is the timing. that programming. that computer instruction to the plane to make that turn away

from beijing, that instruction had already been programmed into the plane's computer before the crew in the cockpit made their last voice contact with air traffic controllers when they said good night. that hard left turn, what was almost a u-turn off the plane's planned course had already been executed as an instruction to the plane while the pilots were still in contact with the ground controllers. yet the pilots said nothing about it to ground control. the reason this timing can be pieced together, the reason we know this timing of events is apparently because there was a burst of electronic data from flight 370 26 minutes after takeoff at 1:07 a.m. that burst of tate to, we're now learning tonight, included information about that turn off course being programmed into the computer. so at 1:07 a.m., we know that that turn was already planned. the last contact from the cockpit, the last voice contact from the cockpit to the ground controllers was 12 minutes after

that point at 1:19. that's when they said good night. that's when they gave no indication they had anything planned other than a flight to beijing. we now know the plane at that point was already programmed to not go to beijing. again, this is new reporting tonight from nbc and as a layman to these matters just trying to stay up on what we know and not what we ought to speculate about, here are my questions. number one, is it empirically possible that the last burst of electronic data from that plane at 1:07, the acars data transmitted from the at 1:07 a.m., does it make sense that transmission would include this kind of information that the plane's computer was programmed to turn in a few minutes off course away from beijing? does it make sense that that satellite transmission, excuse me, that transponder at 1:07 a.m. would include that data about what was about to happen on the plane? number two, is there any way that the pilots might not have known that the plane's computer was programmed to make that turn

at the time that they said good night as if nothing was wrong? is there any way that that programming into the flight management system could have been disguised from the pilots? is there anything they should have checked that they might not have noticed had they looked more closely? and number three, if we understand from that last burst of acars data that the plane was going to travel a new course, that it was going to bank hard to the west and hit a bunch of waypoints along the way that were electronically programmed into that computer on the plane, waypoints nowhere along the route to beijing, well, then, why doesn't that set of information tell us more about where the plane was eventually headed? and ultimately where it ended up? if that last burst of acars data effectively broadcast a damning map that that plane was about to head off course and wildly so, why doesn't it tell us more about where that plane eventually went? these are empirical questions

for which we should hopefully with able to get empirical answers. joining us to help try, greg feith. mr. feith, thank you for being here. >> thank you, rachel. >> i'm obviously a total layman when it comes to these matters. we're all trying to understand these things. does it make sense to you that the last burst of data, at 1:07 a.m., that acars data from the plane, would have included this information about the planned route that the plane was programmed to turn? >> what we don't know, rachel, is the entire route that was planned in there. typically, the flight crew when they're pre-flighting the airplane and loading their original flight plan is, that is their flight from kuala lumpur to beijing, they'll pull up the data on the fms system. they'll program in their route they were cleared for. so they'll go from kuala lumpur airport via a specific airway to beijing. that's their primary flight plan. >> do you program in each waypoint along the way? >> correct.

>> okay. >> so you build this flight plan. once you get to beijing as your final destination point, that will sit in there in the flight management system as the primary flight plan. a lot of pilots will program a secondary or a route 2. some of them will actually mirror their primary and then alter a specific leg on it if they have a problem so that they can go to an alternate airport. or some will just build a return. so you could have a kuala lumpur, go out to a waypoint and return back to kuala lumpur. say you had a fire on an engine after liftoff. you know you're not going to fly around a lot, so pull this secondary or alternate flight plan into the active flight plan, hit execute and the auto pilot takes the beijing flight plan, drives it to a secondary flight plan and it will drive this new one. what we know is somebody executed that secondary flight plan and the airplane then turned left. what we don't know is how they built that route. to either come back to kuala

lumpur or go off into a waypoint out in the indian ocean? >> is it the sort of thing where it will vary from pilot to pilot or maybe from airline to airline in terms of how pilots make decisions about that plan 2 or plan "b?" >> absolutely. absolutely. unless the airline standardizes it and says you will build two flight plans, you'll have your primary and alternate for emergency situations. a lot of conscientious pilots will always have a secondary flight plan. >> is that the sort of information where we -- there might be stored data available either to malaysian airlines or somebody else about whether or not this particular pilot in this particular first officer had a habit or had a pattern of history of programming secondary flight plans like that? >> that's an excellent question because that would be something now that investigators could go back to the airline, talk to other pilots that had flown with each of these pilots to see what their habits were. one of the things we found in silkair was that when captain su decided he was going to do something intentional with the

737 in indonesia -- >> that's the crash i should say where they believe it was essentially pilot suicide. >> correct. >> yeah. >> we started talking to other people to get a character study. is this the way he normally handled himself in the cockpit? did he do these things? we found on the day that he did, he took this airplane down, he was out of character. he didn't do things that he had normally done. and i think that in the investigation of this event, they should be asking those questions. they'll be interviewing other pilots. is this the way the captain programmed the airplane? is this the way he operated? is this the demeanor he had in the cockpit? how about the first officer? was he a dutiful first officer? did he know what he was doing? did he always have, you know, proper procedures? so they're going to do a character study because with this new information, as tom said, this was premeditated. this wasn't something that was done on the fly because the acars basically recorded an artifact that 12 minutes before, at least this flight plan, whatever it was was already in the system. >> to be clear, though, it was premeditated that there would be

this second route, the route that did not go to beijing. it's not necessarily true that is nefarious. it's possible that could have been entered there, as you say, as some sort of emergency response plan "b" for the pilot to activate in the case of some sort of unforeseen fire in the cockpit or something. so we don't know that this means motivation. we just know that it means deliberation. >> correct. somebody would have had to execute to bring that secondary flight plan up as the primary then. >> let me also ask you, we're trying to match deliberation to motivation to the question of who. >> yes. >> is there any way that the information in that system, that waypoint to waypoint to eventual landing point information in that system could somehow be disguised to the pilots that they would not, when they looked at it they would not see what it actually had said, or is it something they could overlook? is it one system among many that pilots don't check as closely as they ought to, or a crucial system where they absolutely know what it says?

>> they absolutely know it. once you program the flight management system, there's an instrument called the primary flight display, pfd. it will have a compass rose, a magenta line. whatever you planned in for your route, it's your gps map. it has a magenta line, airplane symbol. it will show the track you're going to fly. if they begin to fly the track, let's say in this primary was changed to the secondary, unknowingly, as soon as they got to the waypoint where they had their last radio communication, they would have a hook in their flight plan or in this magenta line showing that there's a left turn. that was what happened with cali, colombia, americanairlines in cali years ago, they put in the approach for cali as they were coming in over the mountains. they knew cali was in front of them. they could see the lights. they mistakenly put the wrong identifier in the primary flight display. the magenta line instead of going straight toward cali all

of a sudden made a u-turn and got into a very big discussion about what's it doing, why is it behind us? it should be ahead of us. because they had one identifier on their route wrong. >> this is not a subtle system that there could be an -- >> no, they're going to see it, and with this left turn, it would be presented on their pfd. >> one last question for you, greg. that is, i've been -- i've tried to be very small "c" conservative in terms of figuring out what is real data, what's knowable, and what is speculation. it's hard to keep things straight because a lot of coverage on this is so hysterical. if information from the acars told us what we discussed about the fms, flight management system, if we got that data and it told us that much, is it going to tell us anything else? is there anything else from electronic data from that plane that's likely to give us any further information about what happened, or in your estimation, have we exhausted what we're going to be able to extract from that data? >> i think all of the data that

is possible has been squeezed out. >> okay. >> because as soon as the acars were turned off, the data part. the box, itself, wasn't turned off. that's how we got the ping, six hours of pings. the electronic box was still active. it was just the data downburst. once we lost that, we lost the transponder. the airplane went out of radar coverage and we don't have eyes in sky, the satellite data to track this airplane. now it's anyone's guess and we will not get any more data. if the airplane is found and we have a cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder, it may shed light, but the cockpit voice recorder overwrites itself every two hours. >> every two hours. right. so this may be the end of the road in terms of the data we get until we find that flight. greg feith, former senior investigator with the ntsb, which of course is considered to be the global gold standard agency for investigating events like this. thank you for helping us understand this. >> you're welcome. the intrepid richard engel is right where you might guess he would be. right now richard is in eastern

ukraine where things are taking turn after turn for the more tense. what's happening in russia and crimea and ukraine and with richard engel is coming up live in just a moment. stay with us. [ garner ] there's a lot of beautiful makeup out there, but one is so clever that your skin looks better even after you take it off. neutrogena healthy skin liquid makeup. 98% saw improved skin. does your makeup do that? neutrogena® cosmetics. bob will retire when he's 153, which would be fine if bob were a vampire. but he's not. ♪ he's an architect with two kids and a mortgage. luckily, he found someone who gave him a fresh perspective on his portfolio. and with some planning and effort, hopefully bob can retire at a more appropriate age. it's not rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade.

just for the sake of argument, let's say that texas seceded from the nation. governor perry, take it away. >> when we came into the nation

>> at one point, what is now texas was part of france. at another point in history, it was part of spain. from 1821 to 1836, it was part of mexico. it was mexican texas. texas was then its own country for a little bit less than a decade before texas ultimately became an american state. but, say, just for the sake of argument, that pseudosecessionist texas governor rick perry got his way and texas decided to go back to one particular era of texas' good old days. back to the country it used to be part of right before it became a republic and then an american state. let's say, just for the sake of argument, that texas decided to become part of mexico again. if texas decided to once again become part of mexico, obviously there would be a lot of consequences for texans. they would lose their u.s.

citizenship. they would become mexican citizens. they would, you know, start using pesos instead of dollars and all the rest. it would also have pretty big consequences for what remained for the rest of us in the united states of america. obviously if texas went back to mexico, the usa would shrink, geographically and we would shrink by about 26 million people. also, our ethnic composition as a nation would change. if texas left the country, the united states would lose about 1/5 of our entire national population of latinos. 10 million latinos would no longer be americans if rick perry got his way and the state of texas seceded. and whatever that would mean for texas and for newly enlarge mexico, it would be a really big deal for the rest of the united states, right? i mean, that would have profound implications, for example, on american national politics and the balance of power between the two parties and all the rest of it. today at this speech in the

russian parliament, vladimir putin announced the russian equivalent of mexico taking back texas. he announced that russia is reannexing crimea. reabsorbing into russia a territory that used to be russian before it became part of ukraine 60 years ago this past month. in so doing, russia has obviously grown itself geographically. it's taken something away from ukraine and added that something into its own territory. in so doing, it has also removed from ukraine the most pro-russian part of ukraine. one of the ways that russia has tried to retain a sphere of influence in the world is by propping up and rewarding and favoring pro-russian leaders in countries that are nearby to russia. remember that the protests that lit the fire on this tinderbox, right, those protests that started this international crisis, they were about the president of ukraine, the pro-russian president of

ukraine, this guy, yanukovych, refusing to sign an economic deal that would bring his country closer to the european union. he rejected that deal and said ukraine would take more money from russia and bind itself economically speaking to russia. the outpouring of outrage against that decision in ukraine in the capital city of kiev started in november with that decision about rejecting europe in favor of russia. those protests went on for weeks and then months and then escalated into violence and fire and they sent the pro-russian leader of ukraine fleeing in the night, dumping his files and his receipts and his ammunition and everything else in the mote surrounding his palace, perhaps forgetting that at least some of that stuff might float and the mote's not all that deep and some people in ukraine know how to hold their breath and dive. as despotic and corrupt as that pro-russian leader yanukovych might have been, he was, in

fact, elected democratically in ukraine as recently as the year 2010. and you want to know why that guy was able to win in 2010? he was able to win in 2010 because crimea was part of ukraine during that election. he was the pro-russia candidate and in crimea, that's where ukraine's pro-russia voters live. >> yanukovych won a real election in 2010. he won by half a million votes. he won crimea by a million votes. so yanukovych is president of ukraine because of the votes in crimea. >> well, if what vladimir putin announced today comes to pass, then nobody in crimea is ever going to be voting in another election in ukraine. they're going to be voting for putin for the next 50 years in elections in russia. and while that might be very exciting to russia in the short term, that prospect apparently

brought people to tears in putin's hours-long speech in the parliament today. he received dozens of standing ovations. thunderous applause as he talked about taking crimea back for russia. and that might be very exciting in the short term, but what that ensures in real political terms, what putin just did today, is guarantee that russia's neighbor to the west, the large and influential nation of ukraine, will never again have a pro-russian leader. and that's not only because russia just marched across the border and took part of ukraine, took part of them as a nation, which has a way of not making friends with your neighbors, but it's also because of ukraine's new shape. with crimea missing, ukraine has much less of a pro-russian population than it used to have. russia will never again enjoy having some pro-russia kleptocrat like viktor yanukovych. they'll never again have anybody else pro-russian running that country next door.

does that mean the brakes are now off, in terms of what's left of ukraine formally allying itself with europe against russia? that agreement with europe, that agreement that yanukovych said no to in november which started this whole fight, there's now reporting today the new government of ukraine is going to sign a precursor to that deal, now going to sign the deal with the european union as quickly as friday. it will be a precursor to the full-scale economic deal between ukraine and europe that the pro-russian guys said no to. why would they say no to that now? they're not pro-russia anymore. this won't be a military arrangement between ukraine and europe. this is not the same as them joining nato, for example. but economic issues and military issues never stay strangers for very long. and military issues all of a sudden today became very important as to what's about to happen next here. in his speech, in this hour-long

emotional chest-pounding speech before the russian parliament today, vladimir putin talked about the fact russia had been able to take over crimea without bloodshed. he crowed about how russia had been able to do that, "without one single shot being fired." russia said that this morning about not one single shot being fired and then this afternoon, shots were fired. the ukrainian military announcing today, "russian military representatives started shooting at ukrainian military servicemen. ukrainian military said one ukrainian soldier, a lieutenant, was killed in crimea when his base was stormed by military forces that seemed to have been russian even though they did not explicitly identify themselves that way. according to the ukrainian military statement, "the attackers were dressed in military uniforms of the armed forces of the russian federation but without insignia. they were armed with automatic weapons and sniper rifles." there have been some deaths associated with protests in and

around what russia is doing to ukraine in crimea. today would seem to be the first day of this crisis as a military conflict. the ukrainian prime minister announced today, "the conflict is shifting from a political to a military stage. he said russian soldiers have started shooting at ukrainian military servicemen, and that is a war crime." ukraine followed that announcement by the prime minister by issuing orders permitting ukrainian soldiers to start using their weapons. "in connection with the death of a ukrainian serviceman, ukrainian troops in crimea have been allowed to use weapons to defend and protect the lives of ukrainian servicemen." so far, everything that's happened has happened without ukraine firing back. that's why you keep hearing diplomats from around the world and politicians from around the world praising the restraint of the ukrainian government for not shooting back, not giving vladimir putin the military provocation and excuse he wants and needs in order to unleash a full-scale shooting war military assault on ukraine.

but the ukrainians, though, now saying their soldiers can start firing their weapons is that restrained phase of this conflict coming to an end? does what happened today make it more likely vladimir putin is going to push further, beyond crimea, into eastern ukraine, into what was looking like a wider war? john kerry was asked about that prospect today. he said, "that would be as egregious as any step that i can think of that could be taken by a country in today's world." that is the kind of language that you don't necessarily expect from somebody whose job is being a diplomat. "as egregious as any step that i con think of that could be taken by a country in today's world." unsettled. what is to stop vladimir putin from doing it, though? is that what's about to happen next? now that putin is calling crimea essentially a done deal, says it's part of russia, redraw the map. is he going to stop there? is eastern ukraine next? joining us live from eastern

ukraine is nbc's richard engel. that's next. stay with us.

what is the administration prepared to do if russia invades east ukraine? >> well, you know, we made it very clear that that's a hard line. i'm not going to go into the details except to say that that would be as egregious as any

step that i can think of that could be taken by a country in today's world, particularly by a country like russia where so much is at stake. now, i hope that's not going to be the case. >> secretary of state john kerry today saying that a russian invasion of eastern ukraine beyond what they've already done in crimea would be as egregious as any step that i can think of that could be taken by a country in today's world. joining us now from eastern ukraine is nbc news chief correspondent richard engel. richard, thank you very much for being with us here, particularly in the middle of the night out there. really appreciate it, man. >> reporter: not a problem. we were just in crimea, and we left there to come to east ukraine to see if the story is shifting here. there have been protests here over the last several days where people are also asking for a referendum to join us with russia. this is not quite as pro-russia as crimea, but it's quite pro-russia.

>> is there any reason to believe that, i guess any reason to guess either way or to understand either way whether or not putin is likely to stop at the border of crimea, whether he is likely to push further into ukraine? >> reporter: it depends how he's going to push any further. and i think, it would be silly to assume that this is over, that putin is going to be somehow satiated with having taken over crimea and that he's going to forget about the rest of ukraine. for russia, for putin, this is all about ukraine. there was a change of government in kiev. russia does not want a hostile nato-friendly country right on its border. but does that mean that russia will be sending tanks over the border to liberate, in its understanding, this part of the country? or will there be cyber attacks? will there be sabotage? will there be attempts to look for provocations that would force russia to have no alternative but to come to the

defense of certain pockets of russian-speaking areas? so i think there's a lot of ways that this could go, but i definitely do not think that russia is just going to take crimea and then forget about the rest of ukraine. >> on that issue of provocations, we've talked about this before, richard, and today there were shots fired in crimea. ukraine is saying one of its ukrainian service members was killed by russian troops at a base in ukraine. is that a potential turning point? obviously it could just be an isolated incident, but do you think that's important in the larger sense? >> reporter: it appears it may have been an isolated incident, and that is a very vague language because this actual incident is still quite vague. we're not entirely sure who fired these shots. there's a situation where you have several hundred ukrainian troops who are still on their bases, and they are effectively

prisoners on these bases. they're watched 24 hours a day. they've been, a lot of them, disarmed, and there was an incident today, a violent clash in which some masked gunmen went on to the base and three people were shot, one of them was killed. and they were shot by people who were wearing uniforms and a mask. we don't know, and i was just in crimea. you don't know exactly who people are. are these crimeans with russian nationality? because some crimeans already had russian nationality. are they russians who are living in crimea? are they russian soldiers who newly arrived? were they russians who were there before on their bases? we don't exactly know. the ukrainian government certainly took this as an enormous provocation and said that its soldiers now have the right to defend themselves. but they are vastly outnumbered. if they try and fight their way out of it, we're talking about a

few hundred people backed up by a few thousand more who have mostly gone home or given up their weapons. then you could have a, you know, a real massacre of the remaining ukrainian forces. that's a potential provocation, but there are many provocations. you could have -- there were clashes in this city. i'm in donetsk. a few days ago between pro-russian civilians, anti-russian, pro-kiev civilians, militias that are post both on the streets. you could have a variety of provocations, not just those few hundred troops that are holding out, that are almost like hostages on their bases in ukraine. although that certainly is a flashpoint. >> yeah, the prospect, imagining, like, if you had a family member in crimea who was a ukrainian soldier who was still there, i can imagine how freaking stressful and upsetting that must be to imagine the way they're getting out of there if at all. >> reporter: their parents sometimes will come to the gates and bring them food and ask how they are. so these are the people who won't give up. they refuse to change their

sides. and there is agreements under way to try to get some safe passage for them out of the territory, but some of them don't want to leave. they believe that their land has been stolen from them. >> if you're looking for a next flashpoint, that's a very, very good candidate. nbc news chief foreign correspondent, richard engel. grateful for you staying up until the deathly hours of the morning for us. thanks for being here, my friend. >> reporter: absolutely. there continues to be some interesting questions about american diplomatic power in countries where we have a lot of influence with our money but not a lot of influence in other ways. a weird experiment in american diplomacy involving money and science is coming up right at the end of tonight's show. stay with us. [ female announcer ] what's a powerful way to cut through everyday greasy messes?

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little bit outside the scope of national attention, there's been quite a bit of civil disobedience in the great state of georgia this year. not georgia the nation as in russia, but georgia the state as in right here. folks have been protesting a lot of different state law making in georgia, laws about gun control and about public education, among other things. people have been getting arrested in georgia. but the civil disobedience that

went on today in georgia's state capitol was a little bit different. a little different because of the subject of the protest, the size and the drama of the protest and also because of who exactly got hauled off in handcuffs. really dramatic footage out of georgia. coming right up. stay with us. what if a photo were more than a memory?

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the ebenezer baptist church is the church in atlanta where the father of martin luther king jr. was the pastor. the church where martin jr. was baptized as a child and he himself as one point became co-pastor of ebenezer baptist church with his father. after martin luther king jr. was assassinated in 1968, his widow requested his record recording of the final sermon at ebenezer baptist church be played at his funeral. ebenezer baptist church still stands now as the martin luther king jr. historic site which includes his boyhood home and grave site. in the sweet auburn district of atlanta which is east of downtown. the first time i ever drove across country when i was a teenager, i remember going there to see the grave site of dr. king and i remember looking in on the church and not knowing until i saw it that the church was still an active church, that it still has a congregation, that it's still there. i don't know what your job is, but it is hard to imagine a more humbling job in the world than

being the pastor of the church where dr. martin luther king jr. was pastor, right, and his father before him. there is a man who has that job now. his name is dr. raphael g. warnock. today he was arrested at the georgia state capitol. this is a report from local channel 46 in atlanta. >> inside the senate chambers and outside the doors, dozens of people erupted in cheers, chants and sat down on the floor. some were arrested this morning and even more late this afternoon during coordinated protests. the man in the middle of this crowd getting arrested is the reverend for ebenezer baptist church, reverend raphael warnock. >> so we made this statement. we've come to his office because in a real sense, we feel this is more serious than simply refusing to accept the expansion. >> warnock made statements to

the media about why georgia needs to expand medicaid. he says its 600,000 georgians are not covered by the affordable care act and aren't poor enough to receive medicaid in the state. >> the pastor of ebenezer baptist church in atlanta today was 1 of roughly 40 people, 40 people arrested at the georgia state capitol. it didn't just happen all at once, like a lot of big protests do. people were arrested in the morning, at the senate chambers as you see here. then more people were arrested in the early afternoon. then more people were arrested thereafter. it went on all day today at the georgia state capitol. lot of the protesters were elderly people. you know, the moral mondays protests that have happened for almost a year now in north carolina? well, moral mondays are not just for north carolina anymore. as of today, they're not just for mondays anymore. we reported a couple weeks ago on the proposal by georgia's republican governor nathan deal that congress, he says, should overturn a law signed by ronald reagan that says if someone turns up at an emergency room in an american hospital and in need of emergency medical treatment,

the hospital must treat that person. if you can manage to get yourself to the hospital in the middle of your heart attack or in the middle of giving birth, the hospital cannot by law turn you away and not treat you. they have to treat you now, stabilize you medically and figure out how to pay for it thereafter. that's law. a few weeks ago, nathan deal said that law should be overturned, reagan was wrong, hospitals should be able to turn you away if you show up at their door and you need treatment. you've heard of the good samaritan in the bible. nathan deal is proposing kind of a bad samaritan change in the law. the reason he's doing it is because georgia rural hospitals keep closing. a ton of them. to the point where some advocates in the state of georgia are saying that state could soon be at risk of having third-world levels of health care availability in the state's rural counties. a big part of the problem is that people on the poorer end of the economic spectrum in rural georgia just don't tend to have health insurance. the state has a really high rate of uninsured kids in particular.

if the good samaritan ronald reagan law says hospitals have to provide care even if you don't have insurance, well, surprising care to uninsured people who don't have money to pay the bills is not a sustainable plan for most hospitals. luckily the state of georgia has just been offered a way to get health insurance to 600,000 georgia residents who right now don't have it. pay all the costs for that for the first three years. after the first three year, the federal government would cover at minimum 90% of those costs. but nathan deal says he won't do it. republicans in the georgia legislature today took up a bill to essentially affirm that they don't want to do it either. that those 600,000 georgians should not get coverage. and to today, the moral mondays

protests that started in north carolina and have spilled over into neighboring states, today they not only spilled over into georgia, but moral mondays spilled into moral tuesday. and the pastor of the ebenezer baptist church today was one of the people taken away in handcuffs, in protests they say will continue. we'll be right back. the secret is out. hydration is in. [ female announcer ] only aveeno daily moisturizing lotion has an active naturals oat formula that creates a moisture reserve so skin can replenish itself. aveeno® naturally beautiful results.

they said gays are born that

i'll just press this, and you'll save on both. ding! ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, llllet's get ready to bundlllllle... [ holding final syllable ] oh, yeah, sorry! let's get ready to bundle and save. now, that's progressive. oh, i think i broke my spleen! home insurance provided and serviced by third party insurers. they said gays are born that way and it has been proved. it's been proven that they're born that way. that is a lie. that's what's called a lie. it is not true. >> it has been five years since anti-gay activists from the united states made a trip to uganda. five years since we learned that america's far right anti-gay bizzaro world had turned into an export operation.

three american evangelicals traveled to u gan da to an anti-gay conference in that country in the year 2009. while they were there, they spoke to a group that reportedly included uganda legislators. the anti-gay activists urged ugandas they should have zero tolerance for homosexuality and gay people. the americans told them that gay people are dangerous, but there's no need to respect the rights of gay people because frankly, no one has to be gay. gay people can become straight people if they want to, because there's a cure for homosexuality. it's gay people's choice whether or not they want to avail themselves of that cure. so if they don't, you really can blame them for being gay because they could be straight if they wanted to be straight. the americans explained to the ugandans if you gave gay people an inch, they will take a mile. they're out to get you, you have to stop them. those american anti-gay activists presenting themselves as experts on sexual orientation.

they said they spoke on the basis of reason and the latest american science. and their american activism exported to uganda worked. legislators in that country, including some who reportedly attended the anti-gay conference with these experts blown in from america, legislators, began pushing for new and extreme punishments for being gay in their country. the first version of their bill established death by hanging as the sentence for the new crime of homosexuality. the americans who had exported their pseudoscience to uganda which resulted in that bill said they were shocked by the drastic nature of the legislation, the kill gays bill. the american activists tried to distance themselves from what they had rocked but the ugandans said the american activists had in fact inspired the law. the kill the gays bill eventually died after a wave of condemnation. that was 2009. but last month, a new it ration of that bill came back.

and uganda's president, somewhat unexpectedly signed into law the new version of the bill, the revised bill doesn't include the sentence of death for being gay, but you can still get life imprisonment. you can also get seven year in prison for attempting homosexuality. the ugandan brought up, unprompted the same kind of bonkers for science nonsense those americans activists had exported to that country back in 2009.

>> finished. the ugandan president said he was done, he wouldn't reconsider his position and signed it. american officials including both secretary of state john kerry and his predecessor, hillary clinton and president obama himself have all been outspoken. after the president signed the anti-gay law, president obama said the u.s. would review aid money and our whole relationship with uganda. we don't yet know what that review is going to mean, but businessfeed has a scoop today about something else the u.s. government is apparently now doing to try to turn this thing around. secretary of state john kerry now says the u.s. has a new plan to send actual scientists to uganda so they basically can explain the gay. to try to undo some of the nonsense quackery that was passed off to these folks. speaking in a forum hosted by buzzfeed, secretary kerry said i talked personally to the president and he committed to meet to some of our experts so we could engage him in a

dialogue as to why what he did could not be based on any science or fact which is what he was aejing. he welcomed that and said happy to receive them, the scientists, and said we can engage in that kind of conversation. maybe we can reach a point of consideration. after american anti-guy evangelical activists exported their views to uganda in 2009, holding them out as the latest in american science on this issue, how god can make you straight, can the u.s. government undo that damage now by exports actual scientists to try to clean up the mess those other americans left behind. our government is apparently about to embark on a rather fascinating experiment in real science and real diplomacy in a faraway country that a number of americans had a real hand in really, really screwing up. the issue on what the united states government can do to try to undo some of the damage that americans did in uganda has been

a very open question. i don't know exactly who secretary kerry is planning on sending over there, who the scientists are going to be who go over there and how they're going to be received in uganda, but this is a new one in the annals of the diplomacy. good wednesday morning. right now on "first look," new direction. development and flesh clues overnight in the search for flight 370. redrawing borders. vladimir put continues reignites the cold war. death defying. police officers narrowly missed by a pick up. plus, two big winners in the mega millions jackpot. the 15 highest paying companies in america and honoring the best of america. good morning and thanks for joining us. i'm betty nguyen. there's evidence malaysia flight 370's u-turn was premeditated it was programmed before the system went down.