coming up on r t the sochi winter olympics heat up as teams from around the world compete already a few select hundred stand at the top with medal wins but it's far from final the latest on the olympic games just ahead. and since news broke about the death of actor philip seymour hoffman the danger of heroin is back in the news and a large portion of those drugs in the u.s. comes from countries like afghanistan and mexico a look a look at heroin in the u.s. coming up. and for decades u.s. marines and their families were exposed to toxic water at their military base in studio two survivors share their stories with r.t. america.

it's tuesday february eleventh find him in washington d.c. i mean you're in david you're watching america we begin today with the winter olympics that are underway in sochi russia the sochi olympics marked the largest winter games in history boasting twenty eight hundred athletes from eighty eight different countries those athletes are competing in ninety eight events let's take a quick look at the medal count up until this point norway leads with eleven medals for golds three silvers and four bronzes canada takes second with nine medals and germany takes third with five the netherlands is in fourth place followed by the united states switzerland russia and austria for more on the games let's go to our correspondent paul scott who is in sochi.

and aside from talking about good merits at the olympics there is always lots of tuck about good looks they don't exactly get all medals for beauty at the olympics and for good reason but artie's lives wall is taking a look at the olympians that would surely make the list if they did. the limbic games a global event where people are rallying the world to celebrate athletic achievement while it brings together the world's most talented olympians there happens to be many quite attractive competitors we've compiled a list of seven of the finest in no particular order will start off with australian snowboarder or a bright bright is an olympic gold medalist at the two thousand and ten winter olympic games in vancouver she carried the flag for australia at the opening ceremony is more i can be on the slopes shaun white is a snowboarder on team usa here he is at a press conference near sochi gearing up for the twenty fourteen olympic games

a lot of pressure on life today as he competes in the sochi half pipe in a bid to win a third straight a limbic title didn't happen that he finished fourth place and ashley wagner has the beauty to match her greatest and her figure skating competitions her selection and to the olympic games this year was controversial as her critics thought she was not the best qualified she made third place at the midway point and survived the elimination cut. mexican alpine skier her burgess von hohenlohe he shows us what it's like to age gracefully here he is leading the mexicans here into the stadium for the opening ceremony and sochi fifty five year old has represented mexico in six a live big games and team usa alpine skier bode miller has won many medals but came out today conveying regret for not getting lazic eye surgery before this year's olympics in sochi this despite competing on

a crystal clear day he finished eighth place in sunday's race and lolo jones makes bobsledding look good the american bobsledder was reportedly fighting a cold but is back with her teammates in sochi in addition to participating in the winter olympic games as are her. in the summer olympics she is one of the few that has competed in both seasons games and are rounding out the list is. the russian beauty you bring some tough competition to the sport of curling she as the scalp of the russian curling team at the twenty fourteen winter olympic games before taking on her leg she was a figure skater so there you have just a handful of the bold and the beautiful and physically fit that you may be lucky to have to glimpse at the olympic village in sochi in washington r.t. and for more on the games let's go to our correspondent paul scott who is in sochi

. it was somewhat of a surprise his older transferred domestic success on to the international scene claiming that silver medal in the women's five hundred meter speedskating in the arena now afterwards she admitted that she was suffering from a huge belt of nerves before her final race and she credited her success to a sports psychologist elsewhere russia are on course for a second gold medal in the figure skating event at the halfway stage of the payors competition. trying to open tatiana volovik the overall standings the event concludes on wednesday the world and european champions put in a thoughtless display to the delight of the home crowd to firmly put themselves in medal contention and despite trying well documented tempestuous nature they put their success down to a special working relationship. i was familiar with some of. my

duty. and like seem to believe so we get along just fine because when we first started skating together i told her that more than half of what people say about my personality is probably true and she told me she could get along with pretty much anyone. whatever people say about my or someone else's personality figure skating is a sport and what matters is the result doesn't matter what my personality is like some would say about a coach for example he's insufferable the most important thing is my training in my performance and the medals and who cares if i'm a difficult person well trying. already have gold medals to their names at these winter olympics that's after success in the team event fifteen year old. shot to global fame after two peerless performances in that competition and she admits that before her winter olympics debut there were some nerves well sure i was very nervous and scared but the head of my singles event i'm more calm to be honest i've

got used to it. this is a completely different event russia's ice hockey team russia's men's ice hockey team attended a press conference ahead of their first match against in two days' time not captain pavel datsyuk but he did attend the press conference he is a hero in sochi despite fitness concerns he missed all of his side's n.h.l. matches throughout january with injury and the n.h.l. is actually on a mid-season break right now so the n.h.l. players can come and compete in the winter olympics but it might be the final time that they allow that to happen is currently up in the air and currently up for discussion but it does seem that despite the fact there is going to be increased pressure on the russian team playing on home ice and in front of an expectant home crowd it does seem that spirits are high inside a jovial russian camp. who you want to hear for just. can't see in of course. i think because we're playing at home we'll have a lot more brotherly support the entire country will be cheering force we will be

united. i agree with our captain and he deserves his title he is very experienced respected by the entire hockey community and beyond so with a capital like that we can aim for the top as for our team we're very friendly bunch there's a great atmosphere among the team and the coaches are on the same wavelength and one that's the most important thing everything is in our hands now. thank you i agree with everything he said. so it is all smiles then for alex ovechkin and head of the men's ice hockey competition but away from the coastal cluster and up in the mountains i can tell you that the women's inaugural ski jumping competition has taken place germany winning gold there and up in the mountains there is still one resort the remains open despite the fact the world elitists are the world's most elite athletes are actually in town and it's open season snowboarders of all

standards that was not. and more than six thousand web sites including reddit tumblr and mozilla are taking part in an online protest against government surveillance the action marks two years since web site blackouts against bills like sopa and pipa up the feb eleventh online protest has been coined the day we fight back our tease meghan lopez has the story. something is very wrong when we as americans know that before we open our mouths to speak whether to espouse a work colleague or in a political community our government is listening listening to your calls snooping on your e-mails but is the government listening to calls for reform in the wake of edward snowden's revelations about the breadth and depth of america's surveillance infrastructure ordinary citizens are banding together against government spying

over fifty seven hundred websites plan a day of action against the national security agency many turning their home pages into the home front in the battle for digital privacy february eleventh was declared the day we fight back two years after tech giants like wikipedia and google blacked out their home pages to protest against internet control legislation's like sopa and pipa today's anti surveillance press conference was a physical demonstration of the protests that are already going on online we heard from a number of people from a host of different groups we heard from religious clerics from civil liberties advocates even a u.s. congressman all telling the n.s.a. to keep their hands off their data and to respect their privacy many of the speakers had differing views on exactly what should be done and how to achieve it but all agree that something needs to change rabbi arthur wasco one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the n.s.a. said this spying infringes on his religious freedom of speech or door with do it by

being here by opposing or joining in the lawsuit against the n.s.a. that's the kind of religion nor meir is a muslim american and she says the n.s.a. could use her private conversations with her family and friends against her for me standing here as a person of color with family and loved ones in pakistan a country labeled as the most dangerous country in the world i fear that every person exchange an intimate moment. from the phone call i made this morning to the e-mail sent after this will one day are could be used against me linda shade spoke out for her right to protest whether we are on the left or whether we are on the right we are standing here today to say our rights to dissent will not be trampled even congressman rush holt stepped away from his work on capitol hill and into the winter cold to tell americans about a bitter reality our own government is treating every one of us as suspects first

and citizens second congressman holt's surveillance state repeal lacked aims to change that by doing away with the laws that allow for the mass collection of phone records and internet metadata holt says progress is being made in the halls of capitol hill with other legislation as well but he and the other speakers are afraid this issue will be swept under the rug and these controversial practices will continue every day these abuses continue is one more day then our constitution is compromised and a physical demonstration of protest over a dozen rallies were also planned around the world from san francisco to serbia denmark to coastal rica and everywhere in between also more than one hundred twenty six thousand people signed a petition urging the u.s. to return to its constitutional principles in the end the speakers agreed that it's up to the american public to get the debate going so i'm asking you to call to email to fax call everyone that you can and all these buildings around you we're

going to let congress know that we mean business hands off our data the day we fight back is using the tools the n.s.a. so often surveils to finally get the government to listen in front of the capitol again lopez r.t. . well just because they're locked up doesn't mean they don't have plans for the future believe it or not five war on terror captives detained at guantanamo have designed a self-sufficient agricultural business just west of yemen's capital the detainees say they'd like to build a community of two hundred families one hundred farm houses ten cows five hundred chickens fifty sheep one honeybee subsidiary and a computer system powered by wind mills this was all laid out in a seventy five page prospectus completed before the get more hunger strike that took place last year it was part of a program that effectively worked as a business school behind bars that prospectus has recently emerged and its release

coincides with a time when the obama administration is searching for ways to justify sending prisoners home while closing the controversial detention camp of the one hundred fifty five men that are being held at guantanamo seventy seven have already been cleared for release and the majority of them are from yemen. and federal drug data shows that the rate of heroin dependence doubled nationally in the decade between two thousand and twelve two thousand and two and two thousand and twelve the number of heroin users remains lower than for illicit substances such as cocaine but experts are particularly concerned by the speed of its increase in recent years it's a trend that was highlighted by the death of actor philip seymour hoffman who died of an apparent heroin overdose artie's ramon glinda takes an inside look at the norco trafficking that's contributing to its rise. like being like hugged by god recovering addict jordan describe the euphoric feeling of the first time he was

terrible and no pain when you get in fights and he would feel anything in fact in the school from the do it was like whoa what have i been missing georgia became addicted to prescription pain killers in high school he then moved to smoking heroin and at age nineteen he started shooting up from the wind and had those legs and shot up everything there is shit about the rise in prescription drug abuse has been linked to an increase in the use of heroin here in the u.s. the problem transcends america's they're been centers and has hit affluent suburbs like here in orange county california in the simi town of newport beach police say that half of their narcotics arrests this year involve heroin they give us a close up look of some of the black tar they took from a suspect or seller and it cuts across all income levels not all racial lines. a slight focus towards a younger generation and it's really used to be an urban problem and because of

that addiction level and because of the availability. it's really cut into every community nationwide in vermont this year state of the state address was devoted to the plague of drug addiction in every corner of our state heroin and opiate drug addiction threatens us the drug has remained cheap as production of opium has skyrocketed in places like afghanistan in mexico there's a fifty percent increase in in the game supply which is the raw ingredients and heroin you know afghanistan last year alone so it looks to me like we're having kind of a glut of heroin on the market which is keeping the prices low while afghanistan remains a top producer of opium most of the heroin sold in the u.s. is linked to poppy production in mexico according to the da law enforcement uses agree that the drug is also becoming more socially acceptable if you see a problem there is a problem. and it will take here ken's life away other narcotics are still more

popular than heroin in the u.s. but as people transition from pills to harder street drugs the threat remains in even the most unexpected places. in newport beach california among galindo r t. and west virginians are still asking whether a chemical spill that contaminated the elk river last month could be dangerous to their health but what happened to west virginia are only sheds light on an even bigger water catastrophe that took place many years ago at camp lagoon the military bases most recognizable as the home to hundreds of thousands of marines and their families but camp le june which is located in jacksonville north carolina also has a darker side it's the site of what is thought to be the largest water contamination in american history between one hundred fifty seven and one nine hundred eighty seven hundreds of thousands of marine corps members and their families were exposed to tap water containing extremely toxic chemicals during that

time people living at the base bathed in that water drained and ingested it not knowing it had been compromised the water had been contaminated with chemicals thought to have stemmed from underground storage tanks that leaked industrial areas spills and waste from an off base dry cleaning business now years later thousands of the june residents have been dealing with the long term effects of being exposed to those chemicals for some the reality has meant dealing with ailments like cancer kidney damage and birth defects and for other more severe cases it has meant death in a statement to our team marine spokeswoman said the following some of our marine family members have experienced tragic health issues they believe are associated with water they drank or used in the past at camp with june our goal is to use the best available science in an effort to provide our marine corps family members the answers they deserve and keep them updated as information becomes available. but

two men who have been personally affected by this toxic water say the marine corps response is just not enough jerry ends meet her as a career move i mean who raised his family a legit on his daughter jamie died of leukemia when she was just nine years old and mike partain is the son of a marine who was born at camp lagoon at the age of thirty nine partain was diagnosed with male breast cancer they are both here in washington d.c. to meet with lawmakers regarding some new research on camp legend survivors i first asked jerry and to talk about the point at which he realized his daughter's death was not just a coincidence. but i had no idea i mean you know when she was diagnosed it's a natural thing for a parent and as a child is diagnosed with a catastrophic illness to to wonder why then i was no exception. it

wasn't till one thousand nine hundred seventy. that i found about found out about the contaminated drink. and how how did you find out about it. i was. fortunate enough to have retired in the area down close to camp. and when a.t.'s to your was releasing their initial public health assessment back in one nine hundred ninety seven one of the local t.v. stations did a story on it. and so it took over ten years and i'm now fourteen years and mike you were actually diagnosed with male breast cancer at thirty nine which is an incredibly young age of course that's a very where thing for a man to be diagnosed with how did you come to the realization that you want alone and what you were dealing with i mean two months after i was diagnosed we found out about a camp was june through jerry testifying on capitol hill about the the children born there between one nine hundred sixty eight one thousand nine hundred five and

i realized at that point i was one of those children because my birthday is in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight shortly after that there was a story in my local paper that went on the internet and shows you the power of the internet a gentleman from alabama saw that story contacted me and he had been a child a camp was around during the one nine hundred sixty s. i actually lived in the same neighborhood that i was born in at the same time that i was born and he too was diagnosed with breast cancer once i realized that there was another one out there that i was in the flu and there had to be more and it's been now seven years since my diagnosis and in that seven year period we have located across the country eighty five men including myself who had the single commonality of exposure at the base is a marine or the child of a marine and male breast cancer and it's the largest no breast cancer closer that i'm aware of that's ever been identified it's incredible and how are those people that you've connected with what's their prognosis how are they well i mean it's the

disease itself. i mean depending whether it metastasized to the body. determines you know survival survivability i'm seven years out and i'm cancer free at this point we just lost a good friend right before christmas who had fought the disease it went into remission came back with a vengeance and he passed unfortunately from that so it just depends on where the cancer got to i'm sorry to hear that while as i understand it there were a number of different chemicals manmade chemicals in this water can you talk a little bit about the ones that were sort of most detrimental well there's four primary contaminants and we're going to fight in the water that we have testing going to show that what they're in the first ones bins in from fuel over the forty year period operational period of the fuel part of the base fuel farm the marine corps last about one point five million inside the brain core lost an estimated one

point five million gallons of fuel into the groundwater campus which is work temperature and drives as we drink the water from then we have such a core core thing which is the dry cleaning chemical it's also used in cleaning different agents you know weapons guns things like that truck or a thing which is also used as a solvent to clean weapons made for vehicles and tanks and things like that and then the third one the fourth one is a degradation product code vinyl chloride three of the four known him of our citizens. and jerry when you brought the city to the attention of the marine corps what was the response from that. denial. and i mean basically that's just the same stance that they're taking today have a token phrase forum and it's lie and deny. but what do i wanted

to correct one thing that you said in your introduction to. the contamination began at the largest and worst contaminated drinking water system on the base which was the had not point or but the marines called referred to it as maine in one nine hundred fifty three miles so this goes way back yes and then that's verified by order of the agency for toxic substances and disease these registry their water model confirms that date so it's and jerry going off of what i mean i mean is it was it difficult for you to see the marine corps respond that way oh man i mean nobody could have been more disillusioned in the misconduct of the leadership. of our corps i mean i was just i couldn't believe it. i mean i was a marine drill instructor i trained over two thousand new marines i instilled in

them our motto which is supper fidelity which is the latin for always faithful and we also had a nother slogan and it was we take care of our own and unfortunately our motto. is only as a one way street. and i should mention that some provide is a documentary that. is fatal is the name of a documentary or a documentary. that sort of charts this entire story but mike you know i actually tried to secure it on camera you know this i tried to secure an on camera interview with the marine corps and they denied me that what's your sense as to why they are so tight lipped about this. and the marine corps is the institution of honor and integrity and getting the truth out of the leadership of the marine corps from the beginning the other contamination has been my accountant trying to nail jell-o.

to the wall. at the very onset in one thousand nine hundred five when the contamination became known publicly we have the base environmental engineer on record stating that people weren't directly exposed to the pollutants in this lives as per perpetuated mutated over the past twenty five thirty years and now they've gotten to the point where you've requested there's been numerous people that ever was right interviews with them they turn everybody down because now that the truth is out there and the media knows what the truth is they don't want to put anybody out on camera where they could be trapped into asking a follow up question right at the truth that i did get that sense now gerri in two thousand and twelve there was a piece of legislation passed in the name of your daughter jamie and some anger can you tell us about what that's done and also how that sort of fallen short for the people that really need it right now. that bill was basically something to get

a foot in the door. i know it had a lot of shortcomings. you know we have a phrase that it's a band-aid over a sucking chest wound but. it's a start and that was the way i viewed it. the president signed it into law the health care for the former service members started immediately upon his signature. but to this day not one of the family members is ever gotten any benefit out of it now they're still waiting for benefits from and there's almost two years later and then the service members. they're only guaranteed health care because of that law. if they want the rest of their veterans' benefits they have to jump through the hoops just like every other veteran that law . was basically an admission of guilt they actually stated that these people were

poisoned while they were examples you and we were poisoned by our own government our own leaders that was jerry and snigger co-founder of the few the proud and the forgotten and mike partain lead community member of the few the proud and the forgotten. and it may be time to lay off that soda according to a recent study conducted by consumer reports that golden brown colored usually found in your pepsi or cola comes with a dose of something called form now and that for mel could pose a risk to your health potentially causing cancer now this chemical can be found in food but consumer reports focused its study on beverages but sodas were purchased and analyzed in a california lab and that study it found that one twelve ounce serving of pepsi one or multiple exceeded the levels permitted without a warning label keep in mind that in the state of california food and drink

manufacturers are limited to twenty nine micrograms of exposure for the average consumer per day foods exceeding that limit have to carry a warning label that reads warning this product contains a chemical known to the state of california to cause cancer so technically those sodas should carry a warning and even though the state of california puts limits on how much for mel it can be used there are no federal limits on the amount of formel in foods and drinks the f.d.a. says it has studied the use of carmel as a flavor and color additive for decades but in response to this report the agency says it will review new data on its safety and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america check out our website r t dot com slash usa you can also follow me on twitter at amir and david see you right back here at eight thanks for watching.

there's a new game we like to play you see a game with no added sovereignty e.j. made to about that puts me on my knees you call it master and servant we call out some salmon with this sort of independents who need servants it alex why be yet another nation on the chain gang when you can be the first on the block chain. i've got a quote for you. it's pretty tough. to wait substory. but if this guy like you would smear about guys stead of working for the people most issues the mainstream media were pretty much on the bridegroom's vision. problems.