PBS NewsHour full episode Sept. 13, 2017

On the "NewsHour" tonight: Irma's tragic wrath.
Eight die in a Florida nursing home amid power outages across the Southeastern U.S., and
a string of Caribbean islands are ravaged to the point of ruin.
Then, shifting political winds -- what the push for universal health care on the left
and tax reform on the right reveal about new dividing lines in Washington.
Plus, Cassini's final mission.
After 20 years of exploring Saturn, the NASA spacecraft will crash into the planet in a
death dive for data.
LINDA SPILKER, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: The mysteries we want to solve with the grand
finale mostly have to do with revealing Saturn from the inside out.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK)
JUDY WOODRUFF: All across Florida tonight, they're working to turn the lights back on
and repair hurricane damage.
And now there's a new fear.
Eight people died today at a nursing home, spotlighting the plight of the elderly caught
up in Irma's aftermath, in a state with four million senior citizens.
Our John Yang begins our coverage.
JOHN YANG: The tragedy struck at this nursing home in Hollywood, Florida.
Officials said it had electricity, but the air conditioning wasn't working.
TOMAS SANCHEZ, Hollywood, Florida, Police Chief: Our investigation has revealed that
it's extremely hot on the second floor of the facility.
JOHN YANG: Police Chief Tomas Sanchez gave few details.
TOMAS SANCHEZ: We are conducting a criminal investigation inside.
We believe at this time it may be related to the loss of power in the storm, but we're
conducting a criminal investigation, not ruling anything out.
JOHN YANG: Authorities evacuated more than a hundred patients to nearby hospitals, many
on stretchers and in wheelchairs.
Robert Gould, with the state's largest power utility, suggested it all could have been
prevented.
ROBERT GOULD, Florida Power & Light: It points to the need for having plans in advance when
it comes to emergency preparation.
This facility wasn't listed as a top critical infrastructure -- top-tier critical infrastructure
facility.
And that's what we work with the counties, for them to help identify those facilities.
JOHN YANG: Across Florida, utility crews have been working around the clock to restore power,
and there have been other reports of elderly tenants trapped in their homes.
The situation is especially dire in the Keys, home to some 70,000 people.
Some areas remain unreachable to all except search-and-rescue teams.
The aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln is off Key West, a floating base for helicopters
delivering aid.
Urgent repairs are under way on US-1, the lone highway connecting the islands.
And water service is slowly being restored to those like Shawne Street, who rode out
the storm in Cudjoe Key.
SHAWNE STREET, Hurricane Victim: When Katrina hit Louisiana and stuff like that, and you
feel sorry for the people and you think, what are they going through?
But when it hits home, it's totally different, you know?
And it's not just us.
It's everybody.
JOHN YANG: Evacuees are slowly trickling back, returning to survey what's left.
MAN: I expected some debris, because we knew the direction that the winds were blowing,
they were going to carry debris onto our property.
It has happened before.
We were not expecting to find somebody else's sailboat on our backyard, and someone else's
dock with a fishing station on our backyard.
JOHN YANG: The economic costs of Irma are mounting.
State agencies report an estimated $250 million in storm preparation and recovery expenses
so far, and that price tag is expected to soar before it's over.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm John Yang.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now to the Northern Caribbean, where island dwellers have spent a week amid
smashed ruins, with no power and reports of fighting over food.
The president of France visited St. Barts today, after spending the night on a cot on
St. Martin.
British foreign secretary Boris Johnson was on Anguilla, and so was Alex Thomson, of Independent
Television News.
ALEX THOMSON: A lot of criticism, Foreign Secretary, that the British have been tardy
in their response, compared to the French just over there in St. Martin.
What do you say?
BORIS JOHNSON, British Foreign Minister: Well, I don't obviously agree with that, because
I think if you look at the facts, we have had RAF on the spot, on time.
ALEX THOMSON: But a week gone by and still no substantial aid has come into this place.
BORIS JOHNSON: I can tell you that you have got, on the streets of Anguilla, of the British
Virgin Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, you have U.K. armed services personnel.
You have got British police officers.
ALEX THOMSON: But they want food, Foreign Secretary.
They want water, and they're not getting it.
BORIS JOHNSON: That very plane I have just arrived on is laden with aid.
ALEX THOMSON: Except that very plane wasn't laden with food or water aid.
We checked.
It was laden with British military personnel, their necessary rations and water, aid, of
course, in the wide sense, but not the specifics we put to the foreign secretary.
Anguillans say they need fuel, water, electricity, food.
And it's true the Red Cross has been distributing food parcels for some days.
The Anguillan Red Cross has been handing out food to islanders here since the day after
the hurricane, and that's impressive.
But the fact is, as fast as the food goes in, they're giving it out.
And for these people behind me, these islanders, they're waiting from the early morning when
this place opens for distribution, several hours later, at noon.
MAN: The Anguilla Red Cross, we lost our roof for the offices.
We lost our roof for the -- for our relief supplies, government relief supplies.
The building was torn apart.
So in terms of regrouping and getting things together and getting things organized, it
was a huge effort.
ALEX THOMSON: You get one ration a day, and everyone we spoke to said it's not nearly
enough.
WOMAN: I came back, and this is what they gave me for a family of five?
Now I can just go home and we eat this in no time.
And then I'm hearing that we have help, everything is done, everything is OK.
So, in my -- I cannot see where everything is OK.
MAN: The island needs help.
We need help from Britain.
If Britain says that they are responsible for Anguilla and Anguillans, they need to
stand up to their word.
ALEX THOMSON: It's the Anguillans who so far have done an extraordinary job in terms of
clear-up, and will continue to shoulder the burden.
British marines are making a difference though, lifting and shifting rubble at the hospital
this morning, royal engineers royally engineering a new roof, part of what is now Britain's
biggest overseas military deployment since Libya seven years ago.
But the criticism of too little, too late is persistent here, from the street up to
the political establishment.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We keep our focus on the Caribbean and the havoc Irma unleashed on the U.S. Virgin
Islands.
Jordyn Holman of Bloomberg just returned after spending 36 hours in the U.S. territories,
where some complain they're being forgotten.
We begin with what she witnessed.
JORDYN HOLMAN, Bloomberg: So, I went to the Virgin Islands, where they were hit by a Category
5 Hurricane Irma last week.
So, I went to St. Thomas and St. John, which really got the brunt of the hurricane.
I saw a lot of devastation.
It's a tourist attraction, usually plush, green, beautiful island.
It was pretty much barren from the strong winds, a lot of utility poles down, a lot
of crushed cars, houses without roofs.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what are the circumstances people are living in now?
Do they have -- do most people have a place to live?
JORDYN HOLMAN: So, on the islands, electricity is really down.
There's not running water in a lot of homes.
Like I said, roofs are off of homes, so people are living in complete darkness.
There's no A.C. It's a very hot island.
And so people are just trying to find a way out or to figure out how to hunker down and
work through the situation.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, they have decided to stay, most of the people you talked to?
JORDYN HOLMAN: Some of the people I talked to, some were waiting in line to get on a
boat to go to Puerto Rico to get a flight to the mainland.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Jordyn, we have been reading about some folks who live down there being
angry, upset that they haven't been getting more help, more support, because these are,
after all, the U.S. Virgin Islands.
What were they telling you about that?
JORDYN HOLMAN: Yes.
So, when I was in St. Thomas, which is a very touristy attraction, I talked to some residents
up there who were on a hill.
They felt like they hadn't gotten enough aid.
They would have to walk down the hill to get water or medical assistance.
And they just didn't feel like the attention was put on them like we had coverage for Florida
and Texas.
And so some people wanted, you know, to get more federal aid.
You know, President Trump has said that he's planning on coming down within the week, but
some people wanted a quicker response.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What did you see in the way of help when you were there?
Who was providing the help?
JORDYN HOLMAN: So, the Coast Guard was there.
The U.S. Marines, they were helping out.
But a lot of it was volunteers, people who were on St. Croix, another island of the Virgin
Islands, who got over on their boats, a two-hour ferry, just to give water, assistance, sometimes
hugs, just to tell people like, hey, we are all in this together and we can try to help
you get off this island if need be.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And we know that these islands depend on tourism for their economy.
What is the state of their hotels, the tourism system there?
JORDYN HOLMAN: Pretty much everything is closed.
One woman I spoke to, she works in a restaurant and a hotel on the side.
Both places are closed.
So this means people aren't getting incomes on top of already losing their homes.
They're not getting the paycheck that they so badly need to maybe evacuate to Puerto
Rico or the mainland.
So, it's just everyone's in a rough spot, especially since their economy is built on
tourism.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Jordyn, one other thing.
We have already read some accounts of some crime taking place, people taking advantage
of the situation.
Did you see or hear about that at al?
JORDYN HOLMAN: I think the biggest concern people had was with safety.
Because their houses don't have roofs or there's no lock on their door, and there's no electricity
at night, people are just in the pitch darkness.
And they're with their children, who just, you know, want to be safe.
School's out, so everyone was really just trying to help out each other.
And there is a curfew for people to stay inside during those dark hours.
So, I think everyone is just focusing on their personal safety right now.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But it sounds like this is going to take some time to work on.
JORDYN HOLMAN: Yes.
FEMA says this is not a months-long or a weeks-long recovery.
It's going to be a years-long recovery.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, we know that we're all thinking about them, and thank you for sharing
what you saw with us.
Jordyn Holman with Bloomberg, thank you.
JORDYN HOLMAN: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: President Trump said that he will reach across the political
aisle again, this time to help pass a tax reform plan.
To that end, he invited Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the House and Senate Democratic leaders,
to dinner tonight.
He also called in Republican and Democratic lawmakers this afternoon to talk about cutting
business and personal income tax rates.
DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: If we can do things in a bipartisan manner,
that will be great.
Now, it might not work out, in which case, we will try and do them without.
But if you look at some of the greatest legislation ever passed, it was done on a bipartisan manner.
And the rich will not be gaining at all with this plan.
We're not -- we're looking for the middle class and we're looking for jobs, jobs meaning
companies.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The president also voiced support for a new effort by four Republican senators
to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Meanwhile, independent Senator Bernie Sanders announced his Medicare-for-all plan, alongside
16 Democratic co-sponsors.
Neither bill is expected to come to a vote.
A man who was a longtime fixture in the U.S. Senate died today.
New Mexico Republican Pete Domenici had complications from abdominal surgery.
Domenici served for 36 years, until 2009, and became a bipartisan power broker.
For much of that time, he worked with now-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
SEN.
MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), Majority Leader: I served for a number of years with Senator
Domenici.
I came to know him as a smart, hardworking, dedicated and a very strong advocate for his
home state of New Mexico.
So, Mr. President, we're all saddened by this news today.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Pete Domenici was 85 years old.
The U.S. and South Korea sent fresh signals to North Korea to back off its nuclear and
missile testing.
The South's military announced that it tested a new air-launched cruise missile that can
fly 300 miles and evade radar.
And The New York Times reported Seoul is assembling a so-called decapitation unit that could target
Kim Jong-un in a crisis.
Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he no longer favors phasing out the U.S.
arsenal of long-range ballistic missiles.
Myanmar's leader will skip this month's U.N. General Assembly session, amid outrage over
the treatment of Rohingya Muslims.
Aung San Suu Kyi's office announced today that she will not attend the meeting.
Some 400,000 Rohingyas have fled to Bangladesh, reporting atrocities by government troops
in mostly Buddhist Myanmar.
The U.N. Security Council condemned the violence today.
ANTONIO GUTERRES, United Nations Secretary-General: Aid activities by U.N. agencies and international
nongovernmental organizations have been severely disrupted.
I call on the Myanmar authorities to suspend military action, end the violence, uphold
the rule of law, and recognize the right of return of all those who had to leave the country.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Myanmar claims that it's only reacting to attacks by Rohingya insurgents.
Back in this country, the Trump administration barred federal agencies from continuing to
use computer software made by Kaspersky Lab.
The company is Russian-owned and operated, and a federal directive cited concerns about
its ties to Russian intelligence.
Kaspersky denied that it's played any role in Russian cyber-hacking.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 39 points to close at 22158.
The Nasdaq rose almost six, and the S&P 500 added about two.
The big number in baseball tonight is 21, as in 21 wins in a row for the Cleveland Indians.
They beat Detroit today 5-3 to break the American League record.
And celebrations broke out on the field.
The old New York Giants in the National League won 26 without a loss in 1916, but that streak
included one tie.
Congratulations to the Indians, a lot of celebrating in Cleveland.
And the maestro was a machine in Pisa, Italy, last night.
A robot dubbed YuMi directed the Lucca Philharmonic Orchestra as part of the first International
Festival of Robotics.
It included a performance by world-renowned tenor Andrea Bocelli.
And they can't replace him with a robot.
Still to come on the "NewsHour": the Democrats' pitch for universal health care; the spacecraft
that's given us stunning images of Saturn nears its end; could taking down violent videos
online also erase evidence of war crimes?; and much more.
We turn now to politics, and an intense day of closed-door negotiating in Congress about
DACA, the program to protect young people who were brought to this country as children
without legal documentation.
Joining us to talk about those developments and more from the Capitol is reporter Yamiche
Alcindor of The New York Times.
Yamiche, thank you for being with us.
You have been reporting on this.
You had a story this morning in The Times saying there's been a remarkable lack of progress
on this.
Where does it stand right now?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR, The New York Times: Well, lawmakers have really tied themselves up in
knots trying to figure out how to proceed.
The Republicans that I have talked to have even said that this issue is now on the back
burner and that they are worried that Congress is losing focus as it tries to deal with tax
reform and health care.
But a meeting just wrapped up in Speaker Paul Ryan's office, just a few feet away from where
I'm standing now.
And lawmakers tell me in the quick interviews I was able to do in the last 30 minutes that
the meeting went great, that there was some progress made.
But, really, at the end of the day, it is going to come down to Democrats wanting to
not fund the wall and Republicans wanting to have some sort of border security measure
to pass the DREAM Act.
And, of course, the DREAM Act has been this legislation that has been in Congress for
now 16 years trying to get passed.
And so far, Republicans and Democrats have not been able to get it together.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Yamiche, there was a question about whether there was a sense of emergency
among Republicans, especially on this issue, but in general.
What how do you read that?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: I feel like there's two things.
On one side, you have Republicans who really do feel as though the dreamers are a special
set of immigrants.
They feel as though these are people through no fault of their own were brought to this
country.
They are scared to see them all deported.
But on the other side -- and I would say that's the more vocal side and the side that Speaker
Paul Ryan is more scared of -- that those Republicans are saying that there needs to
be a host of other things that need to happen.
I interviewed the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, and he told me that he
wants to deal with criminal aliens.
He wants to deal with gangs.
He wants to deal with agricultural workers' visas.
He has a whole host of other things he wants to deal with before DACA and he said DACA
is at the end of that last.
So, I think, in some ways, Republicans are split on this issue, the majority of them
wanting to do something, but like I wrote in my story, I think that this is really an
issue that has stumbled in Congress so far.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Yamiche, I want to ask you about something completely different.
And that is Republican Senator Tim Scott, who is the one African-American Republican
in the Senate, went to a one-on-one meeting today at the White House with President Trump.
The White House put out a statement, said they had a good conversation about the administration's
relations with African-Americans in this country.
You have been talking to Senator Scott.
What did you learn from him?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Senator Scott essentially told me and a couple of other reporters that
he lectured President Trump on the history, the long history of racism in this country.
Senator Scott said that he wasn't ready to say that his moral authority that he had said
was compromised is now restored.
The senator essentially said that he went there to tell the president that he was very
angry about the fact that he seemed to equivocate white supremacist groups with protesters.
So I think that the overall meeting, while the senator told me there wasn't any tension
in that meeting, I think there was, of course, tension in that meeting, and that Senator
Scott essentially for 40 minutes talked to the president about how he needs to do better
when it comes to race relations.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Yamiche Alcindor with The New York Times, I know you're going to continue
to follow that.
It was striking that the White House put out a photograph of the meeting, the president
listening to Senator Scott.
Thank you, Yamiche.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We will see you again soon.
Thank you.
And for more on the politics swirling on both end of Pennsylvania Avenue -- there's always
a lot -- we turn to Karine Jean-Pierre.
She's a senior adviser to MoveOn.org, a contributing editor to Bustle.
That's an online women's magazine.
And she's a veteran of the Obama administration.
And Matt Schlapp, he's the chairman of the American Conservative Union and the former
White House political director under President George W. Bush.
And we should note for the record that Matt's wife, Mercedes Schlapp, is now a senior communications
adviser to President Trump.
Matt, this is something the White House announced today, and we want to put it out on the table.
I'm going to...
MATT SCHLAPP, Former White House Director of Political Affairs: Yes.
And I get home and make dinner, so, yes.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: One of you is gainfully employed.
MATT SCHLAPP: Right.
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, Democratic Strategist: Yes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: I want to start.
I was talking to Yamiche Alcindor about DACA.
But I want to turn to you now, Karine, and ask you about health care.
And Senator Bernie Sanders has been talking for some months about this.
Today, he formally rolled out his proposal to have Medicare for all.
He has, what, 16 or so Democratic co-sponsors.
What does this look like?
How do you read this move by these Democrats and him?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: I think it's a great way forward.
We have a third of the Democratic Caucus essentially in the Senate who have signed on.
A lot of them are rumored to be running for 2020.
I think this is a great sign for the party forward and also for American people.
Health care is a right, not a privilege.
And all Americans should have health care from the moment that they're born until they
die.
And I think, you know, people have been asking me, oh, well is this a political play?
It's not going to work.
No, I am glad.
I am glad that Democrats are standing for what's morally right, the right thing to do.
And it's about -- it's about the country, not about the party.
But it does send a strong, unifying message, I believe.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What are the chances, Matt, that Republicans and Democrats can work together
in any form or fashion on health care, including this one?
MATT SCHLAPP: This is the problem.
It is the right side of the table sees government too large, too intervening, too involved in
these markets.
And here you have the Democrats.
This is quite shocking.
After Obamacare passed not that many years ago, and they didn't want to have nationalized,
centralized health care, they specifically went to set up these state exchanges.
This is, in essence, an indictment of Obamacare.
It's not working.
It's not covering everyone, as they said it would.
And they have a new plan.
The new plan is an old plan, which is a plan from the 1960s, which is the federal government
will pay all the bills and the taxpayers will pick up all those bills.
And I think that makes it very hard for the two sides to come together.
JUDY WOODRUFF: There is a sentiment, though -- the polls are showing that there is increasing,
not only support for Obamacare, but I noticed Bernie Sanders quoted in his poll today that
even, I think he said, 45 percent of Republicans like the idea of expanding Medicare.
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Yes, it is actually very popular, unlike the Republicans' version of
their health care, which they tried about two, three times that was incredibly unpopular.
But here's the thing.
This is -- I don't think it is a statement against Obamacare.
Obamacare actually covered 30 million people.
It actually is working, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which is an independent office,
which is led by Paul Ryan's person of that office.
So, I disagree.
I think we need to start taking it to the next step.
I think this is what single payer is all about, Medicare-for-all is all about.
It's taking it to the next step.
MATT SCHLAPP: The problem is, Obamacare didn't work, which is why Bernie Sanders is saying
he wants to try to cover everyone in a new way.
And the fact is, is that Obamacare has left millions of people not covered.
And I think if you look at the numbers, for four successive elections -- I will give you
Obama's reelect, which you guys did a great job on -- but for four successive elections,
this was the number one issue.
And Republicans had the better argument politically.
We got our congressional majorities over fighting Obamacare.
It's a false hope to expect that Obamacare is now popular and will take the Democrats
to political winning.
It just won't happen.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But, just quickly, do the Republicans have the votes to repeal Obamacare?
MATT SCHLAPP: Well, we have seen that they failed.
And, by the way, I have been pretty honest with that.
Failure to live up to their promise to repeal and replace is disastrous for them politically.
But don't assume that that means that this nation wants centralized health care for all.
That's a big mistake.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Right.
Matt, I want to turn you to talk about, both of you to talk about tax reform.
The administration, the White House saying this is something that they are going to focus
on this fall.
What are the prospects?
We're hearing from the treasury secretary today saying that this is going to be revenue-neutral,
we're not going to have -- it's not going to change how much money the government takes
in, even if we cut tax taxes for certain middle-income people.
MATT SCHLAPP: They have said so many things at so many different points.
They are going to come out with a new set of principles, they say, on the 25th of this
month.
And I think we have a chance still to get a tax bill done.
I don't think it will be fully paid for.
I actually don't.
I actually think it will aggravate the deficit.
But most Republicans and most conservatives, which dominate the Republican Party, are not
so concerned about its effect on the deficit, as they are the -- it's the effect of a tax
cut on the economy.
They want to grow this economy and create job and economic opportunities for Americans.
That's the benchmark that conservatives care about.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Why wouldn't that be appealing to Democrats?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Well, I think from what we're hearing really primarily, which is what
Democrats -- even Democrats are meeting with Donald Trump tonight -- which is that it is
not actually a tax reform.
It's a tax cut to the wealthy millionaires and billionaires and corporations.
And I think that's what we do not want.
That's what Democrats will not stand for.
And I think that is -- that is what we're hearing.
(CROSSTALK)
MATT SCHLAPP: The hard part in that is, is that you have to actually cut the taxes of
the people who pay taxes.
And if you want to increase economic and job prospects for Americans, you have got to encourage
people to create jobs.
Unfortunately, the people who create jobs are people that run small businesses, own
small business, are in important positions in corporations.
So, you kind of can't have it both ways.
Do we want to help the American people economically or not?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Yes, but you can't do it on the backs of middle-class Americans.
(CROSSTALK)
MATT SCHLAPP: I totally agree.
They should have a tax cut, too.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But what are the prospects, to both of you, for any kind of serious tax
reform this fall?
MATT SCHLAPP: I think I would say it has got a 75, 80 percent chance of passing this fall.
But there's hurdles.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But you're saying it would take -- it's going to take down the deficit
-- it's going to raise the deficit and take down revenue.
MATT SCHLAPP: Judy, the fact is, it will -- my belief is these tax provisions will not be
permanent.
They will be temporary in nature.
They will not be revenue-neutral.
And I do think we have a chance to pick up some Democratic votes on both the House and
Senate, not the eight to go through the regular order.
I think it still goes through reconciliation.
I think we will get some Democrats, because #resistance on taxes for Democrats from red
states is not a good strategy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Prospects?
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Well, the Democrats from red states are saying they are not going to
allow the tax cuts that we're talking about just for the wealthy.
So, we will see.
I think we need to see a lot more of what is going to be coming forth.
There is going to be a meeting tonight, a dinner tonight.
Let's see what comes out of that.
MATT SCHLAPP: Yes.
They have a seat at the table.
Let's see if they can work it out.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Fascinating that the president is spending more time with Democrats, last
week cut the deal with Democrats over...
MATT SCHLAPP: I'm OK with it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Over the debt limit.
MATT SCHLAPP: Guess what?
He's everyone's president.
Let's see if he can cut a deal.
Let's see if he can find common ground.
This is what presidents should do.
JUDY WOODRUFF: They're just about to sit down as we sit there.
We will find out what they said.
(CROSSTALK)
MATT SCHLAPP: Maybe there will be some tweets from the dinner.
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Oh, gosh.
Some pictures, I'm sure, definitely.
(LAUGHTER)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Karine Jean-Pierre, Matt Schlapp, thank you both.
MATT SCHLAPP: Thank you, Judy.
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: Thanks, Judy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: This Friday, the Cassini spacecraft is set to end its long tour of Saturn with
a fatal plunge into the planet.
It's been a workhorse and source for much of what we know about Saturn.
It will beam back images until its final moments from some 800 million miles away.
William Brangham has more.
It's the focus of this week's Leading Edge.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Some of the numbers involved in the Cassini mission are truly mind-blowing.
More than 290 orbits of Saturn, nearly five billion miles traveled, 450,000-plus images
taken.
There have been nearly 4,000 papers published about the work.
And it included the participation of 27 nations.
Our science correspondent, Miles O'Brien, has this appraisal.
This report was produced in partnership with our friends at "NOVA," whose program "Death
Dive to Saturn" airs tonight on PBS.
MILES O'BRIEN: Twenty years after it began its detailed tour of Saturn, its rings and
moons, NASA's Cassini spacecraft is winding its way toward a suicide plunge into the planet.
It's the end of an epic space odyssey, Cassini's grand finale.
LINDA SPILKER, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory: As the orbits progress, we get closer and
closer to Saturn's atmosphere.
MILES O'BRIEN: Project scientist Linda Spilker joined the Cassini team at the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory before launch in 1997.
Their challenge now?
Thread a cosmic needle, sending the spacecraft in between Saturn and its rings, eking out
some final morsels of data before the mission is over.
LINDA SPILKER: The mysteries we want to solve with the grand finale mostly have to do with
revealing Saturn from the inside out.
MILES O'BRIEN: Surprising discoveries are nothing new for Cassini.
The team has been pushing the frontiers of science for years and sharing spectacular
images captured by the spacecraft.
CAROLYN PORCO, NASA: It's just such a surreal looking planet.
Really, it wins the beauty contest in the solar system.
That's for sure.
MILES O'BRIEN: Carolyn Porco might be just a little biased.
She's the lead scientist in charge of Cassini's cameras.
Most recently, they recorded a storm on the north pole of Saturn that changes color from
turquoise in the winter to golden brown in summer.
Scientists believe sunlight interacts with molecules in the atmosphere, creating a sort
of Saturnian smog.
Over the years, Cassini has shown us the rings of Saturn in unprecedented, stunning fashion.
They are about 175,000 miles across, but, in most places, only 30 feet thick.
CAROLYN PORCO: We get to see lots of places just really densely packed, where the particles
are protruding two miles above the ring plain.
I mean, it's astonishing.
MILES O'BRIEN: And Cassini has also turned its instruments to Saturn's many moons.
Porco's team captured images of plumes erupting from the icy moon Enceladus.
CAROLYN PORCO: This is what we saw.
We saw dozens of fine jets shooting off the south pole of Enceladus.
MILES O'BRIEN: They later determined the geysers were made of water ice and were loaded with
organic compounds.
They also found tiny nanosilica particles.
LINDA SPILKER: What's so amazing is that those nanosilica grains could only form in really
hot water.
All of the sudden, the pieces started to fall into place, and so we're thinking, maybe you
have hydrothermal vents on the seafloor of Enceladus.
MILES O'BRIEN: Hydrothermal vents, organic compounds and liquid water, the combination
is very intriguing for scientists, because it is likely life began on Earth under similar
circumstances.
CAROLYN PORCO: It doesn't get any better than this, to go to Saturn and come away having
discovered what we think might be the best place in the solar system to go to search
for life.
MILES O'BRIEN: The prospect of life on Enceladus prompted the Cassini team to change plans
for how the mission should end.
If the spacecraft smashed into the icy moon, it might bring hitchhiking microbes from our
planet with it.
So, instead, Cassini will auger straight into Saturn, swallowed up by the giant gas planet
where there is no possibility for the development of life.
Still, Cassini's fiery end is no small task to engineer.
The spacecraft has to be in tip-top shape, so it can beam data back to Earth for as long
as possible.
JULIE WEBSTER, NASA: We are responsible for the health and safety of the spacecraft.
MILES O'BRIEN: Julie Webster is the manager of the Cassini Spacecraft Operations Center.
Using exact replicas of the vintage electronics on board the spacecraft...
JULIE WEBSTER: Everybody talks about gigabits these days.
We're down to kilobits.
MILES O'BRIEN: ... she and her team are simulating scenarios for Cassini's final dive.
MAN: No red alarms, and we are go for orbit trim maneuver 467.
JULIE WEBSTER: The timing of everything is highly choreographed.
WOMAN: The accelerometer is powered on at this time.
JULIE WEBSTER: Because we are doing something almost every second on the spacecraft, and
certainly every minute.
WOMAN: The wind roll turn has started.
JULIE WEBSTER: To have either an anomaly on the spacecraft or a sequence that isn't quite
right, there's very little time to figure out what's wrong, fix it, clean it back up,
put the sequence back on board the spacecraft.
We don't have a lot of time to recover at that point.
We're game on.
(LAUGHTER)
MILES O'BRIEN: And then it will be game over, a bittersweet moment.
Saying goodbye isn't easy.
JULIE WEBSTER: The sense of an impending end is the hardest experience I have had to experience
in a long time.
MILES O'BRIEN: It will be a long time before NASA gets back to Saturn and its moons.
As a matter of fact, there are no plans on the books to return -- William.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Miles, are there other planned missions to go to some of the moons of other
planets?
MILES O'BRIEN: Yes.
A similar moon, which orbits Jupiter, Europa, also ice-covered, also has a liquid ocean
beneath, is one of NASA's targets.
The Europa Clipper is slated to launch in the 2020s, and it's similarly intriguing to
scientists, in the sense that they believe it might harbor life.
So, stay tuned for that one, I guess.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Miles, before we let you go, I understand you're also hosting a very
special PBS special tonight about the rediscovery of the USS Indianapolis.
This was a famous World War II vessel.
They have now found it.
Viewers will be able to see some of this wreckage live from the bottom of the ocean.
Can you tell us a little bit about this?
Why is this such an important find?
MILES O'BRIEN: Well, the USS Indianapolis was sunk right at the tail end of World War
II; 880 men were lost.
It's the worst disaster in U.S. Navy history.
The vessel had only a few days prior delivered the components of the Little Boy bomb, the
atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.
They were transiting over to the Philippines, sunk by a Japanese torpedo.
The story that people may be familiar with, though, is that no one knew that they were
sunk.
They were forgotten.
And 800-plus men were in the water bobbing for four-and-a-half days.
They suffered from hypothermia, dehydration.
And they were attacked by sharks.
It was a dramatic event.
And the wreck has only been found three-and-a-half weeks ago.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Why so long to find this?
MILES O'BRIEN: It's in about 18,000 feet of ocean.
It's one of the deepest spots on the planet.
And so technology has only gotten to the point to make it even practical to hunt for something
like this in such deep, rugged, completely lightless terrain beneath the sea.
It was found by a group led by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who has decided to make it one
of his missions in life to find these historically important shipwrecks.
They were determined to do it, and they did.
And you will see live pictures from 18,000 feet below the Philippine Sea live tonight
on PBS, 10:00 p.m.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Sounds really great.
Miles O'Brien, as always, thank you so much.
MILES O'BRIEN: You're welcome, William.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Stay with us.
Coming up on the "NewsHour": two Kentucky cities that have taken two very different
stances on what to do with Confederate monuments.
But first: From Syria to Ukraine to Iraq, a window on the modern battlefield is a click
away, across the Internet.
But now there are concerns that some video evidence from those potential crime scenes
could be endangered.
Hari Sreenivasan has that from New York.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Recently, YouTube took down hundreds of thousands of videos posted to
its Web site, many from the Syrian War.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, used an automatic system designed to flag violent
and extremist content that human reviewers would then remove.
But researchers, legal experts and those watching the Syrian war closely pushed back.
They said, in some cases, YouTube was removing potential evidence of human rights violations
carefully catalogued over years.
YouTube relented some, and said it made the wrong call.
They are working to restore substantial amounts of that material.
To explore this issue, I'm joined by Stephen Rapp.
He's the former U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes, and is now sits on the board of
Physicians for Human Rights.
And Issie Lapowsky, a senior writer covering national affairs and technology for "Wired"
magazine.
First, I want to start off with you both, Stephen, you first.
What do you think of what happened when YouTube pulled down these videos?
STEPHEN RAPP, Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues: Well, I think it's
very unfortunate.
This is primary evidence of massive violations.
Physicians for Human Rights has documented almost 500 attacks on medical facilities,
more than 800 doctors and medical personnel killed in, you know, an enormous number of
incidents and an enormous number of facilities.
And to build the evidence for these cases, you really need to see the pattern of all
of it.
Removing it, I think, eliminates what's needed in the future if we're going to have accountability,
if we're really going to in the future begin again enforcing this norm that protects humanitarian
workers, protects the health of innocent civilians.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Issie Lapowsky?
ISSIE LAPOWSKY, "Wired": Yes, I would say that, obviously, Google and YouTube are well
aware that they have become a portal to extremism for a lot of people.
So, they have been really ahead of the curve in the tech industry in terms of trying to
mitigate that access to extremist content.
But, here, I think you're right.
This is machine learning as a blunt instrument.
I think it has gone too far.
But you look at how much content is going up on YouTube every day.
It's 400 hours of content per minute.
That is more than any team of human beings, no matter how large, could ever properly filter.
So, Google and I think YouTube are doing the right thing in trying to use technology to
combat this problem of extremism, but, obviously, it is early days, and this is not going so
well out of the gate.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Issie Lapowsky, staying with you for a second, 400 hours of video
per minute.
When you said machine learning, is this a fact that the machines are actually learning
now what the mistakes are as well when they scan all these videos at the same time?
ISSIE LAPOWSKY: I think the team will work to correct that, yes.
I think it's important to understand how machine learning works.
It works like the way children learn.
If you point to four different pictures of a table, a child will start to learn what
a table looks like, whether that table is square or circular or brown or white.
These systems work similarly.
They are fed with tons of content about what violent imagery looks like.
And they start to learn over time how to detect it.
And then, when they encounter new imagery, they make a decision, and they say, is this
violent?
Is it not?
And YouTube has reported that its systems are flagging far more content than human beings
are.
In fact, the majority of these videos are coming down without a single human being flagging
them.
So, obviously, the machines are overcorrecting for this problem, and I think that now that
Google and YouTube are aware of that overcorrection, they will work to sort of fix those systems.
But it's going to be an ongoing process, of course.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Stephen Rapp, you touched on this just a little while ago, but the crucial
nature of this evidence, the fact that you're starting to draw patterns together from airstrike
after airstrike?
STEPHEN RAPP: Well, it's extremely important to have that.
I prosecuted the Rwandan media because of the genocide and the U.N. tribunal, and we
were talking about messages that incited violence, that incited genocide.
Here, what we're really concerned about is images of events themselves, of bombings of
hospitals, the kind of thing you need in the absence, of having the targeting maps of the
Syrian authorities or insider information, to show that this was intentional, it wasn't
just accidental.
And, certainly, the patterns that we have, documented by Physicians for Human Rights,
show that.
But they're relying on this YouTube material to corroborate the statements of people on
the ground.
Where is it going to be in the future?
There are civil society organizations that have been relying on this in the field.
They're storing some of it.
There are U.N. mechanisms that are storing some of it, but people don't have the storage
to keep all of it, and there's the danger it will be compressed, metadata will be left
out, and it won't be the kind of valuable evidence that exists right now.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Stephen, what about the chain of custody?
When somebody is making a case in front of a tribunal, how do you know that this video
is legitimate, that this airstrike happened in this particular place?
STEPHEN RAPP: Well, I have dealt with other kinds of material.
To a large extent, some of this material can be self-verified.
The material itself may contain metadata that can be analyzed, and you can determine whether
it's a composite.
If it's taken at different seconds, different minutes, and put together, that's going to
show up.
And you're going to also see information sometimes about GPS, sometimes about time of day.
And you're going to get several of these things together, and they're each going to fit together
from independent sources, and you're going to have people on the ground.
And so all of those things together can give you a reliable picture of what happened.
It's not quite like a bank robbery where the police are there a minute afterwards and putting
up the yellow tape.
You have got to put these things together.
And courts are able to do that.
But we're going to lose the raw material, and it's going to be much harder to prove.
And the Syrian victims, who really do feel themselves abandoned, 500,000 killed, people
tortured to death in government custody, poisoned gas, and then this attack on medical facilities
that violates rules that have been in the Geneva Conventions for 150 years, and they
see this being taken down by machines, as if to say their suffering didn't matter.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Issie Lapowsky, it seems that there's a central tension here, that
these aid agencies that don't have the bandwidth to try to create their own archives of things
use YouTube.
But YouTube and Google are companies that have perhaps a different shareholder mission,
that they want to have experiences where their -- the bulk of their users don't run into
violent, horrible content.
ISSIE LAPOWSKY: Well, it's not only that, but pressure is increasingly being put on
these platforms to eradicate that type of content.
They're getting pressure from the government and from users to say, that we don't want
these platforms where we spend our lives to become tools of radicalization for ISIS and
other terrorist groups.
And so they're facing this pressure, yes, on one side to take down the content that
truly is trying to radicalize people.
On the other hand, you have groups, aid groups, you have researchers, you have journalists,
frankly, working in these regions.
I recently reported on a group called Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently.
They are the only journalists inside Raqqa, and they rely on these platforms to get their
message out to the world about what's happening there.
And international news organizations use their content to tell their story to a broader audience.
HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Issie Lapowsky from "Wired" magazine, Stephen Rapp, thank
you both.
ISSIE LAPOWSKY: Thank you.
STEPHEN RAPP: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: After the violence in Charlottesville this summer, cities around the country are
grappling with history and whether to keep or take down monuments.
Last week, the Dallas City Council voted to take down a statue of Robert E. Lee.
Just yesterday, protesters covered a statue of Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia
in Charlottesville.
And, in New York City, a statue of Christopher Columbus was vandalized in Central Park.
Jeffrey Brown recently traveled to Kentucky, a slave state that never joined the Confederacy
during the Civil War, but one where the echoes of a divided history continue to be heard.
JEFFREY BROWN: Louisville, Kentucky, to the Kentucky Derby, the Slugger baseball bat,
the great Muhammad Ali and, for 121 years, until last winter, this 70-foot-tall monument
honoring Confederate soldiers.
University of Louisville Professor Ricky Jones walked past it for 20 years.
RICKY JONES, Professor, University of Louisville: I knew what it was, what it represented.
And so when you understand that a symbol like that is something that represents an era of
slavery and dehumanization in the country's history, it's demeaning, dehumanizing to walk
by it every day if you're an African-American.
JEFFREY BROWN: Today, the statue stands some 40 miles to the southwest in the town of Brandenburg,
population 2,600, on the banks of the Ohio River.
And Mayor Ronnie Joyner is thrilled to have it.
RONNIE JOYNER, Mayor of Brandenburg, Kentucky: To me, there's no controversy.
To me, it's a Civil War monument that we have now, and we're proud of it.
You can look at it and see that it's something that this city can be proud of.
JEFFREY BROWN: The story of the monument that once stood on this empty traffic median in
many ways encapsulates the passions over history and race that are now being fought over in
the country.
It was given to city of Louisville in 1895 by the Kentucky Women's Confederate Monument
Association.
Once on the outskirts of town, it was gradually encircled by the expanding University of Louisville
campus.
There were earlier protests against it.
In 1947, then-Mayor Charles Farnsley responded with a rifle, protecting the statue.
Then, two years ago, following the killing of nine people in Charleston, South Carolina,
by avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof, Professor Jones, head of Pan-African Studies Department
here, started a new effort to remove the statue.
RICKY JONES: When you really look at the history of these statues, you look at the history
of the flag, you look at the history of the Confederacy, which was a treasonous region
of the country, you understand that it was steeped in racism, it was steeped in brutality,
it was steeped in the idea that one race of people had the right to own, to enslave, to
brutalize another.
Then you can still support the statues, you can still support the flag, you can still
support memorials, but you have got to be very clear and honest about what you're supporting.
JEFFREY BROWN: The city joined the effort, helping overcome resistance, including a lawsuit
by the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Mayor Greg Fischer says it's part of an ongoing rethinking of the city's past and present,
which includes the creation of Freedom Park, not far from the Confederate monument.
So, this is explicitly a kind of balance to the statue?
GREG FISCHER, Mayor of Louisville, Kentucky: An attempt at that, yes.
So this went up in 2012 by the University of Louisville to say, look, we know not the
whole story is being told here with this statue, so let's commemorate some of our powerful
figures in terms of African-American leaders in our city here.
JEFFREY BROWN: The statue, says the mayor, had no place in modern Louisville.
GREG FISCHER: We're a compassionate city, but there were still some charged emotions.
Some people, of course, accused me of erasing history.
Some people said, Mayor, you're the Taliban.
You're destroying history.
I said, no, we're not destroying it.
We're just moving it, but...
JEFFREY BROWN: You're moving history?
GREG FISCHER: History is always dynamic.
It can always be interpreted in different ways.
When this statue was put here over 100 years ago, it was on the edge of the city.
Six months ago, it was in the middle of the city.
Very different context.
Also, our consciousness as a community, as a country has changed as well.
Clearly, a statue like that was the white order's way of saying, we are still in charge.
And what I ask people, would you be OK if somebody came into your house and took your
wife away from you, never to be seen again, brutalize her, rape her on the way down the
river, separate your family, and then we put up a statue to those people?
JEFFREY BROWN: But when Louisville decided to take down the monument, Brandenburg welcomed
it with fanfare at a ceremony attended by some 400 people.
The monument is seen here as part of a history walk along the riverfront park, with much
smaller statues commemorating Native Americans and the Underground Railroad.
And the town has added plaques that purport to tell Civil War history from both a Southern
and Northern perspective.
Now, says Mayor Joyner, who, with Judge Gerry Lynn, led the effort to bring it here, it's
a Civil War, not a Confederate monument.
RONNIE JOYNER: It's veterans.
It's -- I would compare this pretty much to the Vietnam Wall, because this monument, it
honors veterans.
It wasn't put up to say, hah, hah, hah, we did this, because the South actually lost
the war.
JEFFREY BROWN: You don't see it as a symbol of slavery?
RONNIE JOYNER: No, absolutely not.
It's in honor of veterans.
It's not -- it was never put up to -- because of slavery or because of black vs. white.
JEFFREY BROWN: But there is a controversy in this country over what some people see
as symbols of a Civil War history and of a racial history and a history of slavery and
of oppression in this country.
RONNIE JOYNER: I -- yes, I guess there is.
But I don't see it that way.
And the majority of the people here don't see it that way.
JEFFREY BROWN: And, the mayor says, the monument is not going anywhere.
RONNIE JOYNER: The thing in Charlottesville, it made news, and so everybody wants to know,
what am I going to do?
Well, I'm going to do not anything.
I'm going to try to preserve what we have and take care of business.
JEFFREY BROWN: It was a sentiment we heard from others in Brandenburg, including Jeremiah
Caddell, a groundskeeper at a nearby golf course.
JEREMIAH CADDELL, Groundskeeper: Because it represents our history.
Everybody's wanting to throw it away, throw it away, sweep it underneath the rug.
Nobody wants to hear about it.
And then Brandenburg stepped up and said, hey, we will take it.
JEFFREY BROWN: When you say "our history," who's "us"?
JEREMIAH CADDELL: Us is African-Americans, white, Caucasian people.
It's Asian Americans.
There's wars fought in -- overseas.
JEFFREY BROWN: What's next?
In Brandenburg, Mayor Joyner told me he'd like more monuments, but isn't sure that's
possible after the violence that erupted in Charlottesville, while, in Louisville, the
city is holding hearings to decide if other statues should come down.
MAN: I'm here to honor John B. Castleman.
JEFFREY BROWN: The most contentious is John Castleman, a Confederate officer who, after
the war, joined the U.S. Army and helped build Louisville's park system.
The question now, which aspect of Castleman's life should this city recognize?
Last month, the statue was vandalized, splattered in bright orange paint.
But when we visited recently, there was another message nearby: "Save me."
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jeffrey Brown in Louisville and Brandenburg, Kentucky.
JUDY WOODRUFF: On the "NewsHour" online right now:
The man called -- called the man who conquered yellow fever, Walter Reed is better known
today as the namesake of the U.S. military medical center here in Washington.
We look back at his greatest contribution to public health on the anniversary of his
birth.
That's on our Web site, PBS.org/NewsHour.
And tune in later tonight on "Charlie Rose: tennis star Maria Sharapova on her return
to the game and the new book that tells her side of the doping scandal that led to her
suspension.
And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight.
On Thursday: the Vietnam War.
I sit down with filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick to discuss their new landmark documentary.
I'm Judy Woodruff.
Join us online and again right here tomorrow evening.
For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, and we will see you soon.
WATCH: Bernie Sanders, other Democrats discusses Medicare-for-all health care bill 55, unemployed and faking normal: One woman's story of barely scraping by Does the Democrats' pitch for universal health care have a chance? Shields and Gerson on Trump’s deal with Democrats, DACA’s demise Why NASA’s Cassini will take a fiery swan dive into Saturn WATCH: Speaker Ryan discusses DACA deal at news briefing PBS Frontline 2014 Generation Like PBS NOVA 2017 AMERICAN ECLIPSE DOCUMENTARY How the upper middle class keeps everyone else out PBS Frontline Black Money

PBS NewsHour full episode Sept. 13, 2017

Latest Posts