coming up on our t.v. breaking news on the kelly thomas case in california the verdict is in for the two police officers accused of tasing and beating a homeless man to death that's coming up straight ahead. for the fans that straight day of thousands of residents in west virginia are banned from drinking the water state officials are still testing water for toxicity while the investigation into the spill eats up we'll have a report from west virginia. and up leg of the piglets virus is killing baby pigs across the country so is pork same for your dinner table find out later in the show.

it's monday january thirteenth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall if you're watching our team america. we'll begin where the breaking news out of california on a case we've been keeping a close eye on an orange county jury has found two fullerton police officers not guilty of killing kelly thomas a schizo frantic homeless man in two thousand and eleven the incident was captured on surveillance video. was here you can see and hear kelly's screaming in pain and pleading for officers to stop as he's being tate's this photograph shows what kelly looked like after the beating five days after the incident he died these are

the two police officers charged in this case coming up manwell ramos and jason ellie were charged with beating kelly with a baton and tasing him unconscious ramos was charged with second degree murder both officers were charged with in voluntary manslaughter for the latest on this case artie's ramon glendower joins us now. so what led to the jury to find these two officers not guilty. well it took less than two days of deliberations for the men and four women of the jury to acquit manuel rameau's agent and jason cinelli of the killing of kelly thomas according to the prosecutor after the verdicts were read tony rackauckas he said that the jurors. decided that the conduct of ramos and since nellie didn't amount to being unreasonable enough to be in

a violation of the law and now all along the defense argued that the officers acted as if they were trying to do and obviously the jury sided with the defense here yeah that's what that looks like that's exactly what happened i know that kelly thomas' parents have been at the forefront of this case what is their reaction right well when the verdicts were being read according to everyone in the courtroom kelly's mother kathy thomas just started breaking down and sobbing afterwards she went on and told the media that her that her son was murdered and that there was no justice in this case ron thomas the father of kelly thomas also very angry he came out and gave this quote to the press where do we really find justice anymore in our justice system has been proven right here today that they will get away with it they will get away with it now he hopes that the department of justice steps in and

goes after these former police officers but for the time being the district attorney there in orange county doesn't see that happening do you see a civil case happening ramona's is there talk about that. right well ron thomas has filed a civil suit against the police department in the city of fullerton he said that he does plan to move forward with that civil suit the city has already settled with kelly thomas' mother for a million dollars however ron thomas is moving forward with a separate suit himself now this trial ramon has had a huge effect on this california town can you tell us some of the consequences of kelly thomas is jack and the. right for well well for a week there were protests outside of the fullerton police department for several weeks concerned residents were coming to city council meetings just angry and yelling at the city council eventually recalling three of their council members

there's a and the police chief there for ten at the time of the beating ended up retiring early there was so much backlash and anger in the community about how this beating was treated in in there was this this image that the city and the police chief were projecting these officers now a guilty verdict would have been unprecedented never would have never has a police officer been convicted of murder while on d.n.a. and that's still the case and it's very rare for that to happen to a police officer in these cases of a very strong force and a third officer i understand is awaiting trial trial for his involvement and this case what's the latest on that. doesn't this a verdict have on that case well this verdict is huge when it comes to the case of joe wolfe who was scheduled to be tried separately this year now that cincinnati and ramos have been found guilty district attorney tony rackauckas says that he's

not going to retry these officers and he says that there's really no need to try surge or war because he fears that he's going to get the same result an acquittal to merely interesting ramon appreciate you for staying on top of this case that was our tease for mundelein down. now we go to west virginia where hundreds of thousands of people are living without water water is trickling back for some residents but most are still going without it water restrictions went into effect thursday and nine counties in west virginia when it was discovered seventy five hundred gallons of a toxic chemical leaked out of a storage tank and into the elk river fourteen people have been hospitalized of the three hundred thousand residents living under the water ban about ten thousand today we're told it's ok to turn the tap back on the rest are told not to drink

bathe or cook with the water at this point there are many unknowns it's unclear how many are harmed when it exactly happened and when the water will be safe again our to correspondent megan lopez has more on the public health disaster from charleston hope hope hope was always a big. reveal i was just walking my dog over there and i saw they got me water like i was walking by so kind of rushed there this is not how ben cook was planning to spend his day so how even a couple days it's going to like kroger and other stuff and every time i get there i just miss it but then the along with three hundred thousand residents of charleston west virginia is no scrambling to get his hands on one of the most basic elements of life a chemical spill from a local company forced gov all ray tomblin to make an unprecedented decision to go use it in the water with the exception of using

a good solution. no local authorities are teaming up with fema the department of homeland security and the national guard to get this crisis under control. pallets of water are coming in by the truckload more by the fire garages normally used to how's this. ations trucks have turned into distribution drive through everything. outside a line of cars as far as the eye can see i don't have a coup bar of the first day and i got meant that the taliban those who can't drive walk to the station everyone just trying to get their hands on a case of water it's not stopping every time we bring a truckie and it's pretty much gone just as quick as we can get cars through there and they're still coming within minutes of arriving i mean you guys. are the more you run for your life that's the last one hundred. were out there for.

the water has completely vanished fire station two closes its garage door and waits for the next shipment to arrive we got here maybe about twenty minutes ago kind of cut in as was coming out of the parking lot right here because i think they're backed up all the way down washington street i mean it's to score angry residents want to know how this happened there's nothing nothing no plans no preparation whatsoever to deal with this type of an emergency except for people to come begging for water. hopefully keeping their family alive the culprit that stopped the water flow in nine counties is a company few residents have ever heard of before i am a ground zero of the chemical spill here in charleston west virginia right in front of freedom industries now freedom industries is a company that produces chemical material for the cement steel and mining industries what you see behind me on massive storage tanks each of them can hold

thirty five thousand gallons of the chemical that they are producing here right beyond those storage tanks is the elk river or one of those stores tanks or at least chemicals into the river that was taken downstream to a local water treatment facility freedom industries didn't report the leak until thursday morning when residents complained of a strong licorice smell in the air that odor was seventy five hundred gallons of a chemical known as for meth the psycho hexane methanol or him c h m for short it's a foaming agent used to clean coal before it goes to the market before the spill little was known about the effects of him c.h.m. and there was no way to test for it in the air or water nor its effects on humans now investigators are continually testing the water waiting for the m.c.h. in levels to get down below the e.p.a.'s recommended one part per million before they flush the system and give residents the all clear at this point there are more

questions than answers like who decided to build a chemical plant upstream from a water treatment facility and would never have thought this not in this day and age not in this day and age especially without modern technology. but for now residents of the sleepy southern city are still hunting for water and hoping that this crisis will be resolved soon i think everybody is angry. i'm tired in charleston west virginia meghan lopez r t. well some signs of hope for the crisis in syria u.s. secretary of state john kerry is in paris meeting with his russian counterpart sergey lavrov the diplomatic leaders discuss the possibility of negotiating a cease fire and a three year long syrian civil war are to correspondent. has more one of the first things that we've heard from u.s. secretary of state is that russia the u.s. and the u.n.

are completely on the same page that the only solution of the conflict in syria is a diplomatic one mr kerry also said that both the soon enough and the opposition are equally responsible for the atrocities committed there now we've also seen a slight shift on iran since a lot of barbara he made u.n. special envoy on syria and syria loughborough off they both were saying that they want to see iran taken part in the geneva two conference this is a key player in the region this was something that the u.s. has previously against but now according to u.s. secretary of state washington wouldn't mind seeing tehran there at geneva two if it supports the agreements reached earlier at the geneva one now mr also said that the authorities in syria have now confirmed that they are going to take part in the conference although one of the sticking points right now is that it's really unknown whether or not the opposition is planning to do the same although we are

possibly witnessing now positive tendencies somewhat of a positive tendency when it comes to the relationship between the opportunities there and the rebel since we've heard today about possible exchanges of prisoners and allowing humanitarian aid to get in but according to sergei lavrov right now regarding humanitarian aid the rebels are the key obstacles that's why moscow doesn't want to see the terror threat come on the key issues to be discussed to be on the table there at geneva two now today we've heard nothing about cold. for president assad having to step down which is different from sunday since yesterday the french prime minister when he met with the syrian opposition he did make these calls for the syrian president to step down which shows that right now even though the key players now working on organizing this conference they are completely on the same page when it comes to lots of key issues some countries in the west are sending mixed signals which could theoretically undermine the success of the

conference that was our tease igor piskun knob. is our very own abby martin host of our team is breaking the set until recently she had her own with opinion and trade not uncommon for media personalities in addition to hosting a show that aims to shine a light on people and issues not covered in the mainstream media she is an artist and activist but apparently wicca pedia doesn't think she should have her own blurb on the site the so-called superadded hers at the online encyclopedia have taken her page down what's up with this idea martin herself joined us earlier to weigh at. ok so so last year my dad actually notified me when you're on wikipedia and i was like hey that's pretty cool and and then i noticed that a couple months later it was removed and i thought whatever i don't really care if i'm on wikipedia or not or why i was removed and then it happened again or another

user had submitted a whole extensive piece about me heavily cited and then i was just notified last night that it was actually deleted as a well from an article in dissent in democrat called at the martin banned from wikipedia and so i just kind of was like ok this is all very very strange i mean why was i taken so i kind of looked into it and found out a lot of really interesting things about wikipedia the editing process well let's hear about it yeah so it's the six most visited web site in the world of basically dominates all google searches i mean i was even trying to dig up dirt on my computer and all i could do it was just defaulting back to work it was like ok it's just getting a little bit crazy three billion page views unique just on mobile devices just to show you how many people go to this website purely for information this is the second time this is happen and so you know we're talking about defunct publications de actresses. every who's who has a page or make a pedia that somehow absolutely every reality star every porn star every viewer

named are turning tricks on camera you can stuff a lot because. there's that sort of sense of page so what i found out i found the deletion thread of the editors actually saying why they were taking this action and you can kind of trace it back to these cache articles of what they did and these two editors had voted for deletion and who knows how many other people but they basically said i wasn't a notable enough figure verified by enough third party sources to allow me to have a worthy space on wikipedia and what's interesting is because what they deem notable as i just said is third party sources that are verifying information about you dozens of articles. spiegel max kaiser alger my energy. rogan stuart wilde global post firedoglake those are just to name a few of all the websites that i've written about breaking the set about the show breaking this that doesn't have a page either i mean this is broadcast to millions people around the world i think that we. brings up this question of editorializing because i think you think of

wake up eating you said you know everybody it's everywhere you. see something and wonder about it and you'll just kind of check out that would find as a basic information and it's supposed to be very basic fact based not editorialize but i guess it calls into question is there editorializing when it comes to you know deciding who deserves a page and who does it yeah and here's where it gets interesting because you know i don't think this is necessarily people saying i'm going to censor abbey margaret i don't like her views who knows the problem is that unlike encyclopedias that you would get in a library you know in book form would be acts as a kind of a living in the cycle can be a work anyone can edit create content vote to delete content and unverifiable information incorrect information could stay up there for weeks if not months in fact i've seen it happen it runs just like a democracy does which has a lot of ups and downs it's basically mob rule majority rules so if the majority of

wikipedia. admins or editors deem it so then it's so what's interesting and just to give you one one example of how the editing process can be influenced by money in two thousand and ten talked about this yes or council settlements in israel embarking on a wicked pedia battle to kind of implement zionist historical revisionism online they offered a prize so in israel's image could be both sort of broad and they were training people telling them how to be wicked pedia admins and kind of doing these huge courses on how to edit to make israel light on these sites in different instances of when you know quite a lot of drugs as you mentioned earlier if you google something because you will be one of the first things that come comes up so that all of the. really shift people you know especially in politics sarah pailin when people really careers sure they did a google search and all of a sudden she had this extensive wikipedia page. we've got to get you back on there we got you here i. think you should be back on which there would be

a really interesting though i had no idea. information on wikipedia and how it operates appreciate you can hear the story that was our very own abby martin host of breaking the set. well for all you bacon lovers this should make you think twice before picking out a virus that kills baby pigs is spreading throughout the country the u.s. department of agriculture says california and wyoming are the latest states to report having pigs infected with poor sign epidemic diarrhea brings the total to twenty two states where pig farms have the virus the first case in the u.s. was reported back in april and since then thousands of piglets have died symptoms in six swines include diarrhea vomiting and severe dehydration. like you for humans the virus does not make people sick only baby pigs but the bug is causing poor prices to soar and is sparking fears of

a pork shortage for more on the deadly pig virus i was joined earlier by dr michael greger director of public health and animal agriculture at the humane society he's started by reiterating that the virus is not dangerous to humans. although the virus is found in pig feces and there's widespread fecal contamination of the u.s. pork supply it is not known to cause sickness in animals but the same factory farming practices that led to the emergence and spread of this dangerous virus for pigs is also the same risky practices that have led to pathogens that can kill people thousands of people like swine flu right now we're neck deep in flu season and the virus that's killing and infecting most americans now the flu virus is still h one n one this swine flu virus that emerged in two thousand and nine killed over ten thousand americans infected sixteen million americans and that virus defended really tied to factory farming practices the same practices that have now

led to this diarrhea virus can you talk more about these risky practice said how the virus and it's transmitted and why in this case only baby pigs are affected so that's the reason that these so-called factory farms are really breeding grounds for diseases because the sheer numbers of animals that overcrowding the stress of confinement the lack of adequate ventilation no fresh air or sunlight put all these factors together you really have kind of a perfect storm environment for the emergence and spread of new bacteria and viruses and that's why the american public health association has called for a moratorium on these factory farming practices because of the public health implications of how we now raise pigs i have never seen anything like this quite like this before we had not this particular virus it's new to us as of last year but there have been a number of other similar viruses that are spread and if you imagine if you have you know overcrowded tens of thousands of pigs in these filthy football field size sheds to lie snout to snout a top their own ways you can see how it's just kind of

a viral incubated for these kind of diseases who you put a thousand people in the elevator someone sneezes you know a lot of people are going to get sick and that's the problem with packing so many animals together and so we really need to heed the public health communities call to get rid of these kind of risky parts for piggies there what is. what do you think what effect this just gonna keep spreading with it in twenty three states now spreading i mean you know boy these pigs are you know born in north carolina fat in the fields of i often slaughtered in california we you know our meat can travel a thousand miles on the whole before rise that our plates they trade these pigs like trading cards all across the country you cannot stop this virus once it spread and it really just highlights how poor the biosecurity is in these kind of facilities that you can keep this virus out and i'm fortunate the concern is you're not going to be able to keep viruses out that have human health implications as well now i want to switch gears a little bit to the economic implications of what is this doing to the hog industry and how is it affecting the prices that prices there certainly concern that there's

going to be an increase in pork prices but you know in some ways that could be a signal to the industry of all the industry cares about is the bottom line i mean if the implications for people in terms of food safety are going to do it well then maybe you know they hit in the pocketbook is going to have the industry rethink some of these practices and really move we have good data showing that this forcing epidemic diarrhea virus is much higher risk in these industrial large factory farms compared to smaller farms actually live pigs move around and allowed outside and so maybe you know and now the economic calculus for these the reason that they pack up all in is because you know per price per price per pig when you pack a man like kind of parked cars you can reduce the per pound cost of production but when there's these other cost that can't be externalized on to society then maybe the industry will think about changing their practices all right well now that we notice and we know that that what can we as consumers do to help we can really exercise our consumer purchasing power and demand for example crates report there's

been a big movement large supermarket chains restaurants demanding that the pork industry at least not keep these mother pigs crammed in these little metal cages barely larger than the body for the can even turn around. their whole lives and their kind of stroke can lead to the ferment of their immune system that can increase the risk of diseases that can have human health implications well a good time to be a vegetarian i appreciate you coming on the show that was dr michael gregor public health at animal agriculture be humane society. well president obama obama just sent a list of potential u.s. ambassadors to congress for approval but how exactly are these suitors chosen tonight's resident takes a look at the list of candidates and explores how heavily money plays into the equation take a look. president

obama just sent a list of nominations for ambassador positions to congress for approval and it's nothing short of perfectly a barrack and because all five most likely got on that list of potential ambassadors by donating huge sums of money to obama or other democrats campaigning at birth and what is more american than getting whatever you want as long as you're rich here are the potential investors first there's colleen bell a soap opera producer who donated almost three hundred thousand dollars to obama her husband donated had to leave too and they held a fundraiser for him in the glamour of hollywood home she wants to represent

america in hungary a soap opera producer i think that's accurate representation for this country next there's rob barber an attorney who donated more than eighty thousand dollars he also held a fundraiser for democratic senator elizabeth warren a lawyer definitely represents america he wants to post in iceland then there's timothy bro it he donated over one hundred eighty thousand dollars and there's another lawyer this guy is having a second go at trying to be the ambassador to the netherlands he opted out of this first try in two thousand and twelve after being arrested for drunk driving oh yeah irresponsible driving that's a perfect representation for it next we have the white bush who is an investment banker because no american west would be complete without one of those he's up for ambassador in morocco after donated more than. hundred forty thousand dollars almost exclusively to democrats lastly we have mark gilbert he's probably the most

qualified to represent america out of the list because he's a former baseball player turned investment banker he's donated over four hundred thousand dollars to democrat and x. ball player who's now a banker he's as american as apple pie or you know thrown. all kidding aside it's pretty disgusting that you can basically buy a job where you are supposed to represent a country abroad you might imagine those jobs would go to individuals who have proven qualifications other than just being rich but you'd be wrong i guess with video as you can pretty much get anything you want in america if you're rich except for any respect from me tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the resident.

and before we go don't forget to tune in for an encore presentation of quality king with larry king tonight's episode features an investigative journalist bob woodward where he talks with larry about the effects of nine eleven on d.c. politics the edward snowden leaks and much more here's a snippet of what's to come. dick cheney told us that he thinks that was snowden did. was treason once an enemy of the united states to reveal that when you think you know i wish he'd come to me instead of others particularly the guardian and i would have said to him let's not reveal who you are let's make you a protected source and give me time with his dad and let's sort it out and present it in a coherent way i think people are confused about whether it's illegal whether it's banned whether it's bad policy. so what he did in it it's pretty

clear he's held some things back and he is said he didn't want to do anything that he deemed harmful now you know clearly broke the law like daniel ellsberg and the pentagon papers broke the law and. we're going to see i wouldn't i certainly wouldn't call him a hero ellsberg is now generally in the heroic and disney years because what the pentagon papers showed is massive deception and concealment a rat's nest of lies about the vietnam war. that's going to do for now but from our the stories we cover check out our you tube channel that. com slash r.t. america you can also check out our website our com slash usa and you can also follow on twitter as well as walter now have

a great night. millions around the globe struggle with hunger each good. what if someone offers a lifetime food supply no charge. they can they're very strong against g.m.o. and we think that's. the genetic anymore the right products are pretty. out there is no. evidence to this any problem with genetic engineering when you make a deal. or is free cheese always in a mouse trap i don't believe that. three. is profit.