Have received 50 more pay. And the widely anticipated movie 50 shades of grey hitting the silver screen. Already breaking Box Office Records in europe. Could have a big valentines day weekend. Universal is part of the comcast family. In the meantime lets go to michelle with a check on the markets at this hour. Yeah lets take a look at the u. S. Futures following yesterdays 100 point gain on the dow and the nasdaq at a 15 year high. Strength in europe feeding into the u. S. The numbers suggest the dow would open higher by 33 points we want to bring your attention to the european markets. Theyre on track to end this volatile week on seven year highs. The german dax crossing the 11,000 mark after germany gdp numbers came in higher than expected. Greece however weaker than expected. Well talk more about that later. Shares of conagra tanking citing a strong dollar and weak sales. They are also appointing former chief Sean Connolly as the new ceo ceo. Kraft is switching up the ranks. Its cfo
Sentencing. Bob riddell joins us live where the announcement is being made bob. Reporter speaking moments ago, u. S. Attorney general eric holder announcing at the American Bar Association meeting that, quote, we must face reality that in too many ways our criminal Justice System is broken especially when it comes to the explosion of this countrys prison population hence, this mornings announcement on a new policy change towards the war on drugs. He pointed out that if you look at our population we comprise 5 of the worlds population and yet house 25 of the jail population. Half for drug offenses. He says the idea of jail should be to punish and rehabilitate not to warehouse and forget and says what weve got going on right now is inefficient and unsustainable. So to deal with this he is now directing his 94 u. S. Attorneys throughout the country to stop charging people with low level drug crimes that result in mandatory minimum sentences and ends up clogging our prisons as long as the
Fate of so many in the caribbean who lost everything. You can see just how enormous this hurricane is from space, right behind it, hurricane jose, about to bring more havoc to already hardhit areas by irma. Elizabeth thanks for joining us. Welcome to this special threehour edition of americas news headquarters from washington. Im elizabeth prann. Leland its going to be a very long weekend for folks down in florida and beyond. Nice to be with you, great to be with you at home. A lot of Team Coverage here, im leland vittert. Were awaiting a News Conference from governor rick scott who is going to be in rare park, florida, and hes checking on preparations and already 7,000 natural guard troops called up, back to the governor in minutes. Miami beach, high winds and rain are lashing the beach. Hurricane irma is 22 miles south of miami and barrelling toward the florida coast after literally flattening a number of caribbean islands. The storm has been downgraded to a category 3, but the offic
Those palm fronds flying around and a huge tree went down in front of a wendys. Animals even getting pretty confused about this weather. Weve seen some squirrels and ducks be in places they probably shouldnt be in. All of this continues to change by the minute. But ft. Lauderdale may not be in the eye of the storm, but we are feeling it. Thats important to note. If we can show you the bands that are going around ft. Lauderdale. Well show you the bands of the storm. Its consistent around miami and ft. Lauderdale. Youre still getting winds and theyre going to be gusts over here. Take a look at this. This is the area that jo ling is in. Youre still in that red band so the gusts are not going to let up for you for a while. That continues to be saltwater which is corrosive and dangerous and the mayor of ft. Lauderdale was telling me earlier that flying debris and tornadoes continue to be a concern for him, along i95 going in and through ft. Lauderdale from miami. Weve seen billboards with h