captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions a wide swath of the deep south is now encased in a layer ofitis. and the storm responsible for that is poised to bring more winter weather to the eastern seaboard. good evening. i'm judy wood rif. >> jiefl. >> gwen eiffel. we look at the value of mammograms as new results from a decades long study raised questions about their effectiveness. plus a technology revolution allowing anyone to turn an idea and a design into a do it yourself creation. >> with the printers i v. been in that situation where i'm

astounded to be holding a object i designed just hours ago. >> those are just some of the showers we're covering on newshour >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> i've been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. the ones getting involved, staying engaged. they are not afraid to question the path they're on. because the one question they never want to ask is, "how did i end up here?" i started schwab with those people. people who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org

>> 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: there was no rest for the winter-weary across the south today. the latest storm to hit the region sent power outages heading toward the half-million mark. newshour correspondent kwame holman has our report. >> reporter: the stinging sleet started falling in georgia overnight, and by morning everything was crusted with a coat of ice, just what many across the south were dreading. >> we're getting ready for the ice, cause that's what we're concerned with, not the snow. >> reporter: ice already was weighing down tree limbs and power lines,

knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in georgia and elsewhere. and, that number was expected to rise steadily. as the storm kept moving, freezing rain, sleet and snow were forecast to cover a wide swath of the south, from west of the mississippi, across georgia and up the coast through the carolinas. in north carolina, black ice already was wreaking havoc on the roads, with cars in the raleigh area spinning out. >> don't put your stupid hat on. >> reporter: the state's governor, pat mccrory, warned residents to prepare now, not later. >> get your batteries out, flashlights, transistor radio out. get warm clothing out. i hope we're overprepared and underwhelmed by this storm. i hope the forecasters are wrong but that map doesn't show they're wrong. it's coming. >> reporter: snow accumulations were expected to range from an

inch all the way up to a foot and a half in some places. in alabama, the last round of storms forced officials to buy more salt and spreaders to deal with the snow. >> i think we're as well- prepared as a southern town could be for weather like this. there are predictions that this will get worse before it gets better. >> reporter: the warnings sent people to grocery stores in droves to stock up on the basics. >> i've just got bread, cereal, crackers, soup, just things you can make pretty easily. >> reporter: and for air travelers, the storm meant widespread cancellations, more than 3,000 today alone, with the number expected to be even higher tomorrow. >> ifill: another major storm struck parts of britain, fueling more of the extreme flooding that began a month ago. the storm pummeled southern england with heavy rain and winds gusting over 100 miles an hour. it added more misery in a region where hundreds of homes are inundated and more are

threatened by the river thames overflowing its banks. under growing pressure, prime minster david cameron vowed today to spare no expense on recovery. >> when it comes to this relief effort, money is no object, we'll spend what is necessary to help families, to help people, to help communities get through this very difficult time. i have to say, things are likely to get worse before they get better because of the very high levels of rainfall we've seen, and we see very serious high winds as we speak here in this house today, but whatever can be done to help, will be done. >> ifill: it's already estimated the flood damage will top $800 million. the weather's become an issue at the winter olympics, too. it was 63 degrees in sochi today, so warm and sunny that people hit the beach, sunbathing. some even went swimming in the black sea. as for the results,a spoiler alert: tune out for a moment, if you don't want to know who won just yet. in snowboarding, american

kaitlyn farrington captured the women's halfpipe. and in a first, skiers from switzerland and slovenia tied for the gold in the women's downhill. we'll get more on the games later in the program. >> ifill: a study 25 years in the making has cast new doubt on the value of mammograms. canadian researchers studied nearly 90,000 women. they reported today, in the british journal b.m.j., that the screening had no effect on breast cancer death rates. we'll take a closer look right after this news summary. >> ifill: the senate gave final approval today to raising the national debt ceiling, after republican leaders cast crucial votes to overcome a filibuster. the measure passed the house yesterday. also today, the senate followed the house's lead and repealed cuts in cost-of-living adjustments for military retirees. >> ifill: president obama has signed an executive order raising the minimum wage on federal contracts. at today's white house ceremony, he officially hiked the wage from $7.25 cents an hour to $10.10. a group of minimum wage workers

joined him for the occasion. >> let's not forgot not only is it good for the economy; it's the right thing to do. there's a simple moral principal at stake. if you take responsibility and you work as hard as these folks work, you work full-time, you shouldn't be living in poverty. not in america. we believe that. >> ifill: the increase affects several hundred thousand federal contract workers, out of more than two million. another one million people enrolled for health care coverage last month, under the affordable care act. that brings total enrollment to 3.3 million. the obama administration's target originally hoped to sign up seven million by the end of march. in afghanistan, a firefight broke out today between n.a.t.o. troops and afghan soldiers, killing two from each side. officials said it happened in a province east of kabul after a heated argument turned violent. it was unclear what triggered the argument. >> ifill: north and south korea

have held their first high-level talks in seven years. delegates from the communist state crossed the demarcation line to meet with their south korean counterparts on the armed border. the meeting came at the north's request, but no agenda was disclosed. >> ifill: the opposing sides in the syrian peace talks stalled again today. so far, the assad government and the opposition "syrian national coalition" have failed even to agree on the agenda. the s.n.c. appealed today to russia to help force a political transition, which the regime rejected out of hand. >> this is what we are demanding from russia, to respect the syrian people and to stand with them and to prevent any effort to disable a political solution and to go into side negotiations that are not in the interests of the syrian people. >> they misused the agenda, started with raising the issue of the transitional government, in contradiction with the main priorities as identified by the

geneva i paper. >> ifill: meanwhile, the opposition said nearly 5,000 people have been killed in the three-week period since peace talks began last month. >> >> from contractors. a federal jury found that in return, he steered millions of dollars in city work. auto giant "toyota" is recalling 1.9 million of its prius hybrids made since march of 2009. the company says a software glitch can cause the vehicles to stall. the recall affects more than 700,000 cars in north america. wall street mostly idled today after a four-day rally. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 31 points to close below 15,964. the nasdaq rose 10 points to close at 4,201.

pioneering t.v. comedian sid caesar died today at his home in los angeles. he was best known for "your show of shows" and "caesar's hour" in the 1950's. his work with imogene coca in dozens of sketches virtually created comedy on t.v. a number of writers on those shows, including carl reiner, mel brooks and woody allen, went on to even greater fame. sid caesar was 91 years old. still to come on the newshour; new questions about the effectiveness of mammograms; republican senator marco rubio on ways to tackle poverty; the 3-d printing revolution; the latest from the sochi olympics; plus, europe's struggle with immigration. >> wooduff: there's new fuel in the long-running debate about the value of mammograms for some women, and whether too many are being overdiagnosed.

the research, done over more than two decades, found annual screenings did not reduce the risk of death among women between the ages of 40 and 59. it also found more than 20% of breast cancers detected through those mammograms would have been found otherwise and were not life-threatening. the study comes amid questions about who should be screened and how frequently. a government panel recommended most women under 50 could skip yearly mammograms. but several professional societies recommend them for women 40 and above. we assess the latest findings with dr. gilbert welch of the dartmouth institute studies who writes about these issues. he's the author of "overdiagnosed: making people sick in the pursuit of health." and doctor carol lee, director of the american college of radiology, which criticized the study. >> woodruff: welcome to you both to the newshour.

dr. welch, to you first. in brief, what did this study find? >> well, judy, i think there's two things that are really important about this study. and first, is that it's about screening mammogram fee not diagnostic mammography. diagnostic is where a woman finds a new breast lump, goes to the doctor and the doctor orderer's ma'am gram to find out what the lump is. we all agree, diagnostic mammography is a useful tool. the second thing to know about the study is that it compared mammography plus a very careful physical exam done by nurses to a group that just got the careful physical exam. in other words, it's testing the value of finding things that could not be felt, really small abnormalities. and that's its major finding; that there's no point in find being the really small abnormalities that ma'aming fee can find. that's very important thing for

everyone to recognize. >> woodruff: beyond that, it found that there were problems with these screening mammograms? >> absolutely. all screening tests come with some potential for benefit. but they also come with some known harms. and the most familiar to people is the problem of false alarms, worrisome findings that have to go through biopsy and multiple tests before they're put at rest or maybe they'rener put at rest and you're just told you don't have cancer but you're still normal. but there's also a new problem that we're recognizing which is finding cancers that will ultimately never matter to the patients and we call that overdiagnosis. it's an unusual idea where you have cellular abnormalities that meet the pathologic definition of cancer and yet they never grow forward. they never grow. they regress. they disappear. and yet we don't know which ones they are so we end up treating everybody. and 21 of the side effects of

screening ma'amography is it leads more women to be treated for cancer some of whom didn't need treatment in the first place n this study a long-term find up in a screening is the best way to de deuce how often that happens. as you said in your open, about 1 in 5 invasive breast cancers turn out to be overdiagnosed. >> woodruff: let me turn to you dr. carol lee. the american college of radiology is critical of the study. what about the first finding, that screening mammographies overall don't have a benefit? >> well, this study was not actual a new study. this was just an update of a study that was first report of the nearly 25 years ago that was -- that showed no benefit 25 years ago, and so it's not surprising that it showed no benefit on the updated analysis. i think what needs to be recognized is that there are a

number of other large randomized prospective studies of screening mammography that do indeed show a benefit in terms of losing deaths from breast cancer among women who get screening mammography. so this is just one study that was really an out liar and there were several criticisms of the study in terms of how it was designed, how it was conducted 25 years ago, and those same problems were not corrected in the re-analysis, obviously, and so i'm not surprised that these results were similar. i think it's very important for women to understand that there are a number of other studies that do show decreased deaths among women who get screened. >> woodruff: let me turn back to dr. welch, and it's a lot to ask you to address. but number one, her reference to the fact that there's a problem

with the methodology; and, number two, the fact that there are many other studies that don't find these problems. >> yeah, let's deal with those one at a time. and there's been a long history by a very few people to try to discredit this study, in part because they don't like the result. and the problem has been that they are suggesting the randomization was not good, that somehow sicker patients got in the mammography group. the long-term follow up actually proves that is not right. in fact, it's very hard to select 80,000 people into two groups purposefully and get exactly the same death rate in each year in each group. that's actually a pretty good finding and this is was a well randomized study. >> woodruff: let me ask dr. lee to respond to that point. >> there were excess of advanced breast cancers in the screening arm of the trial early on, suggesting that more women with

pre-existing advanced breast cancers got placed into the screening arm of the study, as compared to the control arm. >> woodruff: do you want to respond to that, dr. welch? >> i think the simplest thing to say is 20 suggest that everyone look at figure 2 in the article which is prima facie evidence that you had pretty good randomization. 25 years later the death rate of the two groups is exactly the same. that's a pretty good argument for randomization. >> and dr. welch what about the other point she made that there are many other studies that show there is a benefit. >> there are not many other studies. depending on how you count there are eight or nine randomized trials of screening mammography. there's no study like this and that's why i started ton clear what the comparison was. the comparison was in the intervention croome it was a screening mammogram plus this careful physical exam. no other study did that. the control is just the physical

exam. so what is being tested here is the question of what is the value of finding small abnormalities? that's the important lesson. >> woodruff: well let's -- >> there's no value to it. woodruff: dr. lee, do you want to respond there that and then i have a final question. >> yeah, i do. i do. it's been shown that the death rate from breast cancer in this country has declined; whereas, it had been rising steadily up until the mid '80s, it declined with the introduction of regular screening am mammography, and since the mid '80's, the death rate in this country from breast cancer has been reduced by about 30%. now, some people will argue that that is because of improvements in treatment. but we know all of us who take care of women with breast cancer know that it is much more likely that treatment will be successful in achieving a cure when cancers are caught early in

their most treatable stage as opposed to when they are advanced and have spread, and mammography can achieve that. >> let me just finally ask both of you, what should women listening to this debate take away from this? how should they think about mammography going forward? dr. wellch? >> i would say they should take warp there's a lot of professional disagreement and we don't disagree about the value of treating really high blood pressure. the professional disagreement tells you this is a really close call. and i'm not suggesting women should not have mammograms. they should just have the voice. it's a genuine choice, a close call. it has probably some benefits and it also has some harms. >> dr. lee? >> i think that the evidence speaks for itself. the decline in breast cancer deaths in this country over the

last 0 years has been due in large part to earlier detection by screening mammography, and so certainly having the mammogram or not having the mammogram is an individual choice. nobody is ever forced to have a mammogram but i think it's important to recognize in actual practice mammography over the years has saved lives. >> woodruff: dr. carol lee and gilbert welch and women will taken to pay close attention to all of this. thank you. >> >> ifill: in recent months the stubborn prosperity divide between the rich and poor in this country has gained the attention of both democrats and republicans. the issue is the focus of our ongoing series, "closing the gap", last week judy spoke with democratic congressman george miller of california about how he believes the problem should be tackled. today, i spoke earlier today with senator marco rubio in his capitol hill office. the florida republican recently

unveiled his own anti-poverty agenda. ifill: senator rubio, thank you for joining us for this discussion. everyone seems to be talking about inequality and they're also talking about opportunity, different definitions for economic growth. are these all part of the same economic argument to you? >> they can be. here is why. we look at what has distinguished this from the world. it's the idea that no matter where you're born in like or what the circumstances are when you're born, like your parents being poor or not connected to power, you have a chance in this country to go as far as your talent and your work will take you. we pride ourselves open that and rightfully so. it made us exceptional. what troubles us now, the research now shows that there are other countries where the circumstances of your birth matter less than they do here. it's mattering more here than in other places and we don't want to accept that and shouldn't accept that. so second question is: why is that happening? why is there an emerging opportunity gap? the primary answer is because of the new economy that we now live

in which is not an industrial economy, it's a post industrial economy is a knowledge based one. in order to have middle income middle paying jobs that allow you to get ahead you have to have higher training and skill level and education than ever before and we have too many people that don't have the skills and in fact the people that most benefit from acquiring those skills are the ones least likely to get it because of the cost and the way the system is structured. >> last week open "the news hour," george miller, liberal congressman from california said that the secret to this, said the foundation is raising the minimum wage and the president is signing his executive order which would at least raise the minimum wage to $10.10 for federal court contractors. is that the foundation -- >> that's not the foundation. i understand they may support that policy initiative but to argue raising the minimum wage is going to create upward mobility is silly. $10.10 is not the american dream. the best way to look at sit think about a person.

for example, someone who i know is a receptionist at a medical clinic. she makes very little money, maybe more than minimum wage but not a lot. a single mother with two children to raise so her life guess like this. she wakes up, drops them off at school, works nine hours, picks them up from after care which cost lot of money. takes them hope, helps them with homework, puts them to bed and it's 10 common at night. that's her life. the only way to increase money she makes is if she can been a lab technician or pharmacy assistant, not just the receptionist at the medical clinic. to do that, she needs higher education. but how is she going to get higher education if she has to work and raise a family? the system that we have in place now does not allow her to do that. that's the answer to the problem. >> ifill: how does she benefit? stay with her for a moment, for your proposal to take federal antipoverty spending and put it in a flex fund and give to it the states to administer, how is

that going to help? >> she is employed but a low income person and probably makes too much for any of the poverty programs. what she bo benefit from is the wage enhancement program which is taking earned income tax credit and converting it to an enhancement with the same is delivered through a paycheck. the other is through education entity initiatives that now say you should be able too get the equivalent of a degree or educational certificate by packaging together your work experience, so clearly she doing work now that should count to something, free online course work, paid or unpaid internships, testing and proficiency, for example she could probably get six to eight credit hours in spanish because she can speak it already, doesn't need to take courses to do that, and then create a mechanism, alternative accrediting mechanism where you can package all of those sorts of things together into a degree program to give her the equivalent of a college degree in a more affordable way. >> who pays for the wage enhancements if not the federal

government. >> it's it is. the. what i'm arguing is not do away with it but transfer it to a new way to deliver the samish. >> but a wage enhancement is -- >> it's determined by how much you make. the same money for the earned income tax credit. if you expand it so it covers only single workers, so it doesn't just cover parents with chirp but also single workers would you have to put more money into it and that's what we're working through as we prepare to file the legislation. bottom line, it is already there. that money is already being used. the problem is it's delivered once a year, early in the year when you get your tax refund. i'm arguing a better way to deliver it is on a-by-monthly basis into your paycheck as opposed to one lump sum at the beginning of the year. >> ifill: you said in your speech on this topic a couple of weeks ago the war on poverty, the johnson era war on poverty failed. why is that? >> it's incomplete. the war programs alleviate the

pain and suffering of poverty. that's important. you do have to do that. but they don't do the second step which is help people emerge from the poverty. to help people emerge you have to understand what are the structural causes of it and the structural causes are partially cultural. with the break down of families, destabilized neighborhood, broken communities and there are some things government can do about that but a lot of that is on us as people. we have to recognize that's a real factor. >> ifill: when you talk about the cultural piece of this marriage in particular and that that is -- that there's a correlation between marriage and people's ability to succeed or at least to be mobile, economically mobile, what role does government play in that? >> first of all we shouldn't penalize marriage. we doe have safety net programs that disqualify you when the two incomes come together and you are kicked out of the program. we shouldn't be doing that. as far as the impact marriage has on children, two reasons, practically there are two paychecks and allowing a family to have more buying power and

stability and there's really value in raising children in a strong and stable home. by the same token we don't the people that don't have that we give up of the. >> on the contrary, i talked about this in the legislature, if you are a child, oftentimes being raised by your grandmother because your mom is working full-time, your dad has never been around, you live in a dangerous neighborhood in substandard housing and the school that you're zoned into is not doing a good job, you have five strikes against you. how are you going to make it unless something dramatic happens to change that perspective? >> ifill: as you know we're suddenly all talking about this. in the past democrats were the ones that talked about poverty and republicans talked about, i don't know, opportunity. now it seems as if the two arguments are coming together. am i right about that? you, mike lee, paul ryan, all giving speeches about -- and the president. >> perhaps. and there's a difference. i hope this issue doesn't have to be partisan or highly political. i think we can agree we want

this to be a country of quality and opportunity and upward mobility. i believe a vibrant free enterprise economy creates those sorts of opportunities but i believe that there are barriers, educational barriers, cultural barriers, societal barriers that are keeping people from accessing the promise of a vibrant free income economy. >> you say you don't want to speak partisan but are you getting a lot of support in your party for the argument? >> i am. so some of the ideas are coming from think tank like personality enterprise institute. >> which foundation is -- >> well they have been helpful as well in the ideas that we have worked on and i think that this is a drive towards that reform notion that, look, we do have a growing opportunity gap in america. it's hard to ignore that. and the question; what solves it? and there may be two schools of thought, right? we hear from a the left that the school of thought is, let's just pour more money into 20th century programs. my argument is, that is not going to work. we need 21st century programs.

we're not in the industrial revolution anymore where you can leave high school, go work at the town factory for 50 years and retire with a pension. the 21st century looks different. it's disruptive and has created a lot of insecurity. we have to adjust to that. the 212st century has promise. the higher paying jobs of the new century are fantastic. the problem is is that you have to have a level of higher education, maybe not 5 four year degree but a levelful higher education to get those jobs and the people that need the jobs are the least likely to have that education. >> ifill: senator marco rubio, thank you. >> thank you. >> >> ifill: we have more with senator rubio on what he calls the "all or nothing" political challenge facing another critical issue he has championed, immigration reform. you can watch that video online. >> wooduff: there is yet another technological transformation underfoot.

and this one turns ideas into physical realities, right before your eyes. science correspondent miles o'brien has the story. >> reporter: at hod lipsons lab, they are on the leading edge of a method of printing that presses the process into a whole new dimension. the third dimension. >> this is a real revolution. it can really change things forever. how we even think about design. lipson is an engineering professor at cornell university, his lab is a toy-box and a playground for new generation of designers. undergrad jena witzleben is designing and printing some ballet shoes. this is a scan of the shoe itself subtracted a scan of my foot. >> reporter: grad student robert maccurdy is working on what they call bit blocks, small circuit boards. >> this gives us a quick way of incorporating electrical

functionality into 3-d printing >> reporter: and apoova kiran is priming the pump for projects that print in more than one material. >> 3-d printing was invented 30 >> reporter: 3-d printing was invented 30 years ago but is now coming of age. the devices can print in all kinds of metals, produce food and even human tissue. and the technology is coming home, just as computers did in the early 1980's. >> were a little bit after the transition from the main frame to the desktop. we are at the early days of the home computers, we aren't quite at the point where we have an i.b.m. p.c. san francisco artist micah scott is on the leading edge of this migration into widespread usage. >> this 3d printer was originally a maker-bot thing-o- matic, which was a kit that i think was released in like late 2010 or early 2011.

>> reporter: a machine like this, which costs about $1,500, extrudes molten plastic in thin layers, like a precision hot glue gun. and like 2-d inkjet printers, the real cost is in the pricey refills. >> this is sort of an experimental shape that i am working on for an led art project. >> reporter: i watched as micah used some software to create a 3-d design, and then hit print, we waited, and then waited. and then waited some more. printing this piece took 18 hours from start to finish. but micah believes it is well worth the wait. with 3-d printers, i've definitely been in that position where i'm kind of astounded to be holding this physical object that i just designed hours ago. micah used to be a silicon valley hardware and software designer. that experience comes in handy. frequently. without her left-brain skills, her quirky printer would not be able to deliver her right-brain creations.

>> i do sometimes wish so i could just push a button and have my print work without sort of agonizing over this thing for a couple of hours. >> these are from a third party website. people take pictures of their pets. >> reporter: the problems, and the promise, of this emerging technology are key ingredients driving the rapid growth of a company called shapeways. >> we have roughly 15 printers here right now and were expanding that number all the time. >> reporter: shapeways ceo peter weijmarshausen co-founded the company in 2009. based in new york, shapeways turns customer designs, into intricate, quirky reality, using big, precise 3-d printers like this one. >> the lights heats up the powder so it almost melts. >> reporter: which uses a laser to fuse powdered plastic into the desired shape, layer by layer. >> these ones are about a half million dollars and then the big one is about a million dollars. >> reporter: that one over there you mean? >> reporter: yeah.

>> reporter: armchair designers upload about a hundred thousand 3-d print projects to shapeways each month. engineers here insure they can be feasibly printed, arrange various projects cheek to jowl to maximize efficiency, and then print, clean, polish and ship the finished products, which cost anywhere from a few to a few thousand dollars, depending on how much material is used. >> at shapeways, we give people the access to make whatever they want, and whatever they want, they do make. and what it is sometimes puzzles us, sometimes amazes us. it's really cool to see. >> reporter: but shapeways is not just for people who want a tricked out custom i-phone cover. customers with clever ideas can become sellers, offering their curios for sale on the shapeways website. there are now 12,000 shopkeepers in this virtual bazaar of the bizarre the better ones are printing money. >> the barriers to bring a product to market are going to

be almost zero as a result, anyone with a great idea can launch a product. >> reporter: even if they are in 8th grade. these students at the buford middle school in charlottesville, virginia are building speakers using 3d printers. for lamia west, it is an entry to a whole new world. >> this is like what i want to do with my future, if i want to be engineer or do i want to go into something else. >> reporter: that is music to her teachers ears. >> were gonna take this out. and right now it is on three. >> reporter: stephanie grady is an engineer turned educator, and an alumna of this school. >> if we don't teach our students now and encourage them to take these classes in college, there's going to be a lot of missed opportunities >> reporter: but educators warn these machines cannot print silver bullets to fire up interest in technology and engineering in classrooms. for one thing, teachers need a lot of training and support to

make the magic happen. at buford, they have the perfect help desk nearby: faculty at the curry school of education at the university of virginia. glen bull is a professor there. >> keep in mind that no teacher today has really been prepared or trained to use these technologies in the curriculum. putting this equipment in schools and having it change how kids learn requires a whole infrastructure to support it. that cant be done overnight. >> reporter: and what about real bullets? 3-d printers make it possible for people to build unregistered and undetectable weapons at home. a.t.f. agents tested the idea. using a design found on the internet, they printed a gun using two types of materials. one worked. the other exploded. this is what worries hod lipson. >> i don't think they're concerned in terms sort of criminal activity or terrorist activity which would seem to be driving a lot of discussion. the plastic guns are of a

concern to me because they bring about the issue of safety and quality assurance. >> reporter: lipson is more worried about pushing the technology over the next big hurdle: refining machines that can print multiple materials at once. believe it or not, this crude speaker is a big step. the entire thing, magnet, conductor, membrane and all, was completely 3-d printed, no prefabricated parts, no assembly required. >> i think this is just the beginning. once we can master that, we can start making more sophisticated things, and i really think that within a few years of being able to print a complete integrated electronic system or even a robot, well be within reach. >> reporter: but lipson believes that robot will be designed by a robot. get a load of this idea, designed by software lipson calls it artificial creativity.

with machines doing the designing, i guess we all need to stay on our toes. i had to leave before jennas ballet shoe inserts came off the printer, but she sent these pictures, and she clearly is on her toes for whatever is next in this revolution. >> ifill: time now for an update from sochi, where it's not just the events, but the conditions themselves that are becoming a part of the story. i caught up earlier today with sportswriter christine brennan, who's covering the olympics for usa today and abc news. >> chris brennan from sochi, thank you for joining us. first, a warning for our audience. we have spoilers coming up. put i can't help by starting by talking about the great competition in women's hockey between the u.s. and canada. >> that's right. it was a great game. canada won this round.

canada won 3-2 over the it's. they're bitter rivals and know each other, the two best teams in the world and it is, to me, the best rivalry and the best competition going for the u.s. anyway. it's a great rivalry and battle between the two countries and the reality is, the two best teams have won all of the gold medals in the olympic competition start get in 1998 in nagano and my guess is they will be seeing each other again for the gold medal in about a week. terrific and a great step forward for women's sports. this is not the way it looked in '98 or moving on to 2002. this is a quick, fast, crisp game and take look terrific out there and i think women's sports took a big step forward as canada beat the u.s. >> ifill: let's talk ant women'sski jumping another big deal. >> this is the super bowl for

women's sports. the mens have the super bowl and the world series and the n before. a final. for most women, the best you can do at the olympic games. should be no surprise we see the west female athletes at the games, soccer, swimming, in the summer games and here at the winter olympic, many sports. a new sport, women's ski jumping. it took a while and they had to sue the vancouver organizing committee four years ago. they are the johnny apple seed for the sport. lindsey van, not vaughn, who was competing is really the face of this pioneering effort. unfortunately for the united states none of the three women from america won medals. but the victory was in participation, the fact that they actually got on the hill and jumped off for the first time ever. it was an historic moment and i was thrilled to be there as a journalist and i think it portends great things going forward for women's ski jumping.

>> ifill: from a casual viewer's point of view, the biggest surprise seems to be the premature flying tomato of shawn white. >> the flying tomato because he cut his hair. 27 years old. in 2006 he won the gold and 2010 he won the gold. here he was again the gold medal favorite. had a bad run, fell twice and just couldn't come back in his final run. that great story of coming back at the end. that was not to be for shawn white. shawn white is much more than just an athlete. he is a brand. and i think that may be part of the issue for him. he is still excellent. he's got some things going on, he has a band. he owns his own course. he has business ventures georgia low and i think what we're seeing is like you see with tiger woods or michael phelps. whan an athlete starts to get distracted and has so much going forward it's great for them moving into adulthood but not so

great for the on the field performance and that's what happened with shawn white. >> in the lead up to the olympics there was a lot of talk about security and a lot of talk about potential protests. have any of these things materialized into being a big drag on the games? >> i think the biggest upset here by far is that there has been no big news. if you think about it, going back six months ago, three months ago, even a few weeks ago, the thought of going to sochi, with family and friends, for me, you and i talked about, really? you're going to go? as a journalist, of course. but the thought that nothing would be happening at the opening ceremonies september except a snow flake malfunction, that that's the news, that's just stunning. and now we're five, six days into the games, seven days, a step back and say they're going well, and the concerns about security, knock on wood, have not come to the floor. and things seem to be moving along just fine. having said that, you never know. the protest issue, especially

over putin's anti-guy propaganda law, there have been a few protests and moscow and here. we don't see these being in the secure zone. the interesting thing to me is several american athletes past and present who are speaking out against the anti-guy law when they hit russian soil which i think is a pretty dramatic move and a very courageous move. ashley wagner continuing to talk about her anger with the law and human rights and equal rights. bryan boitano and kaitlyn farrington were two members of the delegation send by president obama that are openly guy. they got here and immediately spoke out against the law. we are speaking the profiles in courage. ashley participating and two former olympians and i think that is a news worthy things to discuss. >> finally chris, we're preparing for a big storm on the east coast. it seems like it's a lot warmer in sochi than here. somewhat going on? >> absolutely.

60 degrees today like a spring day, beautiful walking to the women's ice hockey. but there's a serious part of this. great weather, different than you would expect for a winter olympics except really the last few olympics have had this moderate temperature climate. in vancouver we had issues with the snowboarding and the consistency of the snow and we saw it here with the snowboarders complaining about the quality of the snow. i think the reality is, as long as the international olympic committee hits the moderate climb at for the cities that host the games you're going to get these issues and the shame is you have the athletes at the peak of their training, this was is the pinnacle of their careers and then to not have great conditions, that is a shame but that's the international olympic committee, going for different climates and i think it's going to continue. >> christine brennan of "usa today" thank you again for joining us. >> gwen my pleasure thank you for joining us. >> wooduff: finally tonight, a new referendum in switzerland to limit immigration is threatening

the country's economic ties with europe. and it's raising questions about the rise of anti-immigrant groups across the continent. >> reporter: by a razor-thin margin, just over 50%, swiss voters on sunday supported imposing quotas on how many foreigners are allowed to enter the country. >> ( translated ): i am for it because i think we need to start to control the arrival of foreigners. other countries do it, the united states, australia, you can't just have a work permit like that. >> everything is about the economy because people are afraid that immigrants will come here en masse and take their jobs which, in my opinion, is wrong. >> reporter: the stop mass immigration initiative was launched by the nationalist swiss people's party, or s.v.p, which holds a quarter of the seats in parliament. the group focused heavily on fears of over-population and a rising number of muslim immigrants. it also complicates relations with the european union.

switzerland is not a member, but does have trade pacts with the 28-nation bloc. in a radio interview monday, french foreign minister laurent fabius warned the vote jeopardizes those arrangements. >> ( translated ): in concrete terms, since 1999 there are agreements with switzerland, with regards to free movement of workers mainly, but also to many such that if one element comes under question, in this case free movement of workers, everything collapses. >> reporter: in fact, the influence of anti-immigrant factions has been rising across europe, from greece, to italy, spain, britain and the netherlands. irish foreign minister eamon gilmore. >> i think this is a very disturbing vote. i think we have seen throughout europe a growth in what i can only call an extreme-right agenda, which is quite xenophobic. >> reporter: the swiss vote could also signal greater support for anti-immigrant

candidates running in european parliament elections, this may. so what is the significance of the recent vote in switzerland? for that we turn to heather conley, director of the europe program at the center for strategic and international studies. and charles kupchan, he's a professor of international relations at georgetown university and a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations. he also served on the national security council staff during the clinton administration. >> welcome back to the newshour to you both. heather conley to you first, tell us in brief, what were swiss voters asked to vote on? what was this referendum? >> in a nutshell they were asked to curb or seek quotas for immigration. switzerland, population of 8 million has a foreign born population that represents 23% of the swiss population. this is something that the swiss people's party, a far-right political party in switzerland, has been pushing and switzerland

has a form of direct representation, direct democracy and they put the issue to a referendum, do you want to see limits to the immigration levels that enter switzerland. >> woodruff: charles kupchan what's your besting why the public voted as it did? it was a narrow win just over 50%. >> i think there are two basic things going on. one is anti-immigration sentiment that we see all over europe and we see in the united states, people living next door who were not born here who may be vying for jobs and may not look like you, and the second is what i would call something akin to the libertarian sentiment in the united states. sovereignty. taking back the rights of the nation from globalization, from european integration, our borders are being penetrated, we have lost a certain amount of control over our destiny. those two things are running together, the anti-immigrant and the sovereignty and that is why this is somewhat threatening 20 europe and it has an anti-eu

tint to it. >> woodruff: why over 50% voted as they did? >> it was a squeaker. the government, the business community, the important swiss if there community were all saying don't vote this way and yet the meme said, you know, we are very anxious issues and frightened by the immigration and we're concerned about it eroding into our jobs, our economy. we're uncomfortable n2009, there was a referendum that band 9 construction of minnerettes and this is been a steady issue in switzerland but it really came to a head with this referendum, and, to charles' point, this is a critical pillar of european integration. there are four pillars, the free movement of people, of capital, of goods and services. switzerland is not a member of the european union but they are a member of the european free

trade area. this is going to be a major obstacle with the referendum and we will see how the european union officials react. >> woodruff: why an obstacle? >> because the swiss have negotiated these agreements with the eu, even though they're not a member and the eu was going to say, you don't want free movement of the goods we're not going to let you have goods, not going to let you have access to our market and then it sort of spills over and the british are going to say if the swiss are going to back out on this, then we want to renegotiate and then you get a fragmentation of the european union, solidarity and open boredders and who knows where it goes. >> woodruff: charles kupchan can you point out how how much of ts is economic and what crew described a moment ago and how much of it is related to theeth identity of immigrants the religious identity of immigrants? >> it's not fundamentally economic and that's because switzerland has pretty good

numbers, ploiments is below 5%, economy is doing dwell and most of the people that are working in switzerland who are non-swiss are in banks, in pharmaceuticals, they are not out there competing for service jobs, and furthermore, the people who voted against immigration come from camps with few immigrants, from small town and rural areas. >> woodruff: rural division areas of the country. >> and the urban areas voted against -- so who it's about who are these people more than an economic issue. >> woodruff: is this something, heather conley, that you see growing across europe or not? where do you see this headed? >> it's growing and the timing of this is interesting. it's comes three months before very important european parliament elections at the end of may. this is the only european body

that is democratically elected pan european democratically elected. we know groups, far right political groups like front national in france, united kingdom independence party in the uk, policy tell us they will do extremely well for the elections so what europeans may be telling the european union is that we don't want more europe. we don't want the free movement of peoples; not only immigrants that may be coming from north africa from the middle east, but peoples that are coming from other eu member states like bulgaria and others. this is building an enormous case of anti-european, anti-immigrant and it can turn violent like it has in greece. >> what do you see the consequences of this being? you mentioned the economic trade discussion going on. what about for people in europe? >> you know the good news is that in most countries in europe, center left and center right are still pro immigration

and mr. europe, pro integration. but these smaller parties on the left and right are getting greater and greater market share. as heather was just saying they could get up to 25% of the seats in the europe 350e7b parliament. if this happens and the backlash continues then the europe 350e7b project is called into question. it may stumble. we may be at the high watermark of an integrated europe. >> well, i'm so glad the two of you are here to talk with us about it. charles kupchan and heather conley. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> the latest winter storm covered a wide swath of the deep snowth ice and knocked out power to several hundred thousand people. and the senate gave final congressional aapproval to raising the national debt ceiling. >> on "the news hour" online right now, cost-benefit analysis is a cornerstone of economics. but only people.

not metrics can say what is worth counting. you can reads more on our making cents page, on the web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> wooduff: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and goodnight. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects

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