king of saudi arabia since the early 1970s. >> this morning new concerns about the stability of the volatile region. fate unknown. two japanese men held by isis. >> kenji is not an enemy of islamic state. >> pleas from a mother as a deadline passes. >> there are serious fears here in tokyo that perhaps isis never really intended to negotiate. >> a tense and delicate situation playing out on the world stage. let's talk live in the "cnn newsroom." good morning. i'm carol costello. thank you so much for joining me this morning. a new era for america's top ally in the arab world. thousands are gathering in the saudi arabia's capital for the funeral of king abdullah. he died after leading the nation for 19 years. his death brings uncertainty to a troubled region. so the south of saudi arabia yemen is in chaos. its government a critical ally to washington has crumbled. the u.s. state department is scrambling to evacuate embassy staff as others keep a wary eye on the crisis unfolding around them. more in a minute. first more about saudi arabia. a driving force in the recent plunge in oil prices. they dropped by more than half since july. so news of king abdullah's death sent a jolt through the markets and an almost immediate jump in prices. we have our global economic analyst joining me now from switzerland, site of the world economic forum. what do you make of this jump? >> i think any sort of change in the middle east right now given that things are so volatile will cause a move in oil prices. it's a relatively small jump right now. it looks as though saudi regime is committed to continuing to pump as they have been doing since the summer which is one of the reasons the prices are down. generally when prices get this low, the saudis major producer will say we'll cut production and bring prices back up. right now they've been trying to execute a strategy of driving the higher priced exporters out of the market and putting pressure on iran and u.s. shale producers. it looks as though that's going to continue. i think the markets will be watching very closely what happens with the succession. >> i hear two different things. i hear the king's successor not much will change. others say things really could change. in your mind who is right? >> i don't expect a huge change. i don't think there would be a real political reason for the saudis to do a 90-degree change in direction right now. i think it would hurt the oil markets right now. i think they will keep prices low until year's end knocking out higher production producers. a third of u.s. shale producers stopped and taken many of their riggs offline because they need a higher price to make that shale oil economical. so this is having a big affect on supply already. i do think that prices will stay reasonably low until the end of the year. >> all right. thanks for joining me. i appreciate it. let's head to yemen where houthi rebels appear to be in control of sanaa. despite the risks, officials say the offices in the embassy are up and running. chief senior international correspondent nick paton walsh is following the story for us from beirut lebanon. nick? >> reporter: we seemed eded to have lost nick and we'll try to get him back in a second. the fate of two japanese hostages held by isis is unknown this morning. the deadline to pay a $200 million ransom has apparently passed. the men shown in iraq last summer were featured in a video released by isis earlier this week just hours before that deadline, an isis spokesman telling a japanese broadcaster that a statement about hostages would soon be released. that statement has yet to come. one of the men's mothers making a desperate plea for her son's life while trying to appeal to his captors in the process. >> translator: to all members of isis kenji is not an enemy of isis. i really think he's a man who is able to help you as your friend once you get to know him. >> since august isis issues multiple videos featuring brutal beheading among them five western captives including three americans. japan awaits the fate of two citizens america is fighting isis sympathizers at home. 19-year-old shannon conley will be sentenced today for wanting to join isis. she faces five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. she didn't seem interested in talking about it. she did talk about her hairstyle and said "i'm in a vulnerable place right now and it would be stupid of me to talk to you when i'm vulnerable." she didn't want to talk about her crime saying "no comment. i'm a different person than when i came in." this is part of america's war on terror at home. let's talk about this and overarching war or terror. i'm joined by peter bergen and jim sciutto. welcome to you both. >> thanks carol. >> peter, i don't know what this young woman means by being a different person in light of changing her name but i can guess. in the meantime, a palestinian man stabbed 12 people in israel you know what happened in paris. isis is causing chaos in different parts of the world in different ways. >> we heard that the u.s. ambassador in iraq said that centcom has killed 6,000 fighters and i heard from a reliable source that we are killing 200 isis fighters a week. balanced against that is the fact that isis is drawing recruits from around the world including in the united states. people who are self-affiliating. we've seen reliable reports from "the new york times" that isis group has been forming in afghanistan. we've also seen reports on cnn that isis is making some inroads in yemen and we've seen groups in egypt pledge allegiance to isis and in libya. at the same time isis is taking a substantial beating in iraq it isn't losing ground in syria and we're finding people still recruiting. we were discussing yesterday that reliable estimates are 1,000 people are joining isis every month and if you do the math on that even though the u.s. and its allies are giving this group a tremendous beating in iraq it's basically a wash. >> so let's talk about yemen in light of what you just said. yemen, they don't have any government anymore. the country could fall into civil war, right? isis is trying to get a foothold in that country, what will the united states do jim? >> well the principle threat in yemen remains al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. the dominant group there it supporters loyalists in the hundreds perhaps dozens as counterterror officials have told me loyal to isis. now, you do have some aqap loyalists who are sympathetic to isis but in terms of operational capability yemen is about aqap. that doesn't take away the threat because this idea of self-radicalization is a real concern of u.s. counterterror officials and say while aqap and also the khorasan group based in syria is al qaeda tied i've been told the most likely attack to take place on the u.s. homeland if not the most ambitious but most likely would be lone wolves. people who radicalized online like this american girl conley and they just make a choice on their own to do something. that's a real concern. they may not be capable or be trained to carry out attacks like we saw in france that looks like there's an aqap tie there for "charlie hebdo" attacks but they are harder to track. they don't need to travel to yemen or iraq or syria. they don't need to train there. they can do it on their own. that's difficult to prevent frankly and easy kind of attack to carry out. >> i must say, authorities in the united states have been doing a fine job, right, because when you compare what's happening in the united states to what's happening in europe it's a different thing, peter. >> the volume is very different. i don't dispute the idea that united states has a pretty good handle on this. they are dealing with much more problems. the estimates we've seen are about a dozen americans who fought with or tried to fight with isis or the al qaeda affiliate in syria. we're talking about 600 brits. 700,000 frenchmen that have gone to syria. the volume is really on a very different scale and as jim reported in paris, there's just not enough people to follow the volume in france. we don't have that problem here in the united states. we have a good handle on this. the fbi director says he's pretty confident that they know who has gone. you don't know what you don't know of course but i think there's a very different feeling about this issue here in the united states than there would be in europe. >> jim, going back to yemen for just a second. the government in yemen was american backed right? and american drones were supposedly taking out members of al qaeda. people inside of our embassy are supposedly keeping an eye on things. it's been partially evacuated right now. what are we to make of that? >> you know carol, it's a big deal. the drone program there has worked to some degree keeping al qaeda in the arabian peninsula under pressure. and that requires the cooperation of the yemeni government and the now departed president of yemen was a big supporter of the drone program which is a difficult thing to do in that part of the world to publicly support that. a lot of countries will privately offer help but he publicly supported it. that's the potential loss of a major partner in these operations. and while there is great danger to u.s. personnel on the ground the reason you need personnel on the ground is to manage that relationship and also trade the intelligence with the yemeni partners so you can make those strikes effective. if you don't have them it takes pressure off aqap at a time when aqap is feeling good. they are claiming credit for a major attack in a western capital. this is something that u.s. officials are very concerned about. >> all right. jim sciutto, peter bergen thanks for your insight as always. i appreciate it. still to come new details on the final moments of airasia flight 8501 from the last communication with the pilots to the moment the plane fell off the radar. we'll walk you through the time line next. the traffic jam. scourge of 20th century city life. raiser of blood pressure. disrupter of supply chains. stealer of bedtime stories. polluter. frustrater. time thief. 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>> you know we really don't know. and what we don't want to do is read too much into the time line. what we do know is this meshs and matches with the previous information that we received which is the plane did increase altitude relatively quickly. we're talking about 6,000 feet in one minute or within a minute. that is a pretty big distance when you talk about that frame of time. one minute. you would imagine if you were onboard that plane, you'll feel that pressure pushing you downwards on your seat because you're moving up so quickly. does this tell us anything about why the plane crashed? i think it's too early to say. it's too early to draw any conclusions. this does flush out second by second minute by minute what was happening with the aircraft carol. >> all right. rene marsh reporting live from washington. thank you. still to come in the "newsroom," happiness isn't the only contagious thing at disneyland. the controversial measles outbreak is spreading. doctors are now weighing in. you give... and you give... and then you give some more. but sometimes you get. and so you take. tylenol® cold is strong enough for you while children's tylenol® is gentle enough for them. we give you relief from your cold and flu. you give them everything you've got. tylenol®. that measles outbreak is spreading. health offices report 50 cases are now linked to disneyland most are in state in california but a handful of park visitors did carry measles home to other states and even mexico. >> health officials traced the measles out break here to the middle of december. >> it was initially at disneyland but people need to be concerned if they're not protected, they should get protected because it's in our community. >> what's frustrating officials is most of the cases here involve people who did not get measles shots. >> it's such a serious disease that if you got the vaccination, it protects you so why aren't we doing it? >> it's a question that hangs in the air here like the measles itself. the disease is airborne. no handshake or touching required to spread the disease. >> any confined space with a lot of people if you have somebody that's infectious and you're not protected, there's a 90% chance that you'll come down with the disease. >> that makes the theme park a good inkcubateor with lots of people in closed spaces. six measles patients are disneyland employees. the theme park said in a statement, it raised edd awareness about the outbreak offered vaccinations and immunity tests. disneyland added any cast member who may have come in contact with those who tested positive for measles was put on paid leave until their test results come back. one measles patient is a student at nearby huntington beach high school. officials report 24 classmates were told to stay home because they were not vaccinated and had close contact with the measles patient. high anxiety here that has nothing to do with thrill rides and health officials say the tension and outbreak could have been avoided with measles shots. >> health officers confirm 59 cases of measles. 42 directly linked to disneyland. the vaccination status is known for 34 of those cases. of the 34 24 people were unvaccinated. one people received one dose and five people received two or more doses. so if we are vaccinated, it raises the question how protected are we? dr. sanjay gupta is weighing in. >> if you're an adult and you got the measles shot and then a booster shot you should be protected. if you're not sure about that you can get a blood test from your doctor and find out how many antibodies you have in your blood. you could get another booster shot as well which is what some doctors are advising their patients to do. >> so let's get another professional's opinion. welcome, doctor. that means i may have to get a booster shot if i visit california and that's not making me very happy. >> you don't like the needles? >> don't like the needles. i should be protected. i got my measles vaccination as a child. >> you feel cheated? if everyone else had their measles vaks measles vaccinations you wouldn't have to worry. most people talking 95%, 98%, vaccination rates, you wouldn't have to worry but now you do. >> why are some adults not listening to doctors like yourself? >> i think the anti-vaccination movement is an interesting phenomenon. we say they are stupid and morons and selfish and in fact these people are not monsters. they're trying to protect their children. anti-vaccination goes along with other kinds of -- resistance to government. concern about your children. a kind of natural style of parenting. not all beliefs about their parenting would be wrong or consistent -- >> they're not thinking about the other person's child. >> they looked at the wrong set of evidence. if you look at evidence about how bad vaccinations are, you find a huge amount. almost all of it is completely wrong. you can find scandals and bad things to say about big pharma and you can find scandals likes cia using vaccination campaigns in pakistan to track down osama bin laden all of which plays into a conspiracy theory. the way we should approach that movement is undermining it with reasonableness with education, or the kind of gentleness of the individuals concerned. >> what about laws? in california you don't have to get your child vaccinated against measles. you can opt out. >> the opting out is easier than it should be but it's not simply a case of saying you don't want vaccination. i think that not allowing children who haven't had their vaccines in school is a reasonable thing to do in the case of these diseases. measles used to kill a few hundred americans every year. by the time -- in the year 2000 we had no new cases in america. that was really an extraordinary achievement. to have the setback we've got now with hundreds of cases a year is extraordinary to me. i would say for these diseases is potentially fatal disease that can cause brain damage severe respiratory problems we should look at compelling people to do it. >> my final question. shouldn't we have eradicated measles? >> in the states i think it would be reasonable to say in the states and other developed countries, we did about as much as we possibly could. the problem is cases are coming in from overseas. a number of cases are coming in from the places like philippines with large number of cases surging up. it's going to be very difficult globally we could think about eradicateing measles but we need high vaccination rates. for the moment in the u.s. it's a disease we need to be concerned about. >> doctor thank you so much for coming in. i appreciate it. still to come in the "newsroom," it's the nfl's version of who done it. the two men at the center of deflategate deny responsibility but it doesn't stop fingers from being pointed right at them. you're driving along, having a perfectly nice day, when out of nowhere a pick-up truck slams into your brand new car. one second it wasn't there and the next second... boom! you've had your first accident. now you have to make your first claim. so you talk to your insurance company and... boom! you're blindsided for a second time. they won't give you enough money to replace your brand new car. don't those people know you're already shaken up? 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>> i don't believe so. i feel like i've always played within the rules. >> the league has not contacted you to get your side of the story on this? >> no. >> you have to talk to the refs and you have to talk to the equipment managers and you have to find the ball boys and talk to tom brady and talk to bill belichick and maybe check videotapes at the sideline. why does it take five days to do that? >> they are dragging it out so they can have it happen after the super bowl. >> this isn't isis. no one is dying. we'll get through this. hopefully we can really start preparing for seattle and get our mind focused there. >> and even more people were watching the super bowl this year. it's not just the nfl cheating. unfortunately cheating can be found in every sport. remember the black socks scandal where the sox threw the world series. 1994 the husband of figure skater tonia harding tries to take out rival nancy kerrigan with an attack on her knee before the olympics and after years of fighting allegations of doping cyclist lance armstrong admitted to using performance enhancing drugs along with his teammate. sean klein joins us now to talk more about this. good morning. >> good morning. thanks for having me on. >> thanks for being here. can you compare what's going on right now within the new england patriots organization to these other cheating scandals? >> in some ways yes. they are all part of a broader problem. i think as your intro showed those scandals are much worse than this scandal which is relatively minor. more comparable to something like a traffic violation rather than throwing the world series or cheating using performance enhancing drugs. >> you say this is like a traffic ticket a minor traffic offense? >> i think it's more in that vain yeah. it had no impact on the game. >> we don't know that. >> they have played in the second half with regulation balls and patriots had a better offense in the second half than in the first half. i think that's some evidence for why it didn't really have any impact on the game. also i think it's a rule violation and if they tampered with balls they should be punished accordingly. i'm not trying to excuse them. i'm trying to put it into proper context. it's not on the scale of other scandals that you mention. >> let me run this by you. we have kind of become a nation of cheaters. it's kind of okay. everybody cheats. kids cheat on their s.a.t.s. they cheat in school. a big cheating problem in high schools. everybody cheats. it's become okay. >> i don't know if it's become okay. i don't know if that's something new. we know about it more. if you go back to ancient greece there's evidence of performance enhancing drugs in the ancient olympics. it's not something that i think is new. that doesn't excuse it. the fact that most -- a lot of quarterbacks have come out and said they do similar things like this to footballs before games. that doesn't excuse it either but again it does mitigate a little bit if the nfl has been giving tacit approval to this for several years now, i think that does mitigate some of it. >> isn't that what we said about the baseball steroid scandal. everybody is doing it. if you really wanted to compete, you had to take steroids because everyone was doing it so it wasn't cheating it was just how you played the game. >> i think i'm saying something a little different. it's not just that everybody is doing it that is excusing. it's the fact that if the nfl knew that this was going on and looked the other way and then players like brady and others who may have tampered with balls, that may mitigate it a little bit. i don't think it excuses it or justifies it but i think it does temper back some of the ridiculous claims that he should -- either one should be suspended or thrown out of the league or anything like that. >> here's the thing. here's the thing. i heard this from more than one analyst, unless there's video evidence of someone with a needle deflating a ball we'll probably never know what exactly happened. >> that's probably true. i don't know if we need precisely video evidence of someone doing it to the footballs but we need more than we have now which is really just the fact that some balls were underinflated. we need to know about how this happened and who was involved. >> doesn't that mean that the new england patriots if they did indeed -- if someone on the team is responsible for this doesn't that mean they just get away with it and they win the super bowl and all is great? >> well there's as lot of ifs there. i think there is something that we need to pay attention to which there's a difference between really going out to skirt the rules versus playing on the edge. i think the patriots have shown they like to play on the edge. they go right up to the line and sometimes that means you cross over the line versus really intending to skirt the rules directly and that i think we need more evidence for that before we can really accuse them or suspend them or take away their super bowl birth or anything like that. we don't have evidence yet. we can't punish them. >> that's very true. shawn klein, thank you for sparring with me this morning. i enjoyed it. >> thank you for having me. >> you're welcome. still to come in the "newsroom," the sundance film festival is in full swing. up next we'll take you there live and give you a sneak peek at what movies are getting the biggest buzz. thanks for the ride around norfolk! and i just wanted to say geico is proud to have served the military for over 75 years! roger that. captain's waiting to give you a tour of the wisconsin now. could've parked a little bit closer... it's gonna be dark by the time i get there. geico. proudly serving the military for over 75 years. when it comes to good nutrition...i'm no expert. that would be my daughter -- hi dad. she's a dietitian. and back when i wasn't eating right, she got me drinking boost. it's got a great taste and it helps give me the nutrition i was missing. helping me stay more like me. 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[ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. transamerica. transform tomorrow. when you run a business, you can't settle for slow. that's why i always choose the fastest intern. the fastest printer. the fastest lunch. turkey club. the fastest pencil sharpener. the fastest elevator. the fastest speed dial. the fastest office plant. so why wouldn't i choose the fastest wifi? i would. switch to comcast business and get the fastest wifi with the most coverage. comcast business. built for business. one of argentina's top prosecutors found dead in a hotel room. initially officials said he killed himself but now it appears to be something more sinister. brian todd has more for you. >> reporter: he was found dead in his apartment with a bullet in his brain. a gun and shell casing on the floor despite having the protection of a ten-man security detail. that was hours before he was due to testify on explosive allegations he made in a notorious terrorism case. now the mysterious death of the argentine prosecutor is gathering intrigue and enveloping the leaders of two powerful governments. >> hollywood would not accept a script like this. this is completely out of the pages of a spy thriller. >> just after his death last sunday argentina's president called it a suicide but now says she doubts it. investigators says there was no gun residue found on his hands as there would be if he had pulled the trigger. >> alberto had been threatened many times and in february 2013 he received photos and threats and photos and images that were deeply disturbing showing him and his daughters. >> reporter: he was investigating the 1994 bombing of the jewish community center that killed 85 people. he was about to testify about his report saying iran was behind the attack. tehran denies that. he was also about to testify that argentine president's government was trying to cover up iran's involvement in exchange for better trade with iran. er her aides deny those allegations. >> reporter: i spoke with phone withage with argentina's foreign minister. were they involved? >> they were not involved. no. nobody wanted him more to answer the question than the residents of argentina and myself. >> reporter: iran also had a strong motive to kill him for his relentless pursuit of officials in connection with the terrorist bombing. >> iran has a long history as was noted in detail in his report including with evidence from countries where these other assassinations happened of carrying out assassinations around the world. >> reporter: the iranian regime has been accused of assassination plots in the u.s. the failed plot to assassinate saudi arabia's ambassador to the u.s. here at this washington restaurant. the iranians denied involvement in that. we tried to get iranian officials to respond to the comments they could have been involved in the argentine prosecutor's death. they have not responded. brian todd cnn, washington. checking other top stories for you at 53 minutes past, marco rubio may be in it to win it for 2016. the republican senator is moving closer to a presidential bid after hiring a new finance director and planning a fund-raising trip to california next week. rubio is also scheduled to visit some of the early primary states next month. nation's airlines are cashing in on the recent plunge in oil prices. southwest airlines says it will save about half a billion dollars just in the first three months of this year. other airlines are boasting similar gains. customers are not seeing cheaper tickets because demand is up though. check out this dad losing it at a youth game. he's screaming as he approaches the glass and drives home his point by hammer it with one hand without missing a beat and is shrieking. believe it or not, he did have one supporter in the crowd who yelled out, way to go paul. this next video may make you ski sick if you ever wondered what it's like to be one of the world's best free style skiers zooming down the mountain and soaring over jumps. cnn's jeanne moos has the next best thing to being there. >> reporter: you say you don't ski? no problem. might as well be in this guy's skis. doing 360s while going down a mountains in the french alps going not just airborne but underground. not just light at the end of this tunnel, there's something called a flat spin. for this frenchman, it's no biggy. >> it's okay. it was easy. >> reporter: for morealee mortals it takes your breath away. it's the closest thing to a ski god but now he's released five-minute video he calls one of those days. without leaving your computer you feel like you strapped on goggles and wind is whipping through your hair. he does a jump over the ski patrol carrying a stretcher. flies off the ski lift and even when he runs out of snow he keeps going. the video was shot over a couple of days at his hometown's resort. check out his grand finale. a rotation up on the deck amid diners. he slides on the rail launches onto the gondola and cutting the line and leaving those waiting on the other side of the closing door. was this real or fake people ask? the jumps are definitely real. someone notes that twice in the video we see birds that do not exist in france. check out the eagle. he says the birds were added to make the video more entertaining. same for two people in the chair lift. those are real diners on the deck who enjoyed watching retakes. no diners were killed in the making of this scene. >> at one point my skis went close to someone but no one got hurt. >> reporter: there were no hurt feelings about him cutting the line to the gondola. they were all in on it happy to be props for a skier who deserves props. jeanne moos cnn, new york. >> man, i wish i had dramamine before that story. "newsroom" with john berman after the break. upheaval in the middle east. a crucial u.s. ally is dead. an entire government crumbles. america less safe today. the happiest place on earth not so much right now. a measles outbreak linked to disneyland in california. what is fueling the comeback of a disease once declared eradicate eradicated? and tom brady, he might be handsome but the question today, was he too cute? and this question on deflate-gate. what if there is no