randall pinkston joining us live from washington now. d randall what did he learn about the man behind the gun? >> we learned that he had a lot of experience as a member of the military. a he served for five years in puerto rico before joining the army. he had been an infantry man in the army. he served as a truck driver. we were told that he had two deployments one lasting for about a year, and the second one lasting for four months. the four-month deployment was in iraq where he served as a truck driver. they did not find anything in his record indicating that he had been wounded or was involved in a fire fight that may have resulted in a traumatic brain injury. that was one of the conditions, apparently that he had sought medical care for. he had been under the care of a psychiatrist, and that evaluation did not show any sign of him being a danger to himself or others. then, of course, they were doing a routine background check on everywhere he had been, the people he had known, and we learned more about that from the secretary, who sa

let's bring in randall pinkston and aljazeera, and you've been covering the developments from that angle. and what was significant about what the secretary of the army, mchugh, had to say this morning? >> well, with a great amount of speed, they have done a thorough background check on the suspected shooter, who has been identified as ivan lopez, and without giving his name, secretary mccuen listed in interstate in the infantry, and when he reenlisted, he was a truck driver, and he had two deployments, serving in the army. and at one point, he was serving for a year, and at some point he served for 18 months in iraq where he was a truck driver. and brandon has referenced what secretary mchugh referenced, that he was not involved in any kind of combat situation, which is to say shooting. you could argue that going into iraq was automatically a combat situation, but respect to a firefight or being near an ied or explosion, apparently none of that happened. and secretary mchugh said that the record did not indicate any type of situation that would result in a traumatic brain injury. still,

and other issues expecting to hear from president obama any minute now, but first let's go to randall pinkston, randall, what are the immediate signs of success here with the obama-care? >> well, of course, the white house is touting that number that you just mentioned. michael 7 million signing up on healthcare exchanges plus according to press secretary, they are also including young people who are under the age of 26 who have been able to stay on their parents insurance plans. plus, other uninsured american whose are able to become part of medicate as part of medicaid expansion. how many people will use the services how much will those services cost. because those are the factors that insurance companies will use in determining how much to charge over coverage going forward. if their risk assessment has been too low, they will raise the prices next time it comes time for enrollment of course if the estimates have been correct, then you will see a stable ace, maybe even a reduction. months for not a couple of years down the road. this plan to provide low cost affordable healthcare coverage,

there was a -- randall pinkston. >> there was a lack of specific answers. what can we expect to learn today on day two? >> i expect we will hear what we heard on day one. she'll insist that g.m. conducts its own investigation, that she kont provide details on the findings of that investigation, and i suspect that she'll get another tough criminaling from members of the senate. >> mary barra hinted in the testimony that the company is getting ready for claims filed by victims. what more can you tell us about what they are manning to do. >> she -- planning to do. >> she announced that the company retained the services of feinberg, an arbitrator in chief. he handled compensation funds for katrina, the oil spill, and disasters affecting a large number of victims. mary barra did not announce the substantiate of a compensation fund. she acknowledged civic and legal responsibilities, and said fine burg would assist g.m. in determining what the responsibilities are, but pointedly did not commit to compensating the victims. that was a point she was weres the on seve

randall pinkston has that story. >> reporter: two, one, zero, the final lift off of atlantas.the end of the space shuttle program three years ago left one option for putting america's astronauts in space. for $70 million russia's spacecraft makes the trip to the international space station where they have spent billions. but the dispute on earth is reaching into space. u.s. sanctions over russia. >> based on the executive order that i sig signed we're up posig more sanctions on a russian government. >> reporter: it applies to every department including nasa which announced the agency is suspending the majority of it's ongoing engagement with the russian federation but there is an exception for the space station, a pledge to continue to work together. here in the national air and space museum is a symbol of a decades-old effort to work together. a mock up of the space crafts which linked up more than 30 years ago. americans and russians in space laying the groundwork for what would become the international space station. space historian wrote a book about the menu race. he said

randall pinkston is in washington. ndall there were a lot of questions yesterday concerning safety regulations what are they focusing on today. >> first of all, let me just say this hearing is getting off with a roaring start. it will be between the subcommittee on consumer protection and product safety, and the new gm ceo mary barra. what they are looking at today is the same as yesterday, why did gm take almost a decade to issue a total recall? claire mccaskill sort of set the tone for today's hearing. >> we don't know how many people crashed because of this cover up. we do know that many died, including miss melton, and at least one of my constituents. >> now the ranking republican member of the committee senator dean heller of nevada said that he is a stock car driver -- his father is a stock car driver and he pointed to what he called a troubling practice of gm of using the same number for different parts. >> government investigators have now requested that gm provide any documents chronicling the change and who wi

i want to bring in randall pinkston. what else are we hearing out of the white house. >> president obama was in chicago when she received the tragic news of another shooting. the federal bureau of investigation is joining the defense department's investigation to determine what happened and how that particular tragedy could happen in the same place twice. >> any shooting is trub lipping. obviously this reops the pain of what happened at fort hood five years ago. we know there's families, the incredible service to our country and the sacrifices they make. thoughts and procedures are with the community, and we are going to do everything we can to make sure the community has what it needs. >> the president will continue to monitor the developments and the ongoing investigation. >> the president was in chicago defense secretary chuck hagel in hawaii at the time of the shoot ngs. what was his message. >> secretary hagel, like everyone else, first thought about the families of the victims, and the fact that it happened at fort

randall pinkston, al jazeera, washington >> for you shakespeare scholars out there, we realize a lot of people observe his birthday is the 23rd and the 26th his baptismal. i am jonathan betz. back with another hour of news at 8:00 p.m. eastern, 5:00 p.m. pacific. stay with us because "fault lines" starts right now. >> it's friday afternoon in the >>> it's friday afternoon ain te rio grande valley in texas. >> abortion is one of the most common medical procedures for women around the world. >> two friends are meeti readin a manual about how to give yourself an abortion? >> i ask you how pregnant you are. >> yeah. >> you said you are -- >> for sure right now, i am seven weeks. >> okay. yeah. that's good because once you get to 12 weeks, it gets riskier >> they wouldn't let us

let's bring in randall pinkston and aljazeera, and you've been covering the developments from that angled what was significant about what the secretary of the army, mchugh, had to say this morning? >> well, with a great amount of speed, they have done a thorough background check on the suspected shooter, who has been identified as ivan lopez, and without giving his name, secretary mccuen listed in interstate in the infantry, and when he reenlisted, he was a truck driver, and he had two deployments, serving in the army. and at one point, he was serving for a year, and at some point he served for 18 months in iraq where he was a truck driver. and brandon has referenced what secretary mchugh referenced, that he was not involved in any kind of combat situation, which is to say shooting. you could argue that going into iraq was automatically a combat situation, but respect to a firefight or being near an ied or explosion, apparently none of that happened. and secretary mchugh said that the record did not indicate any type of situation that would result in a traumatic brain injury. still, he w

committee today, the secretary of the army had detailed about the alleged shooter, so let's go to randall pinkstonho is joining us from washington, randall, tell us about what we know about the suspect at this point? >> well, stephanie, army officials are saying that thing accused gunman was an experienced soldier. that he served for eight years in the national guard in puerto rico, before enlisting in the regular army, he enlisted as an infin truman, then switched his military occupational specialty to truck driver. he was deployed twice, and then he served four months in iraq as a truck driver. army secretary said a recent background check revealed no red flags. >> the background we with have done thus far, show no involvement with extremists organizations of any kind. but as general millie said to me last evening, and i know the chief and i fully support, we are not making any assumptions by that, we are keeping an open mind and an open investigation, and we will go where the facts lead us, and possibility extremist involvement is still being looked at. he had a clean record, in terms of his be

randall pinkston has more. >> today c.e.o., gm, mary barra testifies before a congressional hearing. she is expected to say she is sorry and will conduct an investigation into an ignition switch leading to a dozen deaths, 32 car protects, and 2. -- wrecks, and 2.2 million recalls. >> clearly we have to improve the process. >> family members of the crash victims in the audience, failing to under how gm failed to address the detect, known about since 2001. >> i'm hoping to peak to the c.e.o. mary barra, for a few minutes, to find out what they plan on doing to uncover the information that has been h hidden for so many years. >> laura, whose daughter died when the air bag failed to deploy, got her wishes. the c.e.o. reportedly cried. >> she said she was sorry to all of us, and we got a chance to talk to her and tell her about our children that died. >> the timing of that meeting and the grilling she'll face by lawmakers could not have come at a worse time. yesterday they announced another recall, 1.5 million cars for participation loss of power steering bringing the total recall to 6 mi

our randall pinkston has that story >> reporter: this is where part of the story began. new york central park in 1890 when a german immigrant released 60 starlings, the first in north america as a tribute to william spakz spear. the other part of the story began more than 300 years earlier in england where he placed references to birds, including the starling in his plays. he loved birds, i think part-time because they are musical and when you think about birds' songs, it connects you to the human voice >> michael is director of the spakz spear library in washington, d.c. he said shakespeare was a keen observer of nature. he especially liked the starlings' ability to mimic speech. the bard mentioned the starling in "henry ix"? >> he said i will get a starling who will mention the name mortimer over and over again to the king and the king stomped off and said "don't ever say mortimer to me again" >> the descendants of the first 60 starlings number more than 200 million in north america. when they fly together in large numbers called mermurations, they look like art in the

randall pinkston is in washington. give us breakdown of what you have heard so far in the hearing. >> laura has finished for the day, they're now questioning the national traffic highway administration why they did not detect the defect sooner. senator mccaskill, claire mccaskill asked her why has she not fired the engineer who was in fired of the cobalt ignition system? >> has mr. giorgio been fired? >> as the investigation has only been going on for a couple of weeks we've made process steps as i return to the office we'll start to look at the people implications. >> so he has not been fired. >> no, highways not. >> there is a document that he signed under his name mr. day di giorgio, he signed it approving of the change. now, it is hard for me to imagine that you would want him any why where near engineering anything. >> specifically why these ignition switches had been changed and not changing the part number. here is dean heller. >> it is incredibly unusual for a car company to change the car part and not change t

randall pinkston, al jazeera, washington. >>> good sought to you. i am eboni deon.irst we want to take you to the east coast where it looks like things are finally, clearing out. but as we take a look into some video out of north carolina, this is an area that dealt with a lot of stormy weather just yesterday and we saw damage as well as golf-ball sized hail. there were nine reports of tornados in the national weather service out there doing their survey today to see how manitons actually occurred but a lot of damages structured. today it's improving for the clean-up to take shape. your attention further west as we look at the satellite radar, this area of low pressure spinning out across southern areas of california that will reject eastward. not a lot of activity now but it's in the middle of the country treer where we will watch for the threat of strong to severe storms and it looks like the primary threat will be large damaging hail as well as high winds and even a few tornados. much of the day is going to be warm and var windy. you can see here, not a lot of ac

randall pinkston joins us with more on this. randall, this is not the first complaint about the government watch list. what is different about this lawsuit? >> reporter: most complaints involved people who were said they were put on the list by mistake and the government refused to take them off. this is the first time that the government has been accused of deliberately putting people on the list to punish them. four years after graduating from college, he said he wanted to fly from omaha, nebraska, to florida for a job. but when he got to the airplane the airline refused to give him a boarding pass. as police escorted him out they said he's on the government's no-fly list. not long after that the fbi knocked on his door with an father to remove his name from the list. >> my understanding was that they wanted me to infiltrate or be an informant in the omaha muslim community around the u.s. and possibly other parts of the world. >> reporter: he said he refused. >> my religion prohibits me as far as spying on other muslims or inno

randall pinkston is live with with more on how the u.s. is reacting to these latest developments. ndall, are these done and dusted at the moment? >> well, tony, no one is saying nit those words. but for all practical effects it appears to be that the latest effort is at a standstill. still, neither israel nor the palestinians nor the u.s., will say officially that it is over now, as we reported yesterday, in charge of the west bank, announced plans for unity deal with hamas, which controlled gaza, and that deal include plans for a national election in about five weeks. should have no impact on peace talks but as we have heard, prime miner and says hamas is a terrorist organization, and he properly u.s. secretary spented talks. so the next move appears to be in the hands of the u.s., keeping in mind, that these peak talks were being held by secretary of state john kerry, who in the past nine months has shuffled between the u.s., and the west bank, trying to work out a frame work that might lead to a two week solution. we may see a way forward, but they are not willing to make the co

randall pinkston talks to an expert about how a simple idea was bird brained. >> reporter: this is whereart of story began. new york central park in 1890, a german immigrant released 60 european starlings, the first to north america as a tribute to william shakespeare. the other part began 300 years england, where william shakespeare placed references to birds, including the bird. >> he loved birds, they are musical. when you think of their songs, it connects you to the human voice. >> michael is a curator of a shakespeare library. he was a keen observer of nation, shakespeare, and including 50 species in his writings. and liked the starling's ability to mimic speech. the bard mentioned the starlling in one play "henry iv", he said, "i'll get a starling that will mention the name mortimer over and over to the king", he stomped off. >> the descendants of the 50 starl lings number more than 200 million. when they fly in large numbers, their formations like like art in motion. bird watchers and fans of shakespeare might appreciate them, wildlife experts say starlings are a nuisance. >> they

randall pinkston is in washington right now.we expect from the hears today. >> we're expecting to hear a very contrite chief executive officer apologize for her companies faultedy vehicles and expect remarks on steps g.m. is taking to correct defects. >> today marry barra heads to washington where she is expected to say she is deeply sorry and vowing to conduct a thorough investigation into a faulty ignition switch that has led to at least a dozen deaths, 32 car wrecks and 32 million recalls vehicles since february. >> clearly the fact that it took over 10 years indicates that we have work to do to improve our process. >> family members in the audience still struggle to understand how g.m. failed to address the defect they knew about since 2001. >> i'm hope to go speak to marry barra at least for a few minutes to find out what she's found out so far and what they plan to do to uncover all of this information that's been hidden for so many years. >> laura christian's 16-year-old daughter died when her airbags failed to deploy got