captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: rescue crews sifted through the rubble in moore, oklahoma, continuing a desperate search for survivors of yesterday's monster tornado. good evening. i'm gwen ifill. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. on the newshour tonight, we get the latest on the devastation caused by the twister that claimed more than two dozen lives and injured more than 200. >> ifill: then, judy woodruff reports on a senate panel grilling two former i.r.s. commissioner on how the agency targeted conservative groups. >> brown: we examine charges the justice department overreached its authority by tracking reporters to crack down on leaks. >> ifill: apple's c.e.o. faced blistering questions on capitol hill today. margaret warner looks at whether the tech giant used offshore companies to skirt paying billions in taxes.

>> brown: and we close with miles o'brien on the legacy of astronaut sally ride and her goal to get more girls to study science, technology engineering and math. >> to get young girls interested in the stem fields, that was her life's mission. you talk to a lot of astronauts, their mission was s to go to space. her mission was a springboard for something else. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: the people of moore, oklahoma, began the long climb back today from catastrophe. authorities labored to clear wreckage in the shattered suburb outside oklahoma city, and the death toll stood at 24, including nine children. officials said the numbers could rise higher yet in the wake of a tornado that was one of the most powerful ever.

the scene that met jason leger as he emerged from his cellar on monday evening unscathed was one of total destruction. >> the lord giveth and the lord taketh away. >> ifill: today, similar scenes greeted those who had fled and returned to survey what, if anything, was left of their homes. >> it's going to take time to rebuild, the families. you look at you see the movies and everything, but when you are actually standing there, yeah... >> it's hard. it's hard, but, you know, i know that the lord is going to provide. he's provided before. he has shown his power to us before. >> ifill: in the immediate aftermath, dozens of people were rescued from the rubble of homes that collapsed around them. the grueling search for more survivors went on through the night. national guard troops joined in, going house-to-house, shining flashlights into the wreckage. >> each of our guys will have multiband communication radios. we can talk to aircraft, we can talk to personnel on the ground.

thermal images allow us to see cold, warm bodies, people in the dark. night vision equipment, we can see in the dark, low-light instances. >> ifill: fire and police crews from around the region jack- hammered their way through the debris. bucket by bucket, they pried it away, looking for any sign of life underneath. the twister, estimated at up to two miles wide, laid waste to a 20-mile stretch in 40 minutes. in that time, it reached ef-5 status, the most powerful, with winds of at least 200 miles an hour. many told harrowing stories of survival. >> it was coming straight towards us because it's heading east right up the middle of the road. so, at that point, it's time for us to just start making moves. so, we go a little bit farther down the road-- i'd say about 100 meters-- and as it's coming up from behind us, i say, "katie, get in the storm ditch." we go in the very middle of the tunnel itself as the tornado

passes over the highway. >> ifill: among the survivors, school children who were just about to be dismissed for the day when the tornado hit a little before 3:00 p.m. >> i was on the ground, and i just... my ears just went "whooo," and i couldn't hear anything except cracking and kids screaming. >> the tornado went in, and, i was so afraid that i was hanging onto one of the desks. and i fell back, and then all the dirt start getting on my eyes and on my clothes. >> ifill: briarwood elementary was all but destroyed. miraculously, everyone survived. but at nearby plaza towers elementary, seven children lost their lives. the superintendent of moore public schools, susan pierce, said today they followed disaster drills to the letter. >> yesterday, our administrator staff, teachers and students put

our crisis plan into action immediately. we monitored the weather throughout the day, and when it was time to shelter, we did just that. a tornado's path is highly unpredictable, but, with very little notice, we implemented our tornado shelter procedures at every school site. >> ifill: in addition to the schools, a local hospital was ravaged and countless homes were flattened. oklahoma governor mary fallin viewed the destruction from the air today. >> it is very wide. it is hard to look at because there is so much debris on the ground itself. in many places, homes were absolutely destroyed, taken away. there's just sticks and bricks, basically. it's hard to tell if there was a structure there or not. if you get into some of the major neighborhoods, you can't tell where the streets were. the street signs are gone. >> ifill: and in washington, president obama promised the federal government would do everything it could to get the town back on its feet.

>> the people of moore should know that their country will remain on the ground, there for them, beside them, as long as it takes. for there are homes and schools to rebuild, businesses and hospitals to reopen. >> ifill: in the meantime, a caravan of semi-trucks loaded with bulldozers and diggers arrived in moore today to do the heavy lifting. search dogs were also on hand as teams planned to keep looking for anyone who might yet be found in the ruins. >> brown: jay newton-small is in moore for "time" magazine. i spoke with her a short time ago. jay newton-small, thanks so much for joining us. can you tell us, do you have a sense of where they are in terms of the search for survivors at this point? >> sure. i spoke with the local mayor here in moore and he said that they're actually not expecting to find any more bodies, at least he hopes so. they're not going to completely rule it out but they do believe

given they've done two sweeps and by nighttime they've done three sweeps with sniffer dogs that they don't think they will find any more people, at least no more people alive and this will be a recovery operation from here on in. and that's a good thing in the sense that, you know, hopefully they'll get a real sense of the numbers of missing people and they can rule out any more deaths. >> brown: you've been watching some of these sweeps, i gather. is it literally door to door or wreckage to wreckage? how are they doing it? >> it is literally door to door and wreckage to wreckage and you can see the xs marked on the different cars and buildings and they do them in color code so one pass means a black x, another two passes means a red x so that way they know the place has been searched and they've looked in every possible corner and there isn't anyone inside and the teams can move on. >> brown: you've been with these responder teams. give us a sense of what you've seen. what does it feel like and look like? >> you know, with tornados the

most amazing thing is the hit or miss nature of it. so you'll have blocks where one whole side of the block the houses are completely fine and the other side they're decimated. and this is h has been an unusually powerful tornado in that it's not just that they're pancaked, it's like licked clean. the only thing you see on the plot is the shadow of where the house once was and a bunch of brown grass that was once there and it's the only thing that delineates that the house was there and there's debris everywhere else. it's really just -- the power of this storm is stunning in this case and you see that with search-and-rescue teams. they are really looking under every plank of wood just in case somebody is hiding behind it. you hear stories about a student in the school who was found underneath a chalk board that was laying down. so it's really, like, every nook and cranny, that's what they're searching. >> brown: and what are the people there telling you about their own -- either their experiences of it comes or their own survival stories? >> i mean, that's also been amazing.

i spoke to one young man who saw it coming, ran into a 7-eleven to warn people to take shelter, he left, drove off, was racing away from the tornado, all four people in that 7-eleven died. he took shelter under a bridge, he managed to survive. they talk about the roaring of the air, how incredibly powerful it sounds and you think nothing will be left when you come out and surprise, surprise, either your house is still there or, in fact, there is there really is nothing left. and they do talk about just the debris that you see and the force of which have the debris is embedded into cars and into stone walls, into concrete. it really just flings cars and smashes them like little toys, it's just stunning the power of nature that you see. i think a lot of people you see walking around are kind of dazed because they're shocked by it. >> brown: that's what i was wondering. is anybody able to think about what now, what next, what do they do? >> i mean, a lot of people this afternoon i saw for the first time really starting to clean up

take out brooms and start to sweep and it's such a little thing to be able to clear your driveway but it's important to people and, you know, when your house is erect but your driveway is clean somehow it's really -- i spoke to one woman speaking her driveway of this house that had been totally ruined and she was like "at least i know i won't gate flat tire with my car and it's the beginning, it's the first step." so that's what people are looking to do is the first step they'll take to rebuilding this town. >> brown: let me ask you very briefly, jay. does it look as though they have enough resources there in terms of the relief effort? >> the relief effort has actually been really impressive and, you know, the -- every official that i spoke to from the governor to the mayor has said that fema has been really amazing in this case and has provided whatever is needed and cut through red tape and you see that with the search teams out there. there's a combination of homeland security, fema, as well as local police and state police and you see that also in terms

of there's water everywhere, there's vans going around supplying first -- you know, first responders as well as locals with food, with water, any kind of shelter that's needed they've been supplying. so it really has been a very good response so far and that seems to be the unified response. >> brown: jay newton-small of "time" magazine, thanks so much. >> thank you. sergeant lewis, thanks so much for joining us. we heard you're doing two and three sweeps of the area. is there still some hope of finding people or do you have a sense that most are accounted for at this point? >> well, we've actually done one complete sweep. we're in the process of our second sweep. we actually are also still working on plaza towers elementary school. we have large equipment there now that we're trying to move some of the larger debris out of the way. there's still 20 to 30-foot pile

high at the elementary school that they've got to the go through and to go from one end of the city to the other it takes pretty much an entire day. so we're about halfway through the second sweep. there is a possibility that we could find someone possibly still a storm cellar or safe room that's just been covered up. last night most of the search was done in the dark. now with the light and we also have a lot more heavy equipment we're more equipped at doing the search correctly. >> brown: tell us a little bit more about what else is happening in the community today in particular shelters, food, and aid. somehow that going for people? >> we are -- just in the past we've had enormous support here in the city of moore and it's showing again. you know, there's literally cases and cases of water being brought to the volunteers. i know at the different places we have for shelter we have numerous things being dropped

off for the victims of this storm but it's just an outpouring of support in all different ways: volunteer, money bringing things. just everything. we're pretty much overwhelming the with support that we have. >> brown: tell me, this is your community, what did you see today as you went around? >> well, it's pretty hard to believe. this is -- i've grown up here my entire life, worked here for 13 years, went to high school here. to see the center of the city pretty much from border to border almost wiped clean is -- i don't know that it's still set in for a lot of officers from the moore area. we've been so busy running here and there just trying to do our job, i think it will take a couple days to set in. but it's -- when you really stop is whenever it kind of gets to you and it's extremely upsetting to see what people are going through. it's devastating. >> brown: officials earlier today had said that the death

toll -- the death toll still could rise. is that still the thinking at this point? >> there's a possibility just for the fact -- the size of this disaster is so enormous. the amount of debris that has piled up, it's really hard to be 100% until you have the search-and-rescue dogs search nearly -- you know, from one side of the city to the other. we have so many places that people could still be. it's hard to say 100% that we've found everybody. >> brown: sergeant jeremy lewis of the moore police department. our condolences to your community. good luck to you and thanks so much for talking to us. >> thank you. >> brown: joining us live in boulder, colorado, bob henson, a meteorologist for the national center for atmospheric research. even as the rescue continues, what can you tell us about the size and force of this tornado and what caused it to be so

powerful? >> well, it was an extremely powerful tornado, now rated at ef-5 on the enhanced fujita scale. that places hit in the top one tenth of one percent of all tornados. the u.s. usually gets about 1,200 or so tornados in a particular year and there's usually only about one on average this reach this is strength. in terms of what caused it to be so strong, there are a few days each year that have the general conditions that lead to strong tornado. warm moist unstable air near the surface, colder air aloft, also wind shear, which is when the winds are blowing one direction below and a different direction aloft and that imparts the air with a spin that can get sucked up into a thunderstorm. and then finally that rotation is concentrated in the tornado and there's some mystery about what makes that happen. so the conditions are there on a number of days and it's still a little bit difficult to say, for example, the day ahead of time which days will produce an ef-5. it was apparent within a couple of hours that the potential far bad tornado was developing quickly. >> brown: well, i want to pursue

that a little bit more. how well was this tracked ahead of time and what can you tell today about how much warning and wind people got -- when people got the warning. >> well, the tornado was very well forecast. within about an hour it was clear severe thunderstorms were developing. about tensor minutes before the tornado touched down there was a tornado warning issued with the expectation it was going to touchdown. it then moved into moore about ten minutes after touchdown. so people of moore had anywhere from maybe ten or 15 to 20 minutes of the tornado's arrival. it was also -- seemed a few days out there was a potential for severe weather. a product called convective outlooks are issued by the noaa storm prediction center and those are outlined in a broad brush way which parts of the country could see severe weather. so you could see several days out the potential and then in the immediate couple hours you could see the conditions lining up for scically in tthe tricky o

24 hours out and my lab in part is part of a project right now which is specifically trying to prove predictions in that six to 24-hour window. >> brown: what about the weather situation today in oklahoma and elsewhere because there were fears of continued -- of more tornados. >> well, this is a good example of that because as recently as yesterday it looked like there was a chance for more significant tornado action today. it now-- at least the last i looked-- was looking more like kind of garden variety thunderstorms, maybe some severe thunderstorms but probably not the kind of tornados like we saw yesterday. so the more we can improve calling those characters of thunderstorms a day or so out, that will be fantastic. but certainly in terms of the warnings that are issued an hour before and the warning system, it worked flawlessly, i would say, in the moore area. the word got to people. there's still work to be done, we can have people interpret warnings and having a place to go.

i mean, many places in oklahoma don't have basements partially because of the soil type and so people don't necessarily have a place to take shelter even if they know a violent tornado is on the way. >> brown: bob henley, thank you so much. >> you're welcome. >> ifill: online, you can watch our report from 1999, when another tornado devastated the town of moore. still to come on the newshour: who knew what and when at the i.r.s. and the white house; the department of justice tracks reporters to prosecute leaks; apple defends offshore tax havens; and promoting women in the sciences. but first, with the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: a federal appeals court today refused to order the release of photos and video of osama bin laden from the u.s. raid that killed him in 2011. the obama administration argued the images could reveal intelligence methods and trigger violence against americans. today, a three-judge panel in washington agreed. it rejected a bid by the

conservative watchdog group judicial defense to make the pictures public. in syria, the battle raged for a third day in a key town near the border with lebanon. government forces and hezbollah fighters from lebanon have been fighting to retake qusair, which rebels have controlled for more than a year. rebel video today captured the aftermath of a government air strike on qusair. it showed heavily damaged buildings and rubble in the streets, as well as the interior of a mosque hit in the attack. the guardian council of iran today barred a former president popular with reformers from running again in next month's election. akbar hashemi rafsanjani is now 78 years old. he has criticized the government for crushing protests against the disputed presidential election in 2009. also barred from running today, a top aide to outgoing president mahmoud ahmadinejad, who's repeatedly clashed with the ruling islamic clerics. guatemala's highest court has overturned the genocide conviction of former dictator efrain rios montt.

the former general was convicted this month in the killings of more than 1,700 ethnic mayans, during the early 1980s, but last night the high court declared the trial should have been stopped earlier to resolve defense appeals. rios montt's attorney hailed the ruling. >> ( translated ): the right of defense was violated constantly, which is sacred. it is the a constitutional rule. no other superior rule exists. it is an institution of law and it has to be complied with. montt. >> sreenivasan: the court ordered the trial to return to where it was in mid-april. for now, rios montt remains in a military hospital. he is 86 years old. the head of j.p. morgan chase, jamie dimon, survived a bid today to strip him of one of his jobs. shareholders at the bank's annual meeting voted to keep dimon as both chairman and c.e.o. he had been criticized after the bank suffered a $6 billion loss last year on complex debt

securities. on wall street, the dow jones industrial average gained 52 points to close at 15,387. the nasdaq rose five points to close at 3,502. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to jeff. >> brown: the drama surrounding the internal revenue service shifted to a new scene today. the senate finance committee heard from the man who ran the agency until last fall, and his successor. judy woodruff has our report. >> do you swear the testimony you're about to give is the truth? >> woodruff: the hearing marked the first chance for lawmakers to question former i.r.s. commissioner doug shulman since news broke that the agency had targeted conservative groups. >> i'm deeply, deeply saddened by this whole set of events. i've read the i.g.'s report, and i very much regret that it happened and that it happened on my watch. >> woodruff: shulman's five-year term expired last november. this month, a treasury department inspector general disclosed that i.r.s. agents had

singled out groups seeking tax- exempt status with "tea party," "patriot" or "9/12" in their names. the report also revealed that shulman learned of the practice in may of 2012. utah republican senator orrin hatch noted that, two months before that date, shulman told congress there was "absolutely no targeting." >> mr. shulman, why have you not come forward before today to correct the record and acknowledge that there was in fact inappropriate screening occurring in the i.r.s., the organization that you headed? >> what i knew was not the full set of facts in this report. what i knew sometime in the spring of 2012 was that there was a list that was being used. i knew that the word "tea party" was on the list. didn't know what other words were on the list. didn't know the scope and severity of this. i didn't know if groups that

were pulled in were groups that would have been pulled in anyways. >> woodruff: michigan democrat debbie stabenow complained that the targeting by staffers in a cincinnati regional office went on for 18 months. >> how could it take so long for senior people at the i.r.s. to find the problem, fix the problem? and was there no ongoing oversight of the employees in cincinnati? >> i'm not there to go ask a set of questions of people-- what happened, when, who and how. >> but, with all due respect, you were there, though? >> i was there. but since this all came to light and the full set of facts are there, i haven't been able to be back there, talking with people doing things. so, let me though just answer your question... >> but why didn't you know when you were there? >> i agree that this is an issue that when someone spotted it, they should have run up the

chain, and they didn't. and why they didn't, i don't know. >> woodruff: the news ultimately came out when an i.r.s. official, lois lerner, took a prearranged question at a public conference on may 10 and issued an apology. today, steven miller, who was ousted last week as the acting i.r.s. commissioner, said it was his idea to get the news out that way. >> we had our response, we thought we should begin talking about this. we thought we'd get out an apology. the way we did it, we wanted to reach out to hill staff about the same time and come and brief. it did not work out. obviously, the entire thing was an incredibly bad idea. >> woodruff: the committee also heard from j. russell george, the treasury inspector general for tax administration who conducted the audit. idaho republican mike crapo was skeptical of his conclusion that

i.r.s. agents were not driven by politics. >> you have simply the reached the conclusion that there was none or that you haven't found it? >> it's the latter, that we have not found any, sir. >> because it seems to me that it's almost unbelievable to look at what's happening and then say there's no political motivation here. how could an agency with the power that the internal revenue service has engage in this kind of conduct and it not be politically motivated? >> woodruff: there were also plenty of questions directed at the white house again today, the administration's timeline surrounding who knew what and when about the activities at the i.r.s. faced mounting scrutiny. presidential press secretary jay carney said monday that the white house's top lawyer and the chief of staff were told in april about the inspector general's report, but the president was not informed. today, he said:

>> there was nothing the president could or should do until that process was completed. and upon the release of that information, the release of the final report, the president moved very quickly to make clear his feeling that the conduct portrayed within it was outrageous and inappropriate and wrong. >> woodruff: amid the questions and answers, tea party groups protested outside i.r.s. offices around the country today, and there will be more tomorrow when the house oversight committee holds its first hearing on the matter. >> ifill: now, to another story that has captured the attention of the news media and of congress. after new revelations about extensive investigations involving the associated press and fox news, three former justice department officials are defending the leak inquiries. writing in the new york times, they said:

white house press secretary jay carney said today the key is to strike the right balance, but what is that balance? for that, we turn to: floyd abrams, a first amendment lawyer who routinely represents news organizations; and former attorney general michael mukasey, now an attorney in private practice in new york city. michael mukasey, how far should the government go in these kinds of investigations in your opinion? >> well, there are rules and procedures that are prescribed as to how far they should go and what those rules say is that when it comes to getting information about the records -- the telephone records of a reporter-- which is the issue in the a.p. case-- that they are supposed to, number one, exhaust other alternatives, number two,

obviously, recognize that what they're dealing with is something that touches on press freedom, negotiate with the news organization in question if it's possible to do that without prejudicing the investigation. and limit the subpoenas, limit the materials sought to what is absolutely necessary. and the question is whether any or all of that was done here. >> ifill: floyd abrams, what do you any was any or all of that done here? >> well, i really don't think enough was done here. the only justification for not asking, telling the a.p. that they wanted the phone records is that doing so would interfere with the integrity of the investigation and i just haven't seen anything to persuade me that that is so. if the fear here was-- and this has been suggested in some reports on it-- that a.p. might go to court, that's a terrible

reason. the a.p. ought to go to court to defend itself and defend its telephone logs and if that takes some more time, well, that's just fine. the one thing you shouldn't do is just to evade the regulations by going right in the direction of the telephone company. >> ifill: the administration has said and previous administrations have made this argument as well that this is a matter of national security. that when someone leaks sensitive information that could endanger american lives all bets are off. is that something that sounds right to you? first to you, mr. abrams? >> not that way, no. all bets are never off. if there's a national security issue there ought to be a very sophisticated, serious, sober investigation in which every effort as attorney general mukasey was setting forward. every effort is made first to

avoid going to the journalist and here or imposing on their rights in any way. here they went after a lot of interrogations to be sure, but here they went to the telephone company instead of going to the associated press and i just see no justification for that. >> ifill: mr. mukasey, did they go too for? >> well, they seem to have gone too far from what i know with the breadth of the subpoena. as i understand it, they were investigating an incident that was so confidential that it was known only to very few people in government and was not actually briefed even to the leadership in congress or to the oversight committees, the intelligence committees of congress. one of the people whose records they subpoenaed was the congressional correspondent for the a.p.. i can't figure out for the life of me why that was done. so the question is really the breadth of the subpoena.

>> ifill: let's talk for -- finish that thought. >> no, go ahead. >> ifill: let's talk about the breadth of the subpoenas. when is it okay -- the administration has said among other things that they were trying to search for the leaker. it's not so much about the reporters but the leakers. is that the standard which you can imagine applying that it's worth doing what you have to do in order to get to that leak? >> absolutely. and they were that is the person whom you should focus on. the first person they should have focused on when they were dealing with an operation with only a few people is the few people who knew about it. obviously one of them was the leaker and only when that doesn't prove fruitful should they be looking -- should they be casting a wider net and there only the people who participated in the report. again, i don't understand how the congressional correspondent is involved in that. >> ifill: mr. abrams, i want to talk to you about the fox news

case, which is a little bit different. it's about whether somebody should have been -- whether somebody really was -- should be involved in a criminal inquiry, whether they should be held criminally responsible for thet

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[technical difficulties] [technical difficulties] [technical difficulties] what's the proper balance and how do you negotiate your way to the middle in an argument like that? >> well, you try to strike the balance. you try to find some sort of way to go about your investigation in a way best designed to avoid interfering with the ability of the press to go about its mission. and the worst way you can do that is by starting to accuse journalists themselves of being participants in criminal conduct. i mean, that is the end. that's the most radical change in policy at f this is a policy that we've mean? years. >> ifill: mr. mukasey? >> well, there are two problems with it that i see. number one is that it subverb it is ability of the american people to find out information.

obviously if -- people are not inside the government. the only people inside the government are the people who work for the government. and if the only way that the people have of finding out what the their government is doing is by what is authorized and reported by the government or leaked by government officials-- and, of course, that goes on all the time-- then the ability of people to make up their own minds about what their government is doing is subverted. in addition, obviously, if people who speak to reporters think that their records and their identity is being made known to the government or reporters think that their records and activities are being made known to the government they are going to be hesitant for the reporter side in seeking information and from the sources side in disclosing it. also, it impedes -- that's the first problem is the problem of running a democratic system. the second problem is that the

next time there's a national security issue we're going to have a situation like this one in the story of the little boy who cried wolf. when the government cries national security nobody will believe them." >> ifill: former attorney general michael mukasey and first amendment lawyer floyd abrams, thank you both for joining us. >> brown: now, the tech giant apple is the subject of criticism and scrutiny on capitol hill for using tax practices that margaret warner has the story. >> now, apple executives want the public to focus on the u.s. taxes the company has paid, but the real issue is the billions in taxes that it has not paid. >> warner: chairman carl levin laid out the findings of his senate panel's investigative report today. giant apple, maker of the iphone, ipad and other popular devices has for years used a complex web of irish subsidiaries to avoid paying

billions of dollars in taxes to the u.s. or any other country. that strategy meant apple paid little or no corporate taxes on at least $74 billion in the past four years, according to the report. saved apple at least $9 billion in u.s. taxes last year, ranking member john mccain showed the outrage was bipartisan. >> today, apple has over 100 billion, more than two thirds of its total profits stashed away in an offshore account. that's over $100 billion that are not currently subject to us corporate income taxes and therefore cannot be used to help ease the deficit or help invigorate the same american economy that fostered the creation of this large corporation in the first place. >> warner: after being sworn in, apple c.e.o. tim cook said his company is america's largest corporate taxpayer, and he offered a vigorous defense of the company's practices. >> we pay all the taxes we owe, every single dollar.

we not only comply with all laws, we comply with the spirit of the laws. we don't depend on tax gimmicks. >> warner: nobody was alleging that apple has done anything illegal, and apple's overseas sales now outstrip its revenues from sales at home. rather, today's hearing was meant to spotlight how apple and other multinational corporations exploit loopholes in u.s. tax laws, loopholes cook said he believes need to be fixed. >> apple has always believed in the simple, not the complex. you can see this in our products and in the way we conduct ourselves. it is in this spirit that we recommend a dramatic simplification of the corporate tax code. >> warner: levin closed the hearing, the second to examine this issue, by saying "one way or another" the current loopholes cannot remain in place. and more now on the report and the apple story. charles duhigg has been covering it for the "new york times" and joins me now.

charles, welcome back. first, explain to us how did apple structure itself so that it could avoid paying taxes on its overseas income to any government? i mean, senator levin accused apple of using ghost companies. >> it -- apple took advantage of loopholes that exist in our tax system and every tax system. for instance, the united states says that a company should be taxed where it's based. for instance, if you have a subsidiary in ireland than ireland should collect taxes on your revenue. ireland, on the other hand, says is company should be taxed based on where it's controlled out of. so if it's run by people in california, then united states should tax you. apple was able to take advantage of these conflicting philosophies and say "we've got a company that's technically incorporated in ireland, it's run by people out of california and so there's no taxing authority." and as a result, many of its -- many of its subsidiaries don't

pay any taxes on tens of billions of dollars of revenue and, in fact, don't even file tax returns to anyone on earth because they slip through these cracks. >> warner: now the atmosphere at that hearing with one exception was pretty much very critical of apple. what was happen's defense, tim cook's defense other than we do everything -- we pay what we legally owe? >> that's exactly tim cook's defense and apple's defense is to say, listen, we follow the law. we pay what we're supposed to in every country. it's not our fault if you don't like how the law is written. secondarily what mr. cook and others say is listen, when companies make money, when they get these revenues they use them to create jobs and to create new products and to make the world a better place. and so we deserve to have that money so we can use it. and finally what mr. cook says is that at this point a majority of apple's sales occur outside of the united states and so as a result it shouldn't be subject to u.s. taxation. now, that's significantly different from what, for instance, the congressional

panel as well as the law of the united states says which is that the u.s. believes that we should tax where economic value is created. so if you buy an itunes song in portugal and it's downloaded from a server in greece and it's created by a recording artist that lives in new york and the program that made it work is by someone in california, the u.s. says well, wherever that value was created-- in this case the united states-- that's where taxation should occur. and there's a fundamental difference of opinion on how that law should be interpreted. >> warner: is it clear that all the money in these three big irish subsidiaries was, in fact, all -- at least earned overseas in terms of the sales occurring overseas? >> it -- i think it's pretty clear that the sales occurred overseas. no one is saying that apple is misleading about where the sales themselves occur. the question is how that revenue is passed between subsidiaries. so one of the things that apple does as well as almost every other tech company is that they sell their own intellectual

property to one of their subsidiaries. so apple might invent itunes in california, but then sell the intellectual property, the patents around it, to a subsidiary in ireland. then ireland charges other parts of apple for the use of the itunes technology. so as a result the money ends up in ireland in theory. and this's where it's either taxed or not taxed depending upon how the law is restructured >> warner: now, this is this isn't the only company this committee has focused on. how widespread is the practice of -- with overseas subsidiaries somehow avoiding u.s. taxes? >> it's incredibly widespread. now, what the congressional panel as well as our own reporting has indicated is that apple is for more aggressive in this and uses either pioneers and creates tactics or uses tactics that we're not aware of any other company using. that being said, there's general policy of particular tech companies trying to lower their

tax bill by moving intellectual property and revenues around the world. almost every single company does this. no c.e.o. wants to say "i'm the one who volunteered the pay the most taxes." and part of the problem here is that we have a tax system that was written -- the last time it was overhauled was in the 1980s when the

port their intellectual property and this companies take their fair share. change is going to occur but there's a big debate over what the fair share means and who should be paying it. >> warner: charles duhigg, "new york times."

>> ifill: you can watch all of apple c.e.o. tim cook's testimony on our youtube page. >> brown: and finally, the legacy of sally ride. yesterday, president obama announced he would confer the presidential medal of freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, on a woman remembered as a pioneer in space travel and an educator and role model for women in the sciences. it was 1983 when sally ride made history as the first american woman in space. ride was just 32 at the time, and she said then that she thought her age was more important than her gender. >> i guess that i was maybe more excited about getting a chance to fly early than i was about getting to be the first woman. >> brown: ride was a physicist and one of the first six women chosen for the program. she would fly into space again just a year later. but when her flying days were over, she continued to play an important role in the space program. she served on two investigative boards that examined what went wrong in the challenger and columbia disasters.

and after her nasa years, ride focused on engaging young people in science, particularly girls and women. in a 2008 video, she promoted "earthkam," an effort to put cameras on the space station, allowing middle schoolers to take pictures from space. >> we provide a web site that allows them to do their calculations, figure out exactly when the station is going to be going over that part of the earth, and then command the camera to take a picture at that second. >> brown: science education remained sally ride's life's work until she was overcome by pancreatic cancer last july at the age of 61. a celebration of the life and work of sally ride was held last night at the kennedy center here in washington. our own science correspondent, miles o'brien, who knew ride, served as the emcee. i talked with him yesterday just before the event. welcome, miles. >> good to be here, jeff. >> brown: was she aware, sally

ride aware of being a pioneer and did she feel that responsibility? >> responsibility and she had a lot of discomfort with it. you know, it's interesting. she went into space for the adventure and never really intended to become part of the mythology. you know, i think we use the term "hero" in our culture and very few people fully qualify. i think she does qualify because of what she accomplished and the inspiration she gave others but she was always reluctant to bask in that. the fame was something she saw as a two-edged sword. it allowed her to get phone calls answered. got her through some doors but she was never comfortable with the adulation that came along with it. >> brown: describe a little bit more of her wider impact on the space program, right? because it went even beyond the ride that she did. the ride. >> the ride! yes, it wasn't just the ride. that's a great way of putting it. for her the ride was part of the larger picture. she had tremendous passion for science and the role that women can play in it and really set

about to be an inspiration to girls everywhere and did this with her sally ride science program and other programs she got involved in to try to -- to get young girls interested in the stem fields, as she called it-- science, technology, engineering and mathematics. that was her life's mission. you talk to a lot of astronauts and their mission was to go space. for her space was a springboard to do something else. >> brown: where did that come from? >> i think for some people it's about the ride, it's about the speed. for her there was something deeper engrained in her. i think's a real sense of a desire to achieve and a desire for women to be on an equal playing field with men, especially when it came to these technical fields where there's huge discrepancy. >> brown: tell us how spent her years after the shuttle experiences, particularly trying to invoke -- i mean instill these stem subjects. >> she was all about education and finding ways to inspire young people, particularly

girls. and she did it in interesting ways by having cameras in space that allowed kids to participate and be a part of it. by giving them the ability to be a part of science fairs that allowed them to build things and think of ideas and dream great things. she reached a lot of young people by doing this. of course the problem is so much bigger than one person. she committed her life that that and in addition to that she became a very sage presence at nasa. she was nasa's conscience in many ways. >> brown: well, explain that. part of it was the disasters who served on the commissions. >> she served on both commissions, post-challenger post-colombia. that says something about the time she -- that shows testimony interest she held. and it was very important toer in the wake of those accidents that nasa get it right for future. not -- she knew it was dangerous but she knew that space was

important to stay in space to continue that engagement with young people. >> brown: when you say conscience with nasa it's that and that kind of thing? >> it's interesting. i always think of her -- neil armstrong was always thought of as the most cerebral of the "apollo" astronauts. i think of sally ride as the neil armstrong of her era. that vintage of shuttle astronauts who thought about space as a means to talking about much larger things. is there something larger than space? i don't know. >> brown: it's interesting looking at the setup piece you forget how young she was and the excitement she talks about not being a woman but just getting up so young. >> yeah, i think it's -- you know, as i say, i think she was not exactly ready far, for the kind of embrace she got by the american public and guess what? here's a reality check, folks. it's going to be the 30-ier anniversary for the flight. hard to imagine how much our country -- how much we've come

and gone since then. interestingly, though, that issue that she's cared so much about, science, technology, engineering and mathematics education remains a problem and that discremesy only continues to grow among men and swipl so there's still work to be done. >> brown: and as a person you knew her. i mean, you said that she didn't -- she didn't seek the spotlight. >> she was a determined person, when she called and she would call frequently there wasn't much time for small talk. she was on a mission always and she wanted to talk about things that were important to her and i had the good fortune to haver in my house and i confided to n her at the time that i had worked out a deal to fly to space on the shuttle and go to the international space station at that time with cnn and she didn't miss a beat, she started talking about all the ways we could partner together to help out young people that she cared so dearly about. so it was always moving forward for her. >> brown: miles o'brien on the life and work of sally ride.

thank you so much. >> you're welcome, jeff. >> >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. rescue crews sifted through the wreckage of moore, oklahoma, winding down a search for survivors of yesterday's monster tornado. and senators pressed the former head of the internal revenue service, douglas shulman, about targeting conservative groups. he said he didn't tell congress because he knew an inspector general was also investigating. >> brown: online, social media sites help groups mobilize around a common cause. but what if their message is one of hate or intolerance? hari sreenivasan tells us more. >> sreenivasan: the simon wiesenthal center, an organization devoted to combating global racism, works with service providers and social networks to identify and disable users with objectionable content. learn more on the rundown. are you 50 or older and searching for a job? ask the headhunter's nick corcodilos says the best thing you can do is to show a prospective employer exactly how

you'll do that job. that's on "making sense." all that and more is on our web site, www.newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll have an on- the-ground report from oklahoma as the town of moore struggles to dig out from the rubble. i'm gwen ifill. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thanks for joining us. good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> more than two years ago, the people of b.p. made a commitment to the gulf. and everyday since, we've worked hard to keep it. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy. we shared what we've learned so that we can all produce energy more safely. b.p. is also committed to america. we support nearly 250,000 jobs and invest more here than anywhere else. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. our commitment has never been stronger.

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