because i'm going to. be. coming up on r t the sochi olympic games wore on with another day of action team usa scores a few more medals while a major russian figure skater has to because of injury latest just ahead and the golden state is struck with severe drought the recent dry spell in california could have huge implications for food prices across the globe more on the state's search for water coming up. and big news for bit coin despite the recent obstacles to digital currency is gaining more and more traction is specially in germany a special report from berlin later in the show.

it's thursday february thirteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm amir a david and you're watching r.t. america well if you live in the u.s. and take a look outside your window you're most likely seeing some snow from the deep south to the northeast millions saw a winter blast of snow rain and sleet overnight but if you're watching the mainstream media of course you probably already know that. we start with an extreme weather alert a math that winter storm now flaming the northeast. breaking news the catastrophic storm that battered the south now hitting the northeast as a full blown nor'easter developing into a full fledged nor'easter all the nor'easter is actually barreling up the eastern seaboard and millions of people up and down the east goes straight to their home today. lots and lots of weather coverage of course all proving that the groundhog predicted it right this year. and the winter olympics are underway in sochi russia

this year's olympics marks the largest winter games in history the competition boasts twenty eight. the eight different countries let's take a quick look at the medal count up until this point norway leads with a total of thirteen medals and second place in the netherlands with twelve medals followed by the united states with the same number russia has a total of eleven medals followed by germany canada austria and sweden and for more on the games let's go to our correspondent paul scott who's in sochi. well despite the fact that some of america's biggest stars have so far failed to deliver here at sochi twenty fourteen including skier bode miller speed skater shani davis and snowboarder shaun white the medals for team usa have started to come thick and fast particularly in the mountains of krasnaya polyana in the first ever skiing slopestyle competition the usa secured a one two three in the men's competition they were gold silver and bronze on the podium while caitlin farrington and kelly clark won gold and bronze respectively in

the women's snowboarding pipe meanwhile one of the main attractions for the salty twenty fourteen winter olympics is of course going to be the men's ice hockey competition and team usa played their first match in the shy barrino which you can probably make out behind me here in the coastal cluster they were absolutely dominant in a seven one victory over slovakia their next match is against russia the host of course an intriguing much up for so many underlying reasons russia started their campaign in the bolshoi and you can see it there with a five two victory over slovenia however they were made to work for that when i was fortunate enough to be that they stormed into a two nil lead russia but slovenia showed real resilience it was three two going into the final period the final third however in the end the red machines are clawson quality shone through as russia secured a five two victory so russia in the usa them when their opening matches here at sochi twenty fourteen all eyes on the next much when they go head to head against

each other however i one of the biggest stories to emerge from the winter olympics so far. is that if you have game he's the single he was looking to become the single most decorated figure skater in winter olympics history he was partaking in the men's figure skating individual event however he had to withdraw through injury now his career on the ice has taken its toll on his physical health he's undergone surgery no less than twelve times in recent years and he even has a prosthetic disc in his back he fell awkwardly in the warm up and aggravated a long time injury forcing him to pull out not only of the competition but he's also announced his retirement from the sport is a bitter blow for him and also for russia. that was artie's paul scott reporting at this year's winter olympics athletes from around the world are competing in ninety eight different events but instead of the emphasis being on the world class talent that's taking front and center the focus on sochi has seemed to lie all

swear artie's on a stasi a church has the story. while the mainstream media pundits me keep acting like they're the hottest of all he speaks french look at people in reality the corporate news networks are struggling with ratings they lose credibility right because that's what media trades and that's their currency whether they're credible or not they're not credible people are watching us have decided that if what they see is not what actually is they'll tune out leaving news networks to hastily search for new tricks to increase their dwindling audience according to public policy polling the self-proclaimed fair and balanced fox news network is trusted by thirty five percent of americans and as the news network nearly the same number of americans say they trust the least it's not entirely illogical to say that fox is the most trusted network by that very fanatical very small demographic within the country but it's also a very loyal one so you have this this almost

a seesaw effect where you know there's nothing really in the middle there are just extremes the self. dubbed most trusted name in news c.n.n. recently hit a twenty year low in primetime ratings in the us they don't really represent anything other than breaking news when there's breaking news people flock to it but when there isn't where is the audience in take that plus the business concern layoffs programming changes and attempts to gain power back have been unsuccessful former c.n.n. anchor larry king went as far as suggesting the channel just aired the cartoon sponsored bob square pants. on c.n.n. it is a mess in my opinion. no thanks to jeff zucker who could have just destroyed n.b.c. previously said they put him in charge of c.n.n. and the legislature and c.n.n. you know the u.s. version but the whole operation they're airing documentaries they have a series i guess in the board they say of the wording is not good but he's

certainly not news and b c is most recently under the gun for it such a twenty fourteen olympics coverage critics say exclusive rights to broadcasting the games are to blame it's really the lack of depth in coverage then b c but they don't have to do a good job because there's nothing else really competing with them and so they could do a terrible job and still score ratings hits meanwhile other mainstream networks have been competing in the game of who can ruin the image of saatchi the most some of them pretty distressed and turning attention to any negative aspect that arises to toilets i buy that i and away from the actual sports the american newscasters will all say we're just we're just interested in the in the game it's all about the game we're not interested in anything else but then they introduce everything else into it to color that coverage and to in a sense motivate the public to be hostile year well networks like fox news and imus and b c cater exclusively to a specific mindset the real problem here is that people don't really want primary

source on objective unfiltered or objective unfiltered news they want to have their own opinions valid. by someone who seems to reflect their own world view the viewers themselves are often blamed for the quality of news programming leading up to fast food junk being that the average attention span as measured by the annenberg school in the university of pennsylvania and the pew research center for the american t.v. viewer is about eight seconds the average attention span for a goldfish focusing on some stimulus outside his bowl is ten seconds one possible explanation for why some are still tuned in as that's coming that has a spouse just as you're going to. play and the nation's contributing editor stephen cohen joining artie's the big picture earlier to talk about that very subject take a listen to what he had to say about how this kind of coverage could disrupt u.s. russian relations the coverage even in the steam leading american newspapers

seems to be virtually wishing for something bad to happen to spoil what they call putin's game and they have so demonized president vladimir putin of russia for so many years that when they talk about putin and then the terrorist threat they virtually equate the terrorists ira to articles in the washington post last week or a couple weeks ago i was unsure who i was supposed to be rooting for putin or the terrorist and his then kind of. malice that has hung has been embedded in this coverage of the sortie games which is extremely unusual and of course it's very bad for american russian relations that was the nation's contributing editor stephen cohen. and still ahead here on our california space with one of its worst droughts in decades and it might even affect global food prices a look at the state's dry spell after the break.

our forces. in the initial i know. what we're hearing.

the drought in california is one of the worst weather related disasters the state has faced and decades and it could soon have an impact nationwide even president obama is visiting the golden state this week to highlight the significance of the dry spell artie's were among those shows us how the lack of water in the west could hit your pocketbook. there's nothing it's a dry there's nothing can go in there it's a grim forecast for a farmer and he demanded goni his field usually produce we as bread this year's historic california drought made do much of his harvest but the drought here is probably going to cost our ranch in just the hard red winter wheat alone three to four hundred thousand dollars. because we grow about three thousand acres of wheat and will probably not harvest any of it california is considered the bread basket of the world and produces half of all the fruit vegetables and nuts consumed in the u.s. as growers deal with diminishing water supplies the cost of produce will also likely

spike nationwide. farmers and truckers stand to lose billions of dollars in revenue weakening the shaky economic recovery in america's most populated state usually this field is filled with green grass but this year because of the drought as you can see the ground is bone dry that force the rats are here to go out and buy extra hay and fruit just a foetus cattle all additional costs that will eventually be passed on to the consumer everybody's going to feel it and not only in food prices but in water prices too the situation is so dire in california's central valley that highway signs remind drivers to conserve water instead of warning them about traffic delays we're looking at a disaster much like other portions of california experience earthquake or flood in a wildfire a drought in our area is every bit as devastating economically california's

agriculture industry brought in forty five billion dollars to the state in two thousand and thirteen idle fields could cost california up to five billion dollars according to the california farm water coalition the state is also warning that seventeen small water systems could run out of water within weeks california isn't alone in its water troubles us. department of agriculture has a clear drought disaster areas in parts of eleven states water managers throughout the region are being forced to tap other depleting water sources were relying on groundwater to make up as much surface water shortages as we can that means our groundwater aquifers are going to be decrease important thing that most residents of other parts of the united states states don't realize is how vital the same joaquin valley is to meeting the food beads of the nation and the world. can be a tough year. this drought portion of the turn river is symbolic of the drought

crisis california is currently facing state and federal officials have promised to step in and help but without mother nature's cooperation several communities here in the golden state could see their speak at run dry in current county california among the legal r t. well it seems west virginia is not the only state dealing with catastrophic spills and water contamination turns out there are several regions of the country that are working to clean up everything from oil to coal ash lopez takes a look at the damage that's wreaking havoc on communities across the u.s. . twenty fourteen has started off with one chemical leak after another dominating headlines all of them have had some type of environmental impact some of them have threatened public health check out this map cleanup crews are responding to spills from west virginia to hawaii one of the most pressing situations is the spill of one hundred thousand gallons of coal florrie into fields creek in west virginia the

pictures are on believable six miles of the creek as well as half of a mile of the river are running black chemicals like arsenic lead and nickel are in the water and cleanup is slow the water is so murky that it doesn't look like water at all it looks like mud this spill happened almost exactly one month after freedom industries spilled thousands of gallons of coal cleaning chemicals into the elk river poisoning the water for charleston three hundred thousand residents and just one life was getting back to normal in charleston fema announce that it will not reimburse west virginia for spill costs because it says the spill was not big enough or severe enough to warrant grant assistance under emergency declarations as for reimbursement from freedom industries not happening anytime soon since the company filed for chapter eleven bankruptcy i'm sure you've heard of this next bill duke energy spewed eighty two thousand tons of coal ash mixed with twenty seven

million gallons of contaminated water into the dan river after a pipe broke it took six days to stop the leak and now residents are being told not to eat the fish near the spill sites something that you might not know north carolina's new governor. pat mccrory worked for duke energy for nearly three decades before he took public office today federal authorities are launching a criminal investigation into the north carolina department of environment and resources an investigative report by the associated press found that state regulators are shielded the company from lawsuits filed by environmental groups warning of this very kind of disaster instead of demanding for the energy company to clean up its act the state settling with the company for less than one hundred thousand dollars meanwhile in one known in minnesota a canadian pacific train lead twelve thousand gallons of crude oil while traveling over seventy miles on february third it was caused by either a valve or

a count problem with one of the tankers cleanup is still underway and on february tenth the navy reported that it accidentally leaks two thousand gallons of oil e. waste into the hood canal it was moving oily water off of a submarine at the bangor naval base in washington by the next day the spill traveled ten miles north but that is not the navy's only leak in honolulu hawaii last month the navy confirmed that up to twenty thousand gallons of j p eight jet fuel leaks from a tank at the red hill underground fuel storage facility they discovered a leak when a fuel operator noticed the fuel levels were low in one of the tanks the tank has been isolated and cleanup is under way finally in polaski county kentucky a tanker truck spilled eight thousand gallons of gasoline after it lost control on icy roads two weeks later the cleanup is still underway and some of that fuel into

a nearby stream that feeds a local case system making cleanup very difficult and raising concerns of groundwater contamination now winter weather has made cleanup efforts at many of these still sites very difficult so for now anyway cleanup crews must first deal with mother nature's disasters before. giving to those man made ones that are taking place across the country in washington meghan lopez r.t. . and a federal appeals court today declined to halt the military's practice of force feeding guantanamo bay detainees on a hunger strike but at the same time the court said the door would be left open to legal efforts seeking to end the practice this is all determined by a three judge panel of the u.s. court of appeals in washington d.c. the judges refused to ban force feeding altogether they said for an immediate injunction quote it is not enough for us to say that force feeding may cause physical pain invade bodily integrity or even implicate petitioner's fundamental

individual rights the judges also said that they could not bar the doctors from following military orders and guantanamo merely because they might be acting in violation of their medical ethics however the appellate court held that the detainees should be allowed a meaningful opportunity to challenge the guantanamo for speeding and in doing so the court rejected two previous rulings that said the judiciary didn't have jurisdiction in the case john eisenberg a lawyer for get most prisoners called the ruling a huge win and a statement r.t. eisenberg said the ruling quote establishes that the federal courts are authorized to oversee conditions of confinement at guantanamo bay and to prohibit abusive conditions and human rights violations there the decision allows us to continue our challenge to the detainees for speeding as unconstitutional unconstitutionally excuse me abusive which we intend to do u.s. authorities are no longer regularly disclosing the number of detainees on hunger

strike but human rights organization reprieve estimates that thirty four men detained in guantanamo are on hunger strike half of whom are being force fed. and new york city is drawing up new rules to regulate the virtual currency bit coin and combat money laundering this is. all after a large scale attack by cyber criminals brought down several online exchanges but despite the obstacles the digital currency is continuing to gain ground artie's lucy tough enough has the story. they've come to speak to me in the land to promote their vision of an alternative financial system and investors businessmen and curious citizens of all gathered here in berlin for a conference on what they call a bit point of revolution it's the first digital currency that's not owned or operated by any sort of bank it's guaranteed payments without a middleman you can buy it with the real currency at online exchanges and that's an extract of option for those who think that today's financial system is in bad need

of an overhaul it's people see how big coin is used online and they see the advantages the instant transfer of funds the security not having to see your personal data to make these transactions i think a lot of people see these advantages they tell their friends they tell their coworkers they want and they tell the merchants that they do business with and they expand the sphere of decline and that's a view that seems to be growing more popular nowhere is that more evident than right here in berlin in fact this neighborhood both the highest concentration of businesses assuption the currency in the world is growing list of bitcoin establishment includes a record shop up in store. and this bar. and here are getting your hands on some bitcoins while the digitally speaking and busier than ever instead of buying them from an online exchange you can use this bitcoin a.t.m. to trade your uro's into bitcoins and use that to buy your happy hour drink and

therefore of course bitcoin isn't without risk and the past few weeks haven't been too kind to the cryptocurrency apple remove the last native bitcoin wallet application from its apps door and the currency saw its third mega crash in the past few months when the largest. current exchange stopped customer withdrawals because of a glitch in the software of course that led the currency to lose value by a stunning twenty percent just for a day but it's a sign that bitcoin may have a long way to go before it's a safe bet reporting in berlin for r t. well you've probably heard the expression out to lunch or on vacation when it comes to someone who is missing in action some would say that expression also seems to be setting for congress which is seemingly becoming less effective and passing legislation so it's resident takes a look at what congress is actually doing with its time.

congress and that a new record no that we're doing anything remotely good of it for taking privately funded trips as interest paid by others who can then hold influence over the people writing the laws that affect our lives according to a new report by legit storm a capitol hill nonprofit last year congress and their staff broke the record for taking the most privately funded trips since restrictions were put in place in two thousand and seven under what is hilarious lee called the honest leadership and open government act they will be lawmakers and staff members made nearly nineteen hundred trips costing more than six million dollars in twenty thirteen israel with

the most popular foreign destination with more than two million dollars in private trips financed twenty three members of congress and their staff went to ethiopia perfect days which cost more than three hundred thousand dollars california's john garamendi took trips that private funders paid for that totaled about seventy thousand dollars in billing peered and minnesota's keith ellison took seven trips the most out of any of them and before you get all they have to travel to washington. back to the place the representing his trips were mostly to appear on a.b.c. news shows or at progressive institute event eleven tripp. the whole reason congress tightened its travel rules in two thousand and seven was to limit the influence of lobbyists after the whole jack abrams scandal but this just proves nothing will stop the greed and perk train because you see members of congress can

still go on trips that others pay for so long as they aren't registered lobbyist but if they're affiliated with lobbyist organizations that's totally ok and that's the case with the american israel education foundation which helped pay for the more than two million dollars in trips to israel this year there are not a registered lobbyist themselves but they are of the elite it with the american israel public affairs committee america's pro israel lobby that's literally their tagline so the how that works congress makes the big speeches about how they won't be bought anymore and maybe things with words like honest leadership but meanwhile they write the rules with enough loopholes and to make a million not so ropes it's enough to make me want to take a trip out of this country to night let's talk about that by following me on

twitter at the risk that. well if you're a corvette fan you may want to look away right about now because the following images are a little disturbing a massive twenty foot sinkhole opened up beneath the national corvette museum in bowling green kentucky yesterday and it swallowed eight of the cars on display now most importantly no one was in the museum at the time of the collapse which means no one died. heard the cars on the other hand were so lucky the vehicles that went under were among some of the most coveted by ad buyers of the popular sports car they included everything from a nine hundred sixty two black corvette to a two thousand and nine white one point five million corvette the museum is set to celebrate its twentieth anniversary this september but needless to say instead of

celebrating some corvette fans out there will be mourning maybe even crying and boom bust is coming up next here on r t aaron eight joins us for a quick preview erin what is on the show today thanks mary what a bummer and spectacular picture of those corvettes. coming up on broom virus war talking about europe today political economist and author you honestly verify this is joining us live via skype he's bringing us his views on the eurozone plus our european banks getting a little too obvious with their efforts to skirt new u.s. financial regulations will let you know right after the news stay tuned lots to tune into thanks erin. and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered you can go to youtube dot com forward slash r t america you can check out our website r t dot com forward slash usa can also follow me on twitter adam you're a david and feel free to tweet me and let me know what you think our t. should be covering and of course stay tuned because boom bust is next.

that. her hair ambulance the location to consume boy seal river. should bow to the dwellers of the rawhide tent and said you would stop this storm we might be more my people will die . there's a medium leave us so we need to be. by the sea potion secure the. physical . issues that no one is asking with the guests that you deserve answers from it's

all on politics only on our t.v. . you know the united states has as many think tanks as the next ten countries combined yes one thousand eight hundred and twenty eight takes to tell three hundred million people how to sing.

there i'm aaron a this is a boom bust and these are the stories that we're tracking for you today. first up the european banks are playing it fast and loose when it comes to dodgy new capital requirements here in the u.s. i'll tell you all about it coming right up then we have political economist yanis varoufakis to live on today's show at least we hope so we're still working that out so i asked him what he thinks is next for the euro zone and in today's big deal ed harrison i take a look at what's going on in europe most western country part of all that is you won't want to miss it and it all starts right now.