captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: ukraine's parliament fills a power vacuum, with the former president on the run, facing charges of mass murder. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. also ahead this monday, one of the world's most wanted men was captured in mexico without a single shot fired. but what does his arrest mean for the cross-border drug trade? >> woodruff: plus: i see barren hallways broken cameras uninvited guests there's no service here as if a sea of people were cast away on an island to fend for themselves the weather outside is frightening >> woodruff: while investigative journalists look into one

california town's decrepit housing. the poets with them are telling their own version of that story, in verse. >> i'm bringing the people's perspective. see, when you hear our poem, it is like you are listening to the people who are actually living in it. >> woodruff: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> 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 interim leaders in ukraine issued a warrant today for ousted president viktor yanukovych, for the killings of protesters. yanukovych fled kiev over the weekend for the eastern, pro- russian half of the country. we have a report from james mates of independent television news. >> reporter: the city of sevastopol is in ukraine but as its now daily demonstrations show, the flag its people show allegiance to is the russian one. it's here the fugitive former president yanukovych is now believed to have sought sanctuary at a russian naval base. if true, russia's president putin is unlikely ever to hand him over. still, celebrating the end of his sochi olympic party, his prime minister today made russia's anger at what's happened abundantly clear.

"some of our western partners," he said, "think there's a legitimate government there. it's strange to call a government legitimate when it's the result of an armed uprising." the closest the ukrainians may now get to yanukovych is the treasure trove of documents he left behind. many dumped in a river now being meticulously dried and sorted. damning evidence for a trial that will probably never happen. >> we have part of the financial documents revealing the whole system of the money laundering that was established here to supply yanukovych's regime with the money and to provide the money for construction of these whole luxury palaces. >> reporter: more worrying as the continued lack of any visible authority in the capital kiev. any group with a grievance now taking to the streets demanding they get what they want. this is what happens when you go several days without the proper

police forces. here you have a group of football supporters trying to force their way into parliament demanding the release of one of their own from jail. over here the so-called self- defense forces, a ragtag army with clubs and improvised helmets waiting to secure parliament, not really knowing who gives them orders. two politicians promised an immediate vote in parliament and within half an hour two men convicted of murder under the old regime were ordered to be freed. the euphoria of revolution can wane very quickly. what comes next is not always an improvement. >> ifill: russia's foreign minister sharply criticized the turn of events in ukraine. 35 billion dollars over the next two years.

the demonstrators erected barricades of trash and other debris across major thoroughfares, bringing traffic to a halt. but there were no reports of violence. there have been nationwide protests since february 12. and at least 11 deaths. >> ifill: the interim prime minister of egypt has announced the resignation of his cabinet. it could pave the way for military chief abdel fattah al- sisi to run for president. the announcement came amid strikes by public transport workers and garbage collectors. egypt has seen political turmoil since islamist president mohamed morsi was ousted by the military last july. a new anti-gay law in uganda took effect today, imposing sentences of up to life in prison for engaging in homosexual relations. president yoweri museveni signed the measure into law in kampala. he said it's needed because the west is promoting homosexuality in africa.

>> has shown that you can be homosexual purely by nature. society can do something about it, to discourage the trend. that is why i have agreed to sign the bill. >> ifill: homosexuality is already illegal in uganda. gay activists have vowed to challenge this new law in court. and, president obama has warned the statute will harm relations with the u.s. >> ifill: the pentagon served notice today that it wants to downsize the u.s. army, to the smallest it's been in 74 years. defense secretary chuck hagel proposed reducing active duty levels by roughly 80,000 and cutting several major weapons systems. we'll explore the proposal in detail, later in the program. the longest serving member of congress, ever, is calling it a career. michigan democrat john dingell has announced he won't run for re-election. during 57 years in the house, he became a powerful deal-maker and committee chair, and helped pass everything from the endangered species act to medicare to the affordable care act.

but at 87, he said today he's ready to step down. >> i know when the time comes whether i can live up to my own personal standards as a member of congress. this is the last that i can probably give to my people. >> ifill: dingell was first elected in 1955, to the seat his father had held since 1933. the elder dingell died in office. pope francis has announced the first major overhaul of the vatican bureaucracy in 25 years. he unveiled plans today for a new secretariat to control economic, administrative, personnel and procurement policies. francis was elected pope, pledging sweeping reforms. on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average gained

nearly 104 points to close at 16,207. the nasdaq rose 29 points to close just short of 4,293. one of the comedy stars of the '70's and '80's, harold ramis, died today at his chicago-area home. he helped write and starred in "ghostbusters," co-wrote and directed "caddyshack" and also co-wrote "animal house". ramis had battled an auto-immune disease for four years. he was 69 years old. still to come on the newshour: the power vacuum in ukraine; capturing one of the world's most notorious drug kingpins; the pentagon's plan to shrink the military; a look at egypt's revolution, captured in an oscar-nominated documentary; plus, the poetry of investigative reporting. >> woodruff: the scene in the heart of ukraine's capital has shifted from chaos and carnage to mourning. with questions of what's next for the country.

we begin with this report from matt frei of independent television news. > reporter: kiev is back in business, the business of flowers and grief. the city center around maidan is a shrine amongst barricades that became scenes of trenched warfare from a different era. and it is the custom of this the vestiges of normality have returned. here a supermarket at the barricades has opened its doors again. the metro is operating again, if mainly in the service of pilgrimage to the place where dozens of mostly unarmed protesters were picked off by sniper rifles and kalashnikovs only four days ago. it's astonishing how quickly a crime scene has been transformed into a shrine, guarded by the custodians of the revolution. haunted by the images and sounds

that have barely had time to become memories. it's the down payment in blood that has made this revolution so different to the orange one in 2004. it demands a more solemn level of respect and revenge. this is antony, a neurosurgeon and his five-year-old daughter and his pregnant musician wife. she's expecting in a fortnight. >> reporter: what should happen to president yanukovych? >> i think that for ukrainians it's not enough to find him and to judge him. i think that and i believe and i see that most of us want him dead. >> reporter: want him dead? >> yeah because a man who do this, those horrible things, he does not leave.

he must die for him. it is better for him. >> it's a disaster really. i've been here from the first day of my maidan. >> reporter: alessia owns a travel company and summed up what's really at stake here. what's the most important thing that needs to change? >> the most important thing? it has already changed. it's in the mind of people. it's here. it's inside. we have to make the change, we have to start from ourselves. we don't have to look for politicians or for someone else to save our country. we have to start from ourselves. >> reporter: but someone does need to run the country, and the leaders from the last revolution are no longer as appealing as they once were. so the man without a face standing guard outside the central bank summed up a very common refrain.

"ukraine needs completely new faces," he told me. "no tymoshenko. no poroshenko. no asinine. no klitschko. none of them." a blank slate, a power vacuum, and according to the central bank, a whole of 35 billion euros just to cover the next two years. the revolution may be over but there's no shortage of demons. >> woodruff: we explore what's next for the country with: steven pifer, former u.s. ambassador to ukraine from 1998 to 2000. he's now with the brookings institution. and adrian karatnycky, a senior fellow at the atlantic council. welcome to the program, back to the program. adrian karatnycky, let me begin with you. how stable is the situation right now in ukraine? what do you hear. >> i think that if a government takes shape and assume that there is some wisdom in the shaping of the government that it is regionally inclusive. that it is not just packed with

the old but there is some room for competent people. if they hear the voices of the square in the selection of the personnel tomorrow, that can help considerably to move the country towards stability. but at the moment, the people who went out into the square have questions about their leaders. they realize there's a lot of horse trading going on and people are fighting for poses. they're noting lieuing for the greater good. the public is expecting these leaders to do something different for the first time in the 23 years of ukraine's history. >> woodruff: it sounds unsettled. what are you hearing. >> the same thing. there are a lot of challenges that the new government's going to face. first of all, can it be inclusive in a way that makes particularly those people eastern ukraine which is yanukovych's power base feel they have some stake in the government that the government's listening to them. you have a number of opposition leaders that voluntary grouped together fairly well. tymochenko is repoliced from prison. ask they continue to work together.

when you have the pressure of a presidential election and some of those people may find themselves working against one another in that election. can they begin to do things and work together in fairly difficult circumstances. >> woodruff: we saw those russian flags in the eastern and southern crimean, the southern part of the country. i think a lot of people are questioning can the country hold together. how strong is the pro russian sentiment. >> i think you have to understand, this is a very unique place. it's a place where many of the people retired from the soviet military many of them ethnic russians, crimea is the only place, there are russian speaking majorities in eastern ukraine but they have different conscious must. the black sea is there. it's basically a russian town. so i don't think this is a particularly disturbing thing to see. >> woodruff: you would expect. >> i think there is a fear of the values and the politics of the central and west ukraines partly because the last few

years mr. yanukovych used this as a wedge issue. cultural politics is not just something between red states and blue states, it's also on a massive scale in ukraine and a dangerous scale as opposed to the system. >> woodruff: is there any question yanukovych is out of the picture now. >> all the ports have him hiding somewhere in crimea. he's been moving around since he disappeared on friday in eastern ukraine. one of the reports saying he actually tried to leave to depart to russia and border guards would not let him leave. the fact he's been hiding and really running for the last few days he's pretty much become irrelevant to what's going on in re. he's discredited himself. >> woodruff: what are the russians. we heard the critical comments from the russian prime minister saying this isn't a legitimate government. what should one expect from the russians? >> well, i think that the u.s. and the international community and especially europe should work very closely to get a consensus not just among the west but of the entire international community to recognize the transition has occurred in the ukraine and this

is a legitimate government. that would box the russians in. i think i'm very worried that if there are people sort of sitting on the fence. that this may encourage the russians to be a little more aggressive in trying to question the legitimacy. it would open questions and raise the political temperature and the geo political temperature in europe. >> and you can make the case, you should be able to make the case that ukraine that has a growing relationship with europe still has good relations with russia. and ukraine has compelling reason to have good relations with russia should not be a threat. that's one reason why prick spent a lot of time speaking with president putin. they are trying to get russia to be part of the solution to the problem but i'm not sure we're going to be able to change mr. putin world's view. he still sees what's happening over the last five days as a set back for his interpretation of russian interests. >> woodruff: we don't know yet what that means or what it could mean. >> we do know he's cutting off assistance at the moment and it's not flowing.

but russia could be asked to be part of a deal with an international consortium to help save the ukrainian economy. if they were willing to continue with their assistance program that they promised which was quite general -- generous. >> woodruff: are leaders emerging internally in ukraine? you heard the ordinary folks saying tymoshenko, they don't like any of the folks who have been in power. >> i think there are leaders that have emerged. but the question is how much credibility are they going to have with them on the street. where there's a certain i think skepticism of all politicians, and so there's a look to say you need to prove to us that you're different. that you're not going to repeat the old habits of closed non-transparent politics but conducted just among them, you're not going to engage in the sort of corrupt behavior epitomized by the relations coming out of the yanukovych residence. >> you need money to win an

selection in ukraine. >> reporter: legitimate or corrupted. >> for my regime, it's a very expensive proposition. even law jut mother politicians need a lot of barksz who may have origins for their capital. but the problem is there's not enough time between now and may for the them to have new charismatic leaders to emerge. there are civic activists out there for three months putting their bodies on the line, they will probably get involved in the political process. and the parliamentary election i think we'll see new political forces in the parliament and i think we'll have some sort of gadfly movement that may keep the rest of the elite. and ukraine parliament is a parliament of billionaires and multimillionaires. it's corrupt. as soon as they get a policy going the better for ukraine. >> woodruff: what are you looking for. >> they need a government that begins to get things work that gives them a sense of calf dense

and restoration of normalcy. i also hope the government appears inclusive. maybe doesn't have to include members of regions in the cabinet but some people can say yes we speak for the interest of eastern and southern ukraine. again so that part of ukraine where we worry about possible tendencies which should not be overstated. we want them to feel that yes this government is going to be listening to their concerns and respond to their concerns. and they're going to have to deal with some very difficult financial challenges with some big deals coming quit and need outside help for that. >> woodruff: we'll leave it there but continue to watch this story. stench pifer and adrian karatnycky, we thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: the arrest over the weekend of the head of one of the world's most sophisticated narcotics networks, proved a major victory for both u.s. and mexican law enforcement. now both sides want to prosecute him.

jeffrey brown has the story. >> brown: mexican marines led joaquin "el chapo" guzman away in handcuffs on saturday. thus ending a 13-year hunt for one of the world's most dangerous men. >> ( translated ): this arrest is the product of an operation that's been worked on for several months in coordination with all federal government agencies >> brown: only two days earlier, guzman was surrounded by troops at his ex-wife's home in the western city of culiacan, capital of the mexican state of sinaloa. he got away, through a trap door under the bathtub, and managed to escape through a network of tunnels and the city's sewer system. u.s. drug agents and mexican troops, acting on wiretaps and other information, pursued him 135 miles south, to this luxury condominium in the seaside resort of mazatlan. there, just before dawn saturday, they stormed into guzman's room and captured him

without firing a shot. in washington today, white house press secretary jay carney praised the joint effort. >> this is a significant achievement in our shared fight against transnational organized crime, violence, and drug trafficking. the u.s. and mexico have a strong security partnership and we will continue to support mexico in its efforts to ensure that cartel leaders are put out of business. >> brown: guzman was formally charged sunday with drug trafficking in mexico. he faces indictments in the u.s. as well, and federal prosecutors in new york and chicago already are asking for his extradition. it's not the first time behind bars for the 56-year-old guzman, nicknamed el chapo, or shorty, because he's only five feet six inches tall. in 2001, he escaped from a mexican prison before he was halfway through a 20-year sentence for drug trafficking and murder. over the years he built the sinaloa cartel into mexico's most powerful drug operation, wiping out rivals in a reign of brutality that killed tens of

thousands of people. in mexico city, word of his capture brought both hope and skepticism. >> ( translated ): i think that it's something very good. i think it's a excellent achievement from this government that is giving us results. i think not just for mexico but for many countries it's an important arrest. >> ( translated ): it's very difficult, the cartel is quite organized and has a presence in many states in the country, so it's difficult to say that just with the capture of el chapo the cartel will fall apart. >> brown: guzman joins miguel angel trevino, who was head of the zetas, a rival cartel, and was arrested last summer. those are major gets for president enrique pena nieto, who had said he'd re-balance the all-out war against cartels with a new emphasis on the economy and education. >> brown: but what does this get mean for the drug trade? we turn to: alejandro hope, formerly a manager at mexico's national intelligence agency and now a private security analyst. he joins us from mexico city. and sam quinones, a reporter for the los angeles times and author

of several books on mexico was this a surprise that he was captured without a shot being fired, and how were mexican and u.s. forces able to do that? what do we know? >> well, i mean this is the end result of a long process of accumulation of intelligence about guelzo mom and about the environment where he worked and where he lived. this is not the first major arrests happened without shots being fired. that happened also under the administration of president calderon. it was surprising that el chapo didn't put up much more of a fight but it does prove there are far more capacities now than when this whole process started seven, eight years ago.

>> brown: sam quinones tell us a little bit more about guzman himself, his history, his reputation, his importance. >> i think the historian, the story of the sinaloaians in drug trafficking is one of the most fascinating in all of the history of organizized crime. these are guide who started out in the country of small hillside mountain county in the state of sinaloa. from there, they used machismo violence in the rein that ran the country. sinaloaians grew to control the border between the united states and mexico. so they controlled areas as far away as juarez and tijuana and the arizona border. chapo guzman grew up in this poor community.

i came violent and i think also a fair amount of expertise that he developed in logistics, in organizational capacity began to expand this cartel until he kind of, he's kind of basically rubbed out the other two, the juarez cartel is not what it once was. the tijuana cartel especially has disintegrated. he's now left to be the lone guy along much of the border. that's why it's so big. i started as a hill billy basically. all of them started as hill billies most of them and now he's the most wanted guy in the united states as well as in mexico. >> brown: let me ask alejandro hope, how important is this in mexico. and in this long fight that mexico's had against the cartels. where did this fit in and what does it tell us about where that fight is right now? >> well i think this is very

important both ethically, strategically and politically. ethically because guzman was, el chapo faced mexico, he faced lawmakers for years. he successfully waged war in two major cities. he was mostly unimpeded. it's an important message that this guy was brought to justice. secondly, strategically because this is pushing, this accelerated an ongoing concession from large-scale drug trafficking organization to small gangs, more local in scope but in activities iie involved in things like extortion, kidnapping, theft. so this is in some ways, this is

the end of an era. chapo was one of a dying breed of mexican gangsters as mostly smugglers. and this certainly changes the border of mexicans around the world. politically it's important because nieto can send two important messages. one it's effective against the fight of a large scale mafias and secondly, they can put to rest the rumors that had been going on for quite sometime that the new administration would try to accommodate the cartels and would try to exchange peace for tolerance. i think that should put that to rest. >> brown: so sam quinones, the big question is what does his capture mean for the flow of drugs in the united states and

elsewhere? we heard that u.s. officials want to extradite guzman himself. but what does his capture mean. might it impede the flow? might it have any impact at all. >> i suspect it will probably have some significance impact for a while. you know, i was asked earlier, is this an important thing and are there people to replace him. yes, to those questions. there are people to replace him and still this is a very very important coup. i agree with al has not -- has said. there is the idea that this guy was capitol of the poster child for mexican impunity. but also these cartels very often, the guy who ran these car pels had a bureaucracy in some sense. they are guys who combined certain capacities. first of all of course wonton

murder the ability to kill at the drop of a hat number one. but also they involved, they embodied great organizational capacity and great logistical capacity. this guy was moving tons of drugs across a well-armed border, using criminals and other folks, rag tag army kind of folks. that is not easy to do. and so if he's taken down, i think we can suspect that there probably are not a whole lot of other people there to have the same capacity or charisma that he does. and so that may lead to fracturing. i think what's happening in the cartels nowadays they are fracturing. there were a few large ones and they were totally fracturing and this is one more step towards that. >> brown: sam quinones if you could in the last 30 seconds do you expect him to be extradited to the u.s. or be tried in mexico. >> our federal prison system is becoming a depository for

numerous legendary mexican, i suspect he will be right there pretty soon. >> brown: sam quince yoans, alejandro hope, thank you very much. >> ifill: now, striking the balance between national security and budget reality. >> ifill: defense secretary chuck hagel laid out plans this afternoon to cut troops and close bases, reshaping the nation's military after more than a decade of war. >> we are repositioning to focus on the strategic challenges and opportunities that will define our future: new technologies, new centers of power and a world that is growing more volatile, more unpredictable and in some instances more threatening to the united states. >> ifill: a key part of that repositioning: shrinking the army from 522,000 active-duty soldiers to between 440-450,000 the fewest since world war two.

the army national guard would be reduced as well, but hagel said it can be done without compromising national defense. >> ifill: the budget also calls for eliminating the venerable a- 10 warthog aircraft, used for close air support of ground troops, and for replacing the iconic u.2. spy-plane with a force of global hawk drones. among the other recommendations: hagel also proposes freezing salaries of generals and admirals. and limiting pay raises for

military personnel to one percent. he said delaying such decisions actually hurts morale. >> it needs to be done once so that our men and women and their families in uniform, those who have served and those who are thinking about serving don't constantly live under this cloud of uncertainty and threat, of well, "what are they going to do next year?" "are they going to take this out next year?" i don't want that. we can't have that. >> ifill: the pentagon budget proposal goes to congress next week. >> ifill: today's announcement was just the first salvo in what is likely to be a prolonged battle about policy and priorities. here to weigh those choices, are thomas donnelly, a defense and security analyst at the american enterprise institute. and gordon adams top white house budget official for national security during the clinton administration. he now teaches at american university.

gordon adams, how significant are chuck hagel's proposal today and how necessary are they. >> i think they are certainly necessary. i call this 50% towards reality. they have recognized that the budget is not going to grow the way they projected it would last year when they looked at the future. this year they're saying well we'll come down a bit, but it's only 50% towards the reality because they still aren't quite prepared to budget at the level that's in the budget control as of august 20, 11. i think that's the best they're likely to do. so in a sense it's 50% towards the goal but they're not quite at the goal line yet in realistic budgeting terms. >> ifill: are they cutting too deeply, thomas. >> gordon's quite right about the numbers. they matched the numbers that were in the budget with the patty murray budget deal for this year but they bumped the numbers up for the subsequent years above levels indicated in the budget control legislation. so they've got about 120 billion dollars more to go to reach that level. >> ifill: for people who don't follow the budget how

necessary is it and how deep is it. >> it's deep. it's necessary budgetarily but it's a huge mistake strategically and for the help of the u.s. military services. >> ifill: okay. he just threw that in the. strategically why. >> i'll tell you something, bernard who was one of the great strategickists in the 1950's and 60's quote a book in which he has a chap thursday called strategic wears a dollar sign. the reality is strategy and money are always related. they always have been, they always have been. we're coming down right now in the defense budget at about a pace like other drawdowns that we've done after korea, after vietnam, at the end of the cold war. we've always come down around 30% in constant dollars from the top of spending to the way we reached the bottom. and we're at the shallow end of that right now. >> ifill: thomas donnelly what does this strategy tell us after ten years of war and

whether we're going to continue to draw down. >> the money quote from secretary hagel was that we are sizing the forest for a non-war strategy essentially. for the united states and for any global power two has always been the right number. nobody wants to use all the force they've got in a single contingency, particularly for global power les something else happens. we have essentially a step backward from a traditional measure of what used to be a great power. >> ifill: some of the things that will get a lot of attention which are not necessarily the biggest ticket items involve things like taking away the subsidy for call sayys and changing military benefits. is that separate in your mind or are you thinking of closing bases and hardware. >> all those things that will immediately save that much money is most politically advantageous as we saw from the adjustment of healthcare co-pays and the

budget deal. that's going to mobilize the veterans groups to take to the streets. not going to save that much money and it's not going to focus on these larger strategic sized questions. >> ifill: secretary hagel said there may be sequestration down. >> i'll tell you something, gwen. i think realistically the pentagon needs to be planning is the reality of the levels in the budget control act. because i think that's the best they're going to do in the pented gun over the next five years. instead of doing that -- it does not do that. instead of doing that what the secretary did was say let's assume we've got 115 billion dollars more over the next five years then the budget control could provide. what that does for the planning process in the pentagon is mislead them. because if they're only going to get at budget control levels but they start planning programs and hardware choices at a higher level of spending we have to in the next two or three years and they'll suddenly discover they've got to cut things out into the plan.

they baked it in now they got to bake it out. >> ifill: is it politically possible cutting even more deeply. >> the budget control at that level is about the best they could do, not the worse. >> predicting what the defense budget will be five years from now is always a recipe for tears. who knows whether the politics will change. but gordon's right. i mean if the budget control act is the ceiling, then they've got more homework to do. the question i would ask is not about inputs about what we pay but what we get back in terms of security and that will go down too. >> ifill: that's the question. if we shift our focus from aircraft carriers and outdated some people say airplanes and we chip into cyber operation special ops is that the reality. >> it comes to a point that tom made earlier when he said a planning scenario usually involves two big wars. the reality is i don't think that's the real world that we're

going into. as we've seen, you know, setting aside iraq which was a war of choice not a war that we were thrown into, the reality is 23 we're going to be using forces, we're going to be using them in smaller packages, smaller combats, different types of support training operations, things that you can in fact, if you do it right, do well. the problem that they have is they got to point the spear back off this issue. they're buying a lot of back office in this budget and in the past budgets which is the administration and the pentagon. if they want to be able the combat point they have to tackle that back office more seriously than they have. >> ifill: the secretary of defense said today it was a modest and necessary serious of proposals but you've been through this before. what is your sense based on what these kinds of debates we've seen unfold especially talking about shrinking rather than adding how realistically it is hopefully. >> if they get the personnel measures through i'll buy gordon

a six pack. >> and i'll accept. >> that's not going to happen. >> i agree with tom on that. the personnel staff is the third rail of defense budgeting. you don't go in there lightly and you go in well armed. brian murray said military retirees under 62 are working full time ought to get a pension cola 1% less than the cost of the consumer price index. within six weeks, that was deader than a door dmail because the groups came up on the net and people said we weren't work on that. it's dead i'll how about the hardware. >> hardware's the easiest thing. >> they're not really cutting that much. it's great air plains but it's been around really long times. it's not that much that's new left to cut. so it's very difficult to really get the dollar savings that they're looking for. the big dollar savings come from the cuts. >> that's absolutely right. we'll go down in procurement because we always do in a draw

down. there's not a lothere you can find to take out. >> ifill: the battle begins at the budget. >> in the first stage. >> ifill: gordon adams, thomas donnelly, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: the resignation of the cabinet from egypt's interim government today was the latest turn in the tumultuous three years since the downfall of hosni mubarak. two egyptian-american filmmakers charted much of that journey. chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner sat down with them recently. >> reporter: the oscar nominated documentary the square tracks two and-a-half years of tumult in egypt from hosni mubarak to the 2012 end of the military rule and the 2013 removal of elected muslim

brotherhood president mohamed morsi. the film which can't we shown publicly in egypt is about six characters who met in tahrir square. especially a young revolutionary and a father of four. we sat down with director jaw hibit noujaim and producer in washington. >> jaw jehane noujaim, thank you. when this started in 2011 what did you see that made you rush and start filming. >> it was a magical moment and this is why i make films because i see people that inspire me, surprise me, take me to a place i never been before and i want to share them with the world immediately. we grew up in an egypt where people were afraid to talk about how they felt about politics for fear of repercussion.

here you have men, women, people of all different classes talking about and sharing dreams of the future for the very first time. >> what attracted you to your main characters. >> when i went down originally, i went down actually as a skeptic. but when you meet people like akmed who lived all their lives they felt their story was written for them. they had no sense of empowerment, they had no sense of authorship for the future. to feel that for the first time, they could pen that future, they could have the country of their dreams was an unbelievable feeling. when you're making a film like this, you don't know what's going to pan out. so their actions actually in the event is what ended up making them the characters.

so it was the main scene in the film where the brotherhood did not participate and he went against brotherhood orders. >> reporter: he said i'm staying here. >> he said i'm staying here. that moment made him much more compelling as a character because he became someone who was conflicted between two sides. >> i have to say at the end of the movie i was left with a sadness because the characters got on this endless loop of unity and solidarity and expectation and they would topple the ruler only to make room for the next despot and they would be angry and say we're going back to the streets but it didn't really get better. >> i actually am left with the feeling of optimism and i'll tell you why. even though we're in this very dark time in error just a -- ed people are being addressed and worst time for journalists. people on the ground and all the characters would say we have to

go through these mistakes. we have to go through the muslim brotherhood for example and the pendulum has swung completely to the other direction now towards the military, right. and ultimately i feel and i hope and this is what our characters feel, are that we'll get to a point where we'll be able to have a healthy country. i mean, i feel like it's the civil rights movement of our time. and our characters are still on the front lines struggling for it. >> we and the characters all have to kind of free ourselves from the fairy tale story avenue change that in 18 days people can go down for the first time in their lives -- and democracy is going to flourish. we suffered from a lot of problems people around the world are trapped in. this kind of story has changed which we're told which is more like change is greatest hits where we see the highlights of change in our history.

so we see gandhi invading india and we see mandela ending apartheid and we see martin luther king saying i have a dream but we don't want to spend 20 years like mandela. people dpoaptd want to go back to the old story of egypt. >> reporter: doesn't success pea pend on this generation of revolutionaries being willing to go the next step and do that hard good work of political parties, running for office. >> this is a time when we didn't have a judiciary, we didn't have a freedom of press, we didn't have these pillars of democracy. it's not the pillar box. people felt the only way of reaching people was the streets. that's where they felt their role was at that time. >> for us as film makers, the

climax happens in the first two minutes. the dictator fell. where are you going to go from there you know. so i think that there is a lot of activity happening in egypt. it may not all be manifesting itself into the political continuance but there are aspects helping shape the future. >> jehane and karim thank you so much. >> thank you for having us. >> woodruff: margaret also asked the filmmakers about a next chapter for the characters in the documentary, and you can see that extended interview on our homepage. >> ifill: finally tonight, a story about story-telling. our colleagues at k.q.e.d. in san francisco are the television leg of an unusual reporting partnership that includes the san francisco chronicle, the center for investigative reporting and the residents of a public housing project in richmond, california. jeffrey brown looks at what they produced.

>> brown: in many ways, it was a traditional hard hitting news investigation. it took months of digging, combing through stacks of documents and interviewing sources, for the center for investigative reportings amy julia harris and her colleagues to flesh out myriad problems at the richmond housing authority. but this investigation had a twist. one that offered a different way of reporting the news, and describing what's going on, through poetry. >> this is where rodents and roaches are like family cause we share the same meals. we feel 30 below air from cracked windows. no heat for richmond wind blows. >> brown: deandre evans, will hartfield and donte clark, all in their early 20's, grew up in richmond. last fall, they joined cirs harris as she interviewed residents and documented living conditions at two dilapidated public housing projects.

what they heard and saw, the cockroaches, mold and other squalor, inspired the three to write a poem called this is home. >> i see barren hallways broken cameras uninvited guests there's no service here as if a sea of people were cast away on an island to fend for themselves the weather outside is frightening >> reporter: its all part of a new effort called the off/page project. a collaboration between c.i.r., a nonprofit, nonpartisan journalism organization, and the san francisco based youth speaks which promotes writing and education and hosts a yearly poetry slam competition for young people. jose vadi directs the off/page project. >> it's trying to find new ways to tell investigative journalism in a new light, in a new form of storytelling. and wanted to reach a younger audience and have a conversation centered around them and some issues that are affecting their

lives and their day to day. >> brown: who's it for? i mean is it for the journalists or for the young poets? >> i think its for both you know? journalists and young people alike are kind of able to find a common ground through a platform like off/page. >> brown: vadi himself bridges the two worlds. he's a two-time national poetry slam champion and a playwright, who now has a desk in a newsroom. >> there was that initial hesitation of you know, there's this poet coming into a newsroom, dealing with some hardcore investigations, is this poet going to come in here and wear a beret and just you know write couplets all day? i think that was a fear, but i think when they realized that myself, i come from a background where a lot of my art is

informed by everything that goes on around, you know my daily life and what i read in the paper and what i see on the streets. >> brown: the richmond housing story is actually the fifth journalism/poetry collaboration for off/page. previous investigations looked at sexual abuse of female farm workers. >> brown: and bankruptcy problems in stockton, california where teens were given access to cir reports on the city's financial mismanagement. >> the murder rate is a murder rate in here. >> in

in reporting the richmond story, c.i.r.'s amy julia harris says the perspective of the young poets brought something extra to her journalism. >> when i found out i was going to be working with poets, i had no idea how that was going to work. i took the poets in to talk to people that i'd been talking to, and they were asking very poignant questions and said, you know, how are you able to live like this, and were asking really good questions that kind of helped inform my reporting. the poets did an amazing job of just capturing the sentiment of residents, and kind of contextualizing it, and broader issues of neglect. >> brown: editors at the san francisco chronicle seem to agree: in addition to running harris article in the paper, they've posted a link to a video of the poets performing their work. >> ground by a squad, not by surgeon or disease but a room that a wheelchair wasn't made for. >> for their part they say they learned from the experience. >> you can use news as a way to

connect everybody to what's going o you all live in the same community but y >> you can use news as a way to connect everybody to what's really going on. you all live in the same community, but you don't know what's going on in that house next door to you. >> brown: how does this connect to your poetry? your own writing? >> im bringing the peoples perspective. see when you hear our poem it is like you are listening to the people who are actually living in it. it's one thing to hear someone talking about it, it's another thing to hear someone living it >> brown: the three are now working with jose vadi to turn their poem into a theatrical production which they plan to perform next month in san francisco. and they say they're hopeful the investigation they were part of will lead to changes in richmonds public housing projects. a sentiment donte clark wrote about in the final verse of this is home. >> gotta protest, raid the government, shake their pockets and make them fix these pro- jects, huh!?! ...where do we go next? cause left is cemetery. but

until tomorrow before my thoughts will manifest kingdom and we feast in abundance of wealth we'll break bread, share what left over scraps we have and find communion in our struggle this is tomorrow >> ifill: the story on the richmond housing investigation aired friday on k.q.e.d. san francisco. and online, you can watch the poets perform "this is home." the entire k.q.e.d./c.i.r. report is posted on art beat. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. ukraine's interim leaders launched a manhunt for former president viktor yanukovych for the killings of protesters. the pentagon served notice that it wants to downsize the u.s. army, to the smallest it's been since just before world war two. >> ifill: on the newshour online right now, j.k. rowling got the

idea for "harry potter" while on a train. countless westerns, mysteries and hitchcock plots are inspired by rail travel. and now amtrak is catching on by offering writers a chance to get on board with a new residency program, it gives them a seat and a creative space to write their great american novel while traveling across the country. read about the project, on the rundown. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll look at the a- 10 warthog, a military aircraft seen as a guardian in the skies, that might be grounded by budget cuts. i'm judy woodruff >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill, we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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. this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib brought to you in part by. >> thestreet.com. founded by jim cramer, thestreet.com is an independent source for stock market analysis. cramer's action alert plus service is home to his multi million dollar portfolio. you can learn more thestreet.com/nbr. so close. investors kicked off the weekend in a buying mood. the s&p finishing just shy of a record and the nasdaq sits at a 14-year high. where is the enthusiasm coming from, and how long will it last? >> winners and losers. a big week for retail earnings but just because walmart's numbers were disappointing, doesn't mean others will follow