on this edition for saturday, december, 28th, more than a million americans lose their unemployment benefits. what it means for them and the overall economy. a report from one new orleans neighborhood that is still struggling to rebuild eight years after hurricane katrina. >> there is more to life than the lower ninth ward. maybe for you but not for me. and the art of the anonymous. next on "the newshour weekend." >> "the newshour weekend" is made possible by judy and josh westin, joyce b. hale.

the wallick family, the cheryl and philip milstein family. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support is provided by and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station by viewers like you, thank you. from the tish wnet studios, hari sreenivasan. >> unemployment benefits have been going to long-term unemployed workers who state benefits have run out. the president is urging congress to reinstate the benefits. the number of sexual

assaults in the military has risen more than 50% according to the associated press. the increase might reflect a growing willingness among women to file complaints. there were more than 5,000 complaints filed during the 12 months ending in september. an official report about the massacre at the sandy hook element school showed that adam lanza had been prescribed anti-anxiety medication but his mother stopped giving it to him. lanza had not left his room for three months prior to the shooting. his mother was quoted as saying that lanza was put over the edge when their house lost pour during hurricane sandy. for the first time in 30 years, china has relaxed its one child policy. if either parent is an only

child the couple can have two children. critics say it was a violation of human rights and led to millions of forced abortions. a local militia leader was behind the september 11th 2012 attacks in benghazi that resulted in the deaths of four people. the newspaper said it reached that conclusion after months of investigation, an investigation that included interviews with libyans in benghazi with knowledge of the attack. today is theth anniversary of the passage of the endangered species act. during the intervening years the u.s. fish and wildlife services say 30 species have recovered enough to be removed from the list. critics say the law say that it helped save few animals and caused economic hardships.

for more about today's cut to unemployment benefits we are joined by brenda kernon she wrote about it in "the wall street journal" how significant will the impact be? >> you can look at the macroeconomic impact which many economists say will be neglible. but if you are one of the 1.3 million people who have seen your benefits cut it could be cataclysmic. the benefit is $300 a week. the expectation is that is to essentials like groceries, pharmacies and gas. and without that, that would mean an enormous change in life

for the people who have been receiving the benefit. >> one of the concerns is this is going to create a crutch for people and they should try to find a job if it is 26 weeks or 99 weeks they have been on. how difficult is it to find a job today than five years ago? >> certainly harder than ten year ago. there are 2.97 people for every opening. that is down from 6 people there were for every opening during the recession and in the aftermath. but those are still rather difficult odds for anyone looking for a job. and all research points that the longer one is looking for a job the harder it is to find one for a host of reasons, among them the skills atrophy a bit and a long term unemployment is a red flag for employers. people who have seen their

benefits cut have exhausted their state benefits which are an average of 26 weeks, about six months of the year. they are long-term unemployed and they have moved into the federal rolls. so they are already out of work for some time. so they -- without this benefit, they will have to continue a job search without any assistance. >> going forward this is one of the first items on the agenda for congress. what is the likelihood it gets you will? >> that's hard to tell. is it on the agenda. there is a discussion of the bill to extend the program retroactively by three months. that brings payments through march 2014. there is precedence for the retroactive extension. it has been extended more than ten times. and the most recent was december 12 through december 13. this is not an enormous

surprise, the expiration. many of the jobless people i spoke to were hoping for a renewal in the budget package. that didn't happen. many republicans said we want to see offsetting cuts and that didn't happen in the budget package. this three month possible extension would allow lawmakers to tweak the program to find offsetting cuts and to perhaps tweak it so it is not as generous as it was. as far as passage? there will be a discussion and a vote on the 6th and 7th. and some republicans do indeed favor it but not all. >> thanks so much. >> thank you for having me. and now to our signature

segment, our indepth reports around the country and the world. eight years after hurricane katrina, one hard hit area in new orleans is struggling to recover. john carlos frey reports. >> reporter: harold joseph lived his entire life in the lower ninth ward of new orleans. he was raising his family in the same house he grew up in. in august 2005, hurricane katrina changed all that. >> okay, this was our master bedroom. and we had a utility room over here. and over here was like a storage and a pantry. >> reporter: like all residents of the lower ninth ward he and his wife and two kids were forced to evacuate. >> we couldn't get back in this area. and you had the military telling you that's as far as you could go. >> reporter: so he moved with his family to baton rouge, louisiana before returning to a different new orleans

neighborhood where he now rents. still the 63-year-old contractor longs to return to the house he grew up in. but eight and a half years after the storm, his house is still a shell of what it was. >> i'm all cried out. >> reporter: joseph's story is hardly atypical. the lower ninth ward had a population of 14,000 before the storm struck. but now it's only 3,000. and though construction is underway on a new school, a fire station, and a community center, most of the neighborhood looks much the way it did immediately after the storm surge sent a 20-foot wall of water into the community. today the community is littered with destroyed homes, vacant lots and there are practically no grocery stores or other businesses here. >> as kids we were here. and now, there's nobody around here. but i want to be here. i love this land. >> reporter: though city officials declined our repeated

requests to talk about the rebuilding of the lower ninth ward they sent us a document detailing how they directed federal funds. more than $900 million was allocated for the lower ninth ward for row reconstruction, parks and recreational facilities and the building of that community center and fire house. it's an amount similar to and sometimes greater than investments made in other neighborhoods where many more residents have returned. now some questioned whether that money was worth it and if the lower ninth ward should be rebuilt at all. >> i don't there is any prospect of it becoming what it was. >> reporter: mark davis is the director of tulane university director on policy. he hem red shape neighborhoods like the lower ninth ward. >> you have to reestablish the framework on which the community was built. and if you have no place to shop, how do you move there?

you don't have a hospital. you have really one school. the things that actually become necessary to develop a neighborhood, and attract people back aren't current present. >> if the lower ninth ward was built basically and solely on emotion and passion for restoring what was there, you're saying that that's not sustainable? >> no. it's not sustainable any more than my desire to be 25 again. >> reporter: controversy over which new orleans neighborhoods should and shouldn't be rebuilt started months after the storm when in early 2006 the green dot map was unveiled. there were dots on low lying neighborhoods that should be considered for future parks instead of full-scale redevelopmentment. the lower ninth ward was within of those neighborhoods.

the message was clear, redevelopment should focus on areas with the best chance for recovery, not neighborhoods lie the lower niensds which had the highest percentage of black ownership in the nation. but there are those who are committed to rebuild the lower ninth ward as was. this woman runs a non-profit committed to rebuilding as many homes as possible. >> what would be here where you finally say my work is done? >> our work will be done when he stop getting calls from people who say i want to get back in my house. that it's not happening yet. >> reporter: with private donations lane voluntary labor she has restored over 60 homes including ula white. she says she always knew she would come back.

>> i had an attitude about coming back. i had an attitude. i was like, this is where i grew up at and this is where i want to be and i'm determined i'm going to get there. >> what i see when i come here are the empty lots and the houses that need repair and abandoned buildings and churches that are boarded up. >> all those things you see are real. but i see hope. >> where? >> where? whenever i see a lot that is scraped down and getting ready to build a home, i see hope. >> reporter: white says her grown children who settled elsewhere in new orleans don't understand why she would return to a neighborhood in such bad shape. >> they don't understand. there is more to life than the lower ninth ward. maybe for you, but not for me. and that's just how it is. >> reporter: but professor mark davis say that her children are emblematic of why so few residents have returned.

>> is it too long for people. when you are settled and your kids in the school and you have a new doctor and you are eight years older it makes it hard to come back. >> reporter: the neighborhood continues to have a high crime rate and some worry it might not be safe from another big storm. >> would you say it's now safe? >> it's safer. that's as much as you can say for anywhere i can imagine. there's not a community you don't live at risk. >> reporter: but other neighborhoods are thriving in a way that the lower ninth ward hasn't. terry north is ceo of a non-profit associated with the catholic church rebuilding homes in tremaine. >> we get a lot of positive feedback. >> they have built 517 new homes there. and tremaine has an occupancy rate of 60% compared to 30% in the lower ninth ward. >> is it a fully populated neighborhood. it's not like what you saw in

the ninth ward where you know small percentages of people were able to return and rebuild. >> reporter: while they have received similar amounts of money from the government during the past four years, tremaine, which borders the tourist destinations like the french quarter, has benefitted from private investment. the lower ninth ward on the edge of the city hasn't. >> is it worth finding resources to reinvest in the lower ninth ward to bring the community back like it used to be? >> no. just being honest with you. when it comes down to it when you are trying to attract business and private investment it's dollars and cents. >> do you think that the lower ninth ward will ever look like tremaine? >> i'm afraid not. i'm afraid not. i wish it would. i wish it would. but i'm afraid not. >> are. >> reporter: for those who want

to return, this is a cautionary tale. >> i get mad and wake up in the middle of the night mad. i don't have no recourse i can go to the complain or appeal this thing to. >> reporter: he couldn't get a permit to rebuild until 2009 only to be told he doesn't have the right paperwork. now he is waiting for another inspection on his home while the newly constructed frame of the house he built is starting to rot away. >> the wood is cracking and gone away. >> reporter: and the supplies sit in storage. >> i have wendells. i have paint and insulation. >> you are ready to go? >> i've been ready to go, plumbing fixtures and cabinets and my frame rotted out. >> reporter: joseph and other residents feel that the lower ninth ward was left out of the

efforts to rebuild new orleans and they were discriminated against while the white neighborhoods were rebuilt. >> is that a part of it? >> i think ray charles and stevie wonder could see that and both those people are blind. they can see what is going on if it's all black. >> reporter: in october 2010 a judge ruled that a federally funded housing program designed to assist homeowners discriminated against black homeowners in the low income neighborhoods like the lower ninth ward. harold joseph said many people like him didn't get enough to cover the cost of rebuilding. >> why do you keep doing it? are you going to finish this house? >> i don't even know. you know, it's better things to die for than nothing. you know, i don't have my neighbors whereby i can holler at this one or that one, the

mother on the corner her mother died. >> you are pointing to empty lots. >> that's right. you don't know where all these people are. this was a thriving community. >> but you say you have done all this work and gone through all this pain and suffering because this is your home. >> this is my home. there is a difference between house and home. people say i built a home. you can't build a home. this home has to grow are love, heart, feeling. >> take a tour of the historic ninth ward in new orleans, visit newshour.pbs.org. last month in new york an exhibit caught our eye. anonymous journal entries from strangers around the world. here is martin fletcher. >> reporter: they pass like

strangers in the night. they are strangers in the night. until 48th and 9th avenue in manhattan where we came across an unusual exhibit at the fountain art gallery. it asked people what is your story? slow down a moment and write something from your life. it's part of the strangers project. many people writing things that are hard to say aloud or to someone you know or family even like today is my father's bishth day. he's 49. some few years ago, at least 10, he shot a man. he shot a man that died maybe ten years ago on his birthday. happy birthday, daddy, i love you. forgive yourself, i do. strangers project volunteers ask people to write their story even if they don't think they have one. so far the founder has collected 7,000 intimate moments, getting

people to share anonymously, maybe to relieve themselves of a burden, defining common ground with strangers. >> this is a -- >> for doeman it's a form of art getting people to pay attention to each other. >> i think we have a big desire to be heard. we have a lot of ways to broadcast with social media. and all that is great i think but there is a deficit in just feeling emotionally heard sometimes. >> it felt good. >> reporter: timothy wrote about trayvon martin. >> it was therapeutic. it gives you a sense of feeling like someone is listening. even though these are strangers. >> reporter: strangers but each story makes them feel a little bit less alone like this lady in the bronx. born in the bronx, mom remarried three times, her husband was abusive, had a boyfriend from 15 to 20 years old who also abused

me but i loved him dearly. i hope everything will be okay soon movement past haunts me. then there's this. my partner might be homeless in a few months i'm going to stay with her no matter what but i'm worried what my friends and family will say. it's not her fault. i can't just stop being in love. the show hung 500 notes, some tragic, some comic and some confused but all to from the heart. >> you sit on the subway and a mother is screaming at her child and you are like i wish the mother would stop. but if you take a moment to think who knows what her day or life looks like, everybody has a story. >> reporter: like this one, i'm mourning the loss of my kids being little. here an 18-year-old girl counts the boys she has slept with, 16 and a girl and a threesome.

some reveal their pain through drawings, through the tears someone quoted a poet. the world is not made of atoms. it's composed of tiny stories. >> this was a gentleman who walked by and asked what i was doing. i explained the project to him. he was in his 60s. we talked for a few minutes and he walked off. 20 minutes later he came back and asked if he could share something. i said of course. he just wrote i'm surviving brain cancer so far. and there's so much story in that two sentences on one line. >> calls for help? for attention? relieving pain by baring the soul? brandon says it best. >> i think we should be more emotionally open and this is a good way to practice that. >> reporter: healing our world story by story.

this is "the newshour weekend." finally tonight, a story you might have missed the pardoning of a british war hero, his crime? homosexuality. >> reporter: allen touring has been pardoned on the recommendation of the government. >> he is a war hero. he could have done so much more. he is seen as the father of the modern computer but his life ended in disgrace in circumstances we find extraordinary and horrible. we can set the record straight now. >> reporter: he was one of the founders of computer science. his work helped crack the german navy's codes. that effort could have shortened the war by as much as two years. but in 1952 he was convicted for

homosexuality. he lost his security clearance and had to quit work. he opted for a chemical cast station. two years later he died from cyanide poisoning. many think an accident was more likely than suicide. his pardon has been welcomed by everyone. but it does raise one awkward new question, if touring should be pardoned shouldn't everyone else who was convicted of the same thing? >> it was a crime for him and 50,000 other gay and bi-sexual men but they are not getting a pardon. he is. the law should not be selective in the pardon it gives. we need to right this historic wrong. >> reporter: much of his life and work were secretive but his legacy might not yet be over.

join us tomorrow on air and online. keeping young offenders out of jail. police focusing on families. >> it's not welcome mats on the floor, you have to develop relationships with the parents. i had a mother slam the door in my face a few times. >> that's it for this edition of "the newshour weekend." i'm hari sreenivasan. "the newshour weekend." i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

"the newshour weekend" is made possible by judy and josh westin, joyce b. hail. the wallick family, the cheryl and philip millsteen family, roslyn p. walter. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america designing customized and group retirement products. additional support is provided by and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

>> please welcome mr. john denver. [applause] >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. home by a mile. ♪ ♪ it's a long way from la to denver ♪ ♪ a long time to hang in the sky ♪ ♪ it's a long way home to starwood in aspen ♪ ♪ a sweet rocky mountain paradise ♪ ♪ oh, my sweet rocky mountain paradise ♪