wall on our southern border and i will have mexico pay for that wall. >> donald trump wants a wall bigger and more secure than what's already there. we'll look at what's practical and what's politics. >> and caring for cubs. a panda cub lives for just a few days. good evening i'm antonio mora. this is al jazeera america. the debate over gun violence is gripping the state of virginia tonight after a disgruntled ex television reporter gunned down two reporters today. vester lee flanagan. john terret, i can only imagine how the community has reacted. >> reporter: it really is, the wave of sympathy started early this morning and has now swept around the 50 states, there's no doubt about that. the latest news, vester lee flanagan, the assumed gunman was using a glock 9 millimeter pistol. the police say he bought two weapons legally, quite legally in july and in a manifesto he put out to abc news two hours after the killings, this morning, he said he was inspired to buy the weapons after the church shootings in charmts south carolina back in july. -- in charleston, south carolina in july. this is flee fleer rhone oak, v. alison park an walker and and a, news of their deaths is resonating very badly. 6:45 a.m., television reporter alison parker and adam ward were on the air live. they never saw it coming. the pair gunned down while interviewing vicky gardner, a representative of the chamber of commerce was also shot and wounded. quution. >> okay not sure what happened there. we'll let you know as soon as we find out what those sounds were from. >> shock came to grips with the reality that they just witnessed the murder of their co-workers. >> we're all in the state of shock here. you can hear people behind us in the newsroom crying. it's hard to. it's hard to comprehend. >> the station's general manager confirmed the stunning news. >> i cannot tell you how much they were loved. alison and adam by the wdbj 7 team. our hearts are broken and our sympathies go to the entire staff but the parents and family of adam ward and alison peaker who were just out doing their jobs today. >> vester lee flanagan who appeared on the station as bryce williams and was fired in 2013. >> eventually after many incidents of his anger coming to the fore, wees dismisshim. -- we dismissed him. and he did not take that well. we had to call the police to escort him from the building. >> a video of him, walk up to the victims and opening fire. al jazeera has chosen to show only there image. flanagan had sent a manifesto of sorts, two hours after the shootings, outlining his reason for the killings. he speaks about the shootings in charmts, soutcharleston, south . and the shooting of 1999, flanagan said he was the victim of bullying. >> what was taking place there, there was some forethought given as to the chain of events that would happen. >> reporter: police finally caught up with flanagan during a highway chase which ended in this field. >> i exited my vehicle with several other troopers and we approached the vehicle. >> what did you find? >> a gentleman who appeared to be suffering from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. >> the spokesman jeerts referring tspokesman josh earnen violence. whenever he hears of it it breaks his heart. antonio. >> thank you john. john holmes, was sentenced to life in prison. holmes attorney says he will not appeal the decision. questions are raised as to whether any going better than it actually is. national security correspondent jamie mcintire has more from washington. >> the question is when president obama makes upbeat pronouncements like this is he really working off the best intelligence? >> in short i.s.i.l.'s recent losses in both syria and iraq prove that i.s.i.l. can and will be defeated. >> the new york times reports an internal inquiry, citing unnamed officials, the pentagon's unnamed general is looking into whether central command is improperly reworking intelligence assessments to provide a more optimistic assessment of progress. weapons of mass destruction used to support the u.s. invasion of iraq in 2003. no such weapons were ever found. touring the vietnam war, u.s. military commanders often discounted pessimistic intelligence assessments arguing for the escalation of military force. more recently u.s. central command briefers have provided optimistic reports of assessments defense i.s.i.l. which have quickly been proven wrong. on cent com, the offensive to retake mosul could begin as early as april or may of this year. it now seems to be more than a year away at best. a briefer offered this flawed assessment about the situation in ramadi. >> we firmly believe daesh is on the defensive, conducting small scale localizing harassing attacks, occasional high profile attacks in order to feed their information and propaganda apparatus. >> daesh another name for i.s.i.l. was not on the defensive, in fact at that very moment, ramadi was falling and iraqi forces were being routed. intelligence is never perfect and policy makers take that into account as they try to stay clear eyed about the progress of the war. >> i'm confident we will defeat i.s.i.l. it is hard work. it's difficult work, i think we have the right strategy. >> in arguing i.s.i.l. is losing, the pentagon is quick to cite the number of air strikes or the area i.s.i.l. is losing. but there is a robust debate in the intelligence community about what it means. one official concluded after a year of bombing i.s.i.l. was essentially no weaker and the war was essentially a stalemate. u.s. central command says it welcomes the independent oversight of the peb pentagon inspector general. the guard against any one opinion or report will unduly influence officials. antonio. >> thank you jamie. a man wearing a military uniform, opened fire. no one has claimed responsibility for the attack. he was one of the fbi's most wanted terrorists, the man suspected of being behind the 1996 khobar tower bombings has been apparently captured. one of three people blamed for a truck bombing at a u.s. air force dormitory in saudi arabia. it happened in june of 1996. 19 americans were killed and 500 other people were injured. at the time, mugasil allegedly led the saudi division of hezbollah. police in a detroit suburb are hunting for whoever is responsible for racist political fliers that have started to circulate. bisi onile-ere reports. >> the headline is bold, let's get the blacks out of southfield in november. on one the images of two white deputy police chiefs and three other white men running in the upcoming election. the fliers began surfacing in this metro detroit suburb over the weekend. on another flier is a photo of trayvon martin, with the words captioned, zimmerman was right, we will stop thugs like that. martin was 17 when he was shot and killed in 2012. southfield is predominantly black and some residents are outraged. >> i was born in the '50s. came up through the civil rights stuff and all that and when i see stuff like that it's kind of sick thing. >> i'm pawl appalled at this, cy this is race-baiting. >> ken siver co-founded the city's dr. martin luther king, jr. task force, the importance of celebrating the national holiday. also a candidate for southfield mayor. his name appears on the flier. he feels he's being targeted. >> what is your response to people that think you're behind these fliers? >> my response that i'm not. this is someone who is trying to insight racial tension in our city which we lack or dirty campaign trick. >> no matter what the motivation is, this is absolutely despicable and we will not tolerate it in our community. >> pat haney is president of the mlb task force. she questions the motivation behind the fliers. >> it may be that this is not done buy white racist individual or organization, but in fact done in order to insight people of color to come out and vote directly opposite of what the flier purports. >> many who live here suspect the person behind the fliers isn't a southfield resident and as police investigate the communities moves beyond the hate. bisi onile-ere, al jazeera, southfield, michigan. >> tropical storm erica is likely to become a hurricane. even if erica strengthens when it gets near florida, it probably won't get much beyond a category 1. the lathest prediction has the eye not coming ashore in florida. in the gop presidential race there has been a lot of talk about building a wall along the entire u.s.-mexico border. coming up, a look behind the rhetoric. and investors enjoy a huge day on wall street. >> the wild ride on wall street continued wednesday. the dow jones ended a six day losing streak with a 619 point gain. it closed at 16,285, up 4% from tuesday's close. the nasdaq and s&p 500 saw similar gains. the unsettlesituation in asia so far news from asia is good. tokyo's nikkei exchange is up on what is already thursday there and so are markets in hong kong and in china. republican presidential candidate donald trump has been calling for a wall to be built between the u.s. and mexico brt thermexico butthere are politicl reasons why it should not be done. paul beban is in nogales. paul. >> you can see this wall is built of steel and concrete, 20 feet high, looks like it would be impossible o to get over or through. but they do, manage to get over this border one way or another. they crawl over, tunnel under. in fact last year when i was here filming another series about the border, my crew saw two who went over and pack in no time whatever. we assume they were drug runners. take a look. >> they shot right over. donald trump said he will stop any like those and any other illegals by replacing this fence with a wall, he called it a great wall of trump, the ma wale may be a joke. but is he serious? almost 2,000 miles from the pacific ocean all the way to the gulf of mexico even possible? let's take a look at the facts and the fence. along the border there are about 670 miles of border fence in section is about a third of the border. and according to the government accountability office depending on the terrain and the type of fence it costs anywhere between $200,000 and $15 million per mile to build the fence. so the total bill for that 670 miles about $2.4 billion. trump says his wall would be big are and even more secure than the current fence. so it's safe to say that it would cost many times what's already been spent. that $2.4 billion that was just to build the fence. it costs hundreds of millions of dollars more every year to maintain it. then there's the 3.7 billion we spent on 21,000 border patrol agents keeping them in the field like that guy. and the border patrol says you don't actually need a solid wall because this is where the ruggedness and the remoteness of the terrain does the job for you. but experts say maybe the strongest argument against a wall is that a wall would not address the biggest part of the illegal immigration problem.and that'problem.and that's becausee majorities of those who make it through illegally, they use forged immigration documents. or hide in vehicles. could trump even build his wall? would it be possible? that is certainly not clear. would it solve the problem? probably not. one thing we know for sure it would cost an extraordinary amount of taxpayer money. paul beban, al jazeera on the u.s. mexico border. >> a pioneer in the civil rights movement who riske risked her le helping to lead the bloody sunday selma movement, has died. amelia boynton robinson. a new report outlines what happened when millions of gallons of toxic water spilled into the colorado river. the death of a newborn panda highlights how difficult it is to save them from extinction. inction. >> i'll have two or three puffs and i'll already have a nicotine buzz. >> investigators are blaming the environmental protection agency for the recent toxic spill that polluted waterways across the pacific northwest. officials underestimated the amount of pressure that had been created in the inactive mine. four states have been affected by the pollution. sad news today from the national zoo in washington, d.c. the zoo announced the death of one of the twin cubs born saturday to giant panda mei jong. she is on an extended loan to the u.s. from china. giant pandas have an especially difficult time breeding. >> we are so incredibly hopeful because we knew the talent on site. when we realized the cub wasn't going to make it, it was devastating. >> veterinarians at the washington zoo were disappointed. >> mei jong at the point of her second cub being born, was showing challenges, at handling animals. we decided to swap cubs back and forthwith mom. however, this morning when our team performed the swap again we immediately noted the little cub had not increased in weight, appeared weaker and was exhibiting possible respiratory issues. >> unfortunately, the cub didn't pull through, passing away wednesday afternoon. mei jong was inseminated by two different pandas. >> actually, the babies could have two separately fathers because we used the semen from ours and the other. >> doctors say mei jong is doing well and they're optimistic about the survival of the other twin. >> we have a healthy mom and baby. it is our job to see that both mom and cub survive and continue to thrive. >> before moving to memphis she worked at the national zoo for five years. cowrnts, whecourtney, i have a f questions about evolution. first, may jong stopped caring for the weaker baby on monday. that sounds like a terrible sophie's choice but it's important from an evolutionary standpoint. >> absolutely. i think that the maternal instinct is something that can't be down played. and oftentimes, animal mothers are obviously the first ones that -- they know something's going on but you know with pandas they -- 99% of the time are not capable of dealing with twins as it is. wild pandas will you know it's been known they'll pick one baby and care for that one baby. so it's tough to say, you know i don't think anyone can say that she clearly didn't care for one cub, maybe it was just, you know the way that she was built. >> and panda mothers really face a terrible challenge in caring for the babies. is may jong's health something that needs to be watched in the months to come come? >> i'm sorry, is her healthy absolutely. they have one of the best teams in the world watching after may jong and the baby and believe you me, she will be monitored around the clock. i know that. and those -- >> the other evolutionary question i had for you is why do these very large animals have these tiny underdeveloped helpless cubs that are so hard that have such a rough time surviving? >> oh gosh that's anybody's guess. it is one of the many mysteries of giant pandas. they live in such an extreme environment. they have evolved you know why would a carnivore vostle evolvet nothing but grass? why would they evolve to only be able to breed two days out of the entire year? only be receptive two days out of the entire year and give birth to such a small helpless underdeveloped animal. and i know -- >> for such reasons it's especially important for them to breed in captivity. >> absolutely. anybody who has giant pandas or any endangered species in zoos to help contribute to their population. zoos are rapidly becoming the only place that your common person can see a lot of these species. and how else can people connect in order to help their counterparts in the wild. >> quick final question courtney, how optimistic are you about the other baby? >> i don't know. i have spoken to only a couple of people on the team because their hands are full. the other cub seems to be strong and may is showing great pla alternatively instincts. , best of of luck for them. >> let's keep our fingers crossed. thanks. another eruption from mexico's fire volcano, a new knowledge amount of lava and a plume of ash. people in jalisco state have been warned to stay miles away from the site. ray suarez is up next with "inside story," have a great night. ftc ftc [ ♪ ] no one wants to see a young person hurt or a future compromised. with every year we learn more about the routine injuries and long-term affects of scholastic sports on young bodies. our dreams of college scholarships and professional glory pushing kids to play more, harder, younger than before. playing the game -

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