>> john: welcome to "cbs evening new plus." i'm john dickerson. the supreme court hears arguments over workplace discrimination. in one of the most contentious issues of the day in a place where arguments go to be had, a rare moment of what one justice called "radical agreement." our legal contributor jessica levinson will outline the case and what happened at oral

arguments. in israel, a country of woe a day of even more of it. as a mother and her two young sons who were killed while being held by hamas in gaza are laid to rest. cbs's debora patta reports. in our in-depth report, another look america's immigration story through the food on our table. an immigrant grocery store owner who voted for president trump says she's worried about the economy and the president's crackdown on the undocumented. those stories and more right after our news headlines. ♪ ♪ it's the first death from measles in the united states in nearly a decade. texas health officials say the patient was a school-aged child who was not vaccinated. at least 124 cases have been confirmed in the texas outbreak. records show only five patients were vaccinated. "a very big agreement" is what president trump calls the rare earth minerals deal he's expected to sign with ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy on friday.

what's in it for ukraine? not protection from future russian attacks, according to president trump. >> we very much need rare earth. they have great rare earth. >> john: and more cuts to come. the trump administration is ordering federal agencies to prepare for overhauls and mass layoffs. the government's human resources department and office of management and budget are demanding plans by march 13. ♪ ♪ we begin this evening at the supreme court where the nine justices heard oral arguments in the case of marlean ames. ames was an employee at the ohio department of youth services who applied for a promotion. the role was given to another employee, a gay woman. ames was demoted, her position filled by a gay ma.

ames claims her sexual orientation was an issue in each. joining us is jessica levinson cbs news legal analyst and loyola law school professor. what is at issue with this case? >> what's at issue is what standard are we going to use under a federal statute, title vii, when it comes to workplace discrimination claims? specifically are we going to use a different standard for people who are members of the majority? whether that be, in this case, people who are straight or people who are white. what standard will we use in order to prove that there is in fact workplace rumination? >> john: in oral arguments, i think it was gorsuch who said there was radical agreement. a little bit or the whole thing? what were they agreeing about? >> i think there was radical agreement with the idea that the standard would be different, meaning harder, for people in the majority to prove a workplace discrimination claim, was not proper. what do we mean

by not proper? it was not a proper reading of title vii, that statute. i think there was "radical agreement" and we don't talk about this very often when the court agrees. but based on the idea that you can't have different standards for different people. if there is discrimination, then there should be the same burden that everybody faces in trying to prove those claims. >> john: if they find for ames, she will have to go back and win in court. let me ask about marbury versus madison. today it was part of judicial review. marbury versus madison, the anniversary is this week. why is that such an important case in all of these cases in the system that we talk about so often? >> it's so important because it says federal judges, you have a role to play in our three-branch system, and here's what it is. as you've said, it's judicial review. it's not just what the constitution means but it's looking at statutes. we have been talking about title vii today. it's looking at popularly

enacted statutes where the executive and the legislative agree and it's judges saying "but we have the last say." we can tell you whether or not that statute is proper and we can help interpret it. it's a huge part of our system. >> john: jessica levinson, i'm glad we finally got to that. thanks so much for being with us again. tonight, the white house has federal agencies have until march 13 to present plans for large-scale layoffs. this directive is only adding to agitation felt by federal workers already feeling attacked by elon musk and his department of government efficiency. among the targets, the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, which is on the front lines of defending the country from cyberattacks from u.s. adversaries. it's already lost roughly 4% of its staff. here with more is cbs's homeland security correspondent nicole sganga. give us a quick overview, nicole, of who was already fired. >> reporter: i've heard from over a dozen fired cisa employe.

threat hunters, personnel with top security clearances, and disabled veterans. one of the 130 employees fired that i spoke with, kelly shaw, she was among the first recorded by dhs's cyber talent hiring program. the program called ctms took seven years to stand up. its whole goal was to recruit world-class cyber talent and despite being in her 15th year of government service, kelly who was a former intelligence analyst for the u.s. navy, was fired because the program that recruited her to cisa came with a three-year probationary period. she was just months away from that. >> john: in addition to the firing, cisa is looking at their work protecting with elections. what's that all about? >> reporter: the acting director of cisa has launched an investigation into a program, every program and official that touches u.s. elections, election security space plus mis-, dis-

and malinformation, there was going to be an audit that's going to result in a report and that's due out march 6th, we've asked that the department of homeland security if they have plans to make that report public but the investigation comes on the heels of another purge of cisa employees, more than a dozen personnel placed on leave that work on elections, countering foreign influence campaigns. these are employees stopping russia and iranian meddling in u.s. elections. and earlier this month in her first day in office, attorney general pam bondi disbanded a similar fbi task force targeting foreign influence operations. john, this is important because we are just months removed from a slew of election day bomb threats, white powder mailings to election officials nationwide, and an fbi investigation that outed an iranian hack and leak operation targeting the president's campaign. >> john: nicole sganga, homeland security correspondent. thank you so much, nicole. >> thank you. >> john: tonight as part of

the cease-fire deal, hamas has released the remains of four more israelis. hamas has released in exchange israel has freed more than 600 palestinian prisoners. israelis lined highways as the bodies of a mother and her two young sons killed in captivity in the gaza strip were taken for burial. cbs's debora patta is in east jerusalem. [sobbing] >> reporter: thousands of israeli mourners lined the funeral procession route in a national outpouring of grief for shiri bibas and her two toddlers. her husband, yarden, who survived the october 7 hamas terror attack bid them a heartbreaking farewell. "i am sorry i could not protect you," he said. many hostage families accuse prime minister benjamin netanyahu of abandoning their loved ones. hamas has returned four more bodies tonight in exchange for more than 600 palestinian prisoners.

the six-week gaza truce ends on saturday. negotiations for a second phase have not yet begun. talks will focus on freeing the remaining hostages, alive or dead, and the thorny question of who will control postwar gaza. >> the u.s. will take over the gaza strip. >> reporter: president trump has floated the idea of relocating the territory's more than 2 million palestinians. critics have condemned it as nothing more than ethnic cleansing. an ai-generated video posted on trump's truth social showed gaza transformed into an exotic beachside resort complete with a gold statue of the president. the white house says it did not create the video but described the president as a visionary. who wants the u.s. involved in rebuilding gaza and resettling its people. palestinians who endured more

than 15 months of war had this to say after watching the video. "if trump wants us to leave he's dreaming." "we will stay here and die here." from makeshift tents to bombed out buildings, palestinians say this is their home. debora patta, cbs news. east jerusalem. >> john: now here are three things to know. adnan syed, whose case gained international attention through the popular podcast "serial" faced a hearing today where a judge is considering to reduce his murder sentence to time served allowing him to remain free. despite maintaining his innocence in the murder of his ex-girlfriend, prosecutors are not willing to complete and he dismissed his conviction. fewer younger americans are keeping the faith. new study on religion from the pew research center finds fewer than half of the 18 to

29-year-olds identifies as christian compared to nearly 80% of older americans. researchers say the so-called secular surge away from religion has plateaued. tonight a texas aerospace company is again shooting for the moon. a spacex rocket is set to blast off from florida carrying a lunar lander named athena. its target: the moon's south pole to search for ice. athena's brother, named odysseus, made a hard landing on the lunar surface last year and tipped on its side. two other landers are currently en route to the moon. coming up on the "cbs evening new plus," rising food prices and shifting politics. one atlanta grocery store owner finds herself caught in the middle. can her business survive? that's next.

>> john: as the trump administration continues its crackdown on illegal immigration, a tension point has been revealed. at the center, businesses that rely on the undocumented to keep their farms or stores open. for tonight's "in depth," cbs's nicole valdes reports that tension can create uncertainty. >> reporter: inside this atlanta grocery store, the price of a gallon of milk can at times

be what brings in or drives customers away. how many customers do you think you see here on a regular day? >> about 65 customers. >> reporter: luz hernandez opened el progreso supermarket in 2020. one of her four grocery stores across the atlanta metro. so the price of food right now would you say is the number one problem that your customers are dealing with? >> why they used to coming buy food, $100. now it's $300. >> reporter: at el progreso milk and cheese are staples for her mainly latino customers. a taste of home for hernandez, an immigrant from el salvador. she crossed the u.s.-mexico border in 1996 at just 16 years old. she became a citizen in 2012.

now a business owner, hernandez says she's focused on what's ahead. you voted for president donald trump because of his stance on the economy. >> yes, because economy is one thing. and immigration is another thin. and you have to decide what is more affected by my customers? >> reporter: for than half of hernandez's employees are undocumented. how difficult is it for you to balance your feelings on both of these issues? >> if donald trump says he's going to fix the economy, i don't think he's going to fix the economy without my customer, and my employee. >> reporter: you don't see a world where he can fix the economy and deport many immigrants? >> no.

how the economy is going to grow? maybe i have to close. no customers, no business. >> reporter: you worry there is a chance you may lose -- >> i cannot handle it with no employee and i cannot handle it with no customer. impossible. impossible. >> reporter: nicole valdes. cbs news, atlanta. >> john: this story is part of an upcoming "cbs reports" documentary that goes inside the milk supply chain from farm to table. "the price of milk" premieres sunday, march 9, streaming on cbs news 24/7. has the pursuit of the american dream stalled out? we'll explore that question next on "cbs evening new plus."

they say the hardest part of getting something done let's go! hustle! is getting started. well, we did that 30 years ago, when california first took on the tobacco industry. this is not just about access. it's about the message it sends... now smoking is down 60 percent. lung cancer 42 percent. a couple of our cities have already ended tobacco sales. a california without big tobacco isn't just possible, it's already happening.

i don't ever see anyone coming out to maintenance anything, so it's very scary for me because i have everything i love in this home. so, we've now implemented drone technology. how is that safe for me? it enhances the inspection, so it allows us to see things faster. your safety is the most important, and if you're feeling unsafe, that's not okay. it doesn't feel like that in our hearts. i mean, it's worrisome. [dog barks] [dog barks] cbs cares.

>> john: american opportunity has been synonymous with people on the move. homesteaders heading west, the great migration wave to the north. you moving east for that dream job. but high housing costs and low home supply has stifled american mobility. author yoni applebaum focuses on that dilemma in his new book "stuck." we talked to him tonight. yoni, to start, let's get our terms right, what is the mobility crisis or the challenge in mobility that america faces right now? >> we talk a lot about an affordable housing crisis. housing is too expensive. in places americans most want to live. it's really cheap in other parts of the country. the problem is we've got a mismatch, a mobility crisis. people can't do what they've done for 200 years in america. they can't leave the places with fewer opportunities and choose to go to the places that have more opportunities. >> john: is it possible to distinguish those who move and

those who don't? >> this is another reversal. for a long time, the people who moved in america were those seeking a better life for themselves. increasingly, moving in america has become a privilege of the affluent and the educated. the americans who most need the kinds of opportunities that new locations could give them have become the least likely to be able to relocate there. >> john: why have we come to this pass? >> we have tied ourselves down with this web of rules. zoning regulations, building regulations, environmental reviews. all of these things are well intended, all of them were intended to address real problems that ordinary americans have. but in aggregate, what they've done is they've made it almost impossible to build. these rules are particularly severe in the places that are growing fastest and have made it particularly hard to build there. >> john: tell me a little bit more about these web of regulations and how they got there, who put them there.

>> this was a problem created by three generations of progressive reformers who were each trying to solve a different problem. it starts in the original progressive era where they are trying to deal with urban disorder, so they create zoning regulations to try to sort things out. it goes through the new deal where they are trying to deal with the housing crisis. it spreads regulations everywhere in order to stabilize the housing market. then in the 1970s, a wave of reformers are worried about government overreach, and they give private citizens the right to challenge every government decision. all of these made sense at the time, but if you add up those three generations of reforms, what you get is a system where anyone with enough time and money can go and challenge a government decision and block somebody else's right to build. >> john: what's the solution? >> there are three simple solutions that can get us out of this mess. first we need standard rules. the same rules need to apply in rich and poor areas alike. the second thing we need to do is practice a little bit of tolerance. we have to allow different forms

of housing into our neighborhoods so that people at different stages of their life and from different backgrounds can all move in. the third thing we need to do is build housing, a lot of it. we've got 50 years of housing creation to make up. >> john: what is the locality that's thinking most innovatively about these challenges? >> i started writing this book when i was living in cambridge, massachusetts, at an apartment that was a little too small for my family that charged us a little more than we can actually afford. people were starting to advocate for cambridge changing its rules to allow to become what it had once been: a working class community that allowed people to move there for the factories in town and boost themselves up in the world. it's taken 15 years. but last week, cambridge changed the rules. instead of having single family zoning, they are going to allow people to build up to six stories throughout the city. this kind of change is possible. >> john: yoni applebaum, the book is "stuck." thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you. >> john: coming up in my

reporter's notebook, finding wonder all around us. we just have to look for it.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> john: in troubled times, the desire to reach for signs of order is natural and sometimes nature helps out with the task. the universe supplied two rare sightings recently, one for those of us with our heads in the clouds and one for those of us who plumb the depths.

up above, the planets are aligning. seven of them appearing all in a row. while that's not exceedingly rare, it is rare that they are so visible this time. a lineup you can see is what is colloquially known as a parade of planets, a collective noun like a gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, or a pod of dolphins which is the second dose of wonder in our natural world this week. a pod of dolphins off the coast of monterey bay contained an estimated 2,000 dolphins, which made it a super pod, casting waves over the space of several miles. groupings of wonder particularly in a television essay are known as a hodgepodge of wonder and technically require three items. so we are compelled to include news of puppy mountain, which is not to be confused with a puppy pile. puppy mountain isn't a rare sighting. it's a mountain. it just sits there in central china. you can stare at it whenever you like.

but a tourist photograph of the mountain posted on social media excited mankind's natural desire to see wonder in nature. it became an internet sensation. in this case, nature was not creating order, but humans all over the globe imposed order through pattern recognition and our shared love of dogs. testimony to our persistent desire to find meaning and the promise that you can find it in the strangest of places if you look at it right. that's tonight's "cbs evening new plus." i'm john dickerson. good night. right now on cbs news bay area, parents and teachers on edge as oakland's school board makes some tough decisions about cuts tonight. they share their concerns about the latest plan to make up a staggering deficit. and plus san francisco fights the doom loop. new signs of optimism for the future. what a survey says about the city's direction and what people want to see downtown.

and the nest of nests sitting empty. we hear from the group that tracks the uc berkeley falcons about what could be behind their disappearance. a major closure to fix a leaky subway station. why some are saying the problem is much bigger than that. good evening, i'm ryan yamamoto. teachers and staff in oakland anxiously awaiting word on whether or not they will get to keep their jobs. the osd board is meeting tonight. all to vote on a plan to send a preliminary layoff notice. the district is dealing with a $95 million budget deficit. critics say -- they have been kicking tough decisions down the road, but now time is up. we'll be keeping an eye out on this meeting. kara st. cyr spoke to teachers and parents about the