captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: an internal report at general motors describes a pattern of incompetence and neglect that led to deadly ignition switch problems. c.e.o. mary barra has fired 15 employees, but denied a larger cover-up. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. also ahead this thursday, new details emerge about army sgt. bowe berghdal. how he came to be in captivity and how he was rescued. as president obama said he "absolutely makes no apologies" for the deal that got berghdal back. >> woodruff: plus, the transformation of new orleans public schools into the nation's first all-charter system. administrators point to a

brighter future, but others fear some students may be left behind. >> you know, you can find people who think what has happened is the greatest thing to occur in the history of urban education and people who think it's the worst thing. i think people, most people who are being honest will admit it's someplace in the middle >> 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: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> charles schwab, proud supporter of the pbs "newshour." >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> 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: two senior senators agreed today on a bipartisan bill to address long delays for veterans seeking medical care. those who wait longer than 30 days for appointments or live more than 40 miles from a v.a. facility could use private

doctors enrolled in medicare or other federal programs. republican john mccain of arizona and independent bernard sanders of vermont sponsored the legislation. >> you will be able to go to the doctor of your choice, under the strict supervisions of the v.a. this is a bill mostly for people in very rural areas who now have to travel long distances to get the health care, this will make their lives easier. >> ifill: also today, acting v.a. secretary sloan gibson visited the phoenix medical center where reports of falsifying data and secret waiting lists first surfaced. meanwhile, the president's nominee to fill the top health care position at the veterans affairs department withdrew today. jeffrey murawsky said he feared a long senate confirmation fight. >> woodruff: there is no fight over sylvia burwell, the senate confirmed her today as the new

secretary of health and human services. she had been the president's budget director. burwell takes over from kathleen sebelius who oversaw the difficult rollout of the healthcare.gov website last year. >> ifill: in iraq, sunni fighters stepped up attacks in the north against forces of the shiite dominated government. dozens of gunmen ambushed security checkpoints and police stations in samarra, starting a day long battle. seven police and soldiers were killed. the militants have already seized parts of ramadi and most of fallujah. >> woodruff: president obama and british prime minister david cameron had a new warning for russia today: block weapons from entering ukraine, recognize the new leader in kiev and stop supporting pro-russian separatists or face new sanctions. the leaders met as part of the "group of seven" summit in brussels without russian president vladimir putin. president obama said putin can choose to rebuild trust or not. >> we will have a chance to see

what mr. putin does over the next two, three, four weeks, and if he remains on the current course, then we've already indicated that kinds of actions that we're prepared to take. >> woodruff: putin answered by wishing the g7 leaders "bon appetit" before flying from st. petersburg to france for tomorrow's d-day commemorations. >> ifill: there's word of more mass killings in nigeria by the islamist terror group boko haram. witnesses said militants dressed as soldiers slaughtered at least 200 people in the country's northeast on monday. later, police said 42 more people were killed early today. >> woodruff: chinese courts sentenced 81 people today on terror charges in an ongoing crackdown in the western region of xinjiang. state media said they planned terrorist activities and carried out murder and arson. they are among scores of people who've been arrested after a series of deadly attacks blamed on ethnic uighurs.

>> ifill: vietnam has released new video to prove its claims of chinese aggression in the south china sea. the footage shows a chinese ship chasing and then ramming a vietnamese fishing boat on may 26th. the fishing boat then tipped over and sank, but all ten people aboard were rescued. it happened near a huge oil rig that china deployed last month in disputed waters. >> woodruff: the latest probe of the deepwater horizon oil spill in the gulf of mexico concludes a giant machine that could have prevented the 2010 disaster was riddled with defects. the u.s. chemical safety board said today the blowout preventer on the macondo well failed because it had faulty wiring, a dead battery and a bent pipe. it said similar devices are still being used worldwide. >> ifill: in economic news, european banks will start paying fees on deposits with the european central bank. the negative interest rate could push them to lend the money instead and stave off deflation.

the chair of the securities and exchange commission, mary jo white, proposed new rules to rein in high-speed trading. and on wall street, the dow jones industrial average gained 98 points to close at 16,836; the nasdaq rose 44 points to close at 4,296; and the s&p 500 added 12 to finish at 1,940. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour. g.m.'s probe into the recalls of millions of faulty cars. new details in the story of army sgt. bowe bergdahl. plus, new orleans move to all charter public school district. and possible sweeping changes to how u.s. financial markets are regulated. >> woodruff: general motors released its own internal report today about a decade-long failure to recall cars with ignition switch problems. the investigation found a

dysfunctional system within the automaker that didn't take enough responsibility for years. but it also absolved the very top leadership of any kind of cover up. >> what valukas found in this situation was a pattern of incompetence and neglect. >> woodruff: general motors c.e.o. mary barra laid out the much anticipated report by former federal prosecutor anton valukas. she told g.m. employees in warren, michigan, the findings are, "brutally tough and deeply troubling." >> repeatedly, individuals failed to disclose critical pieces of information that could have fundamentally changed the lives of those impacted by the faulty ignition switch. >> woodruff: that long-running ignition switch defect, going back to 2002, is now linked to at least 13 deaths, and federal officials say the number may rise. since february, g.m. has recalled 2.6 million older cars

because of the problem, which caused engines to stall, air bags to fail and power steering and brakes to malfunction. barra acknowledged the auto maker faces public outrage that it took so long to act. >> this recall issue isn't merely an engineering, or a manufacturing, or a legal problem. it represents a fundamental failure to meet the basic needs of these customers. >> reporter: the c.e.o. announced 15 employees found to have acted inappropriately have been fired. more than half were in senior or executive roles. at the same time, she maintained there was no conspiracy at the top to cover up facts and no evidence that employees made any trade off between safety and cost. barra said it's still not clear why engineers and others largely ignored a problem that would have cost 57 cents to repair.

>> if this information had been disclosed, and i believe this in my heart, the company would have dealt with this situation much differently and appropriately. >> reporter: with g.m.'s findings in hand, congress is expected to announce a new round of hearings. but some lawmakers are already calling the company's report part of a public relations campaign. democratic senator richard blumenthal of connecticut. >> this report leaves so many questions unanswered and fails to identify where responsibility really should be placed. firing a few underlings is no substitute for acknowledging moral and legal responsibility. and this document seems more designed for the defense of the company in court than acknowledgement for responsibility for the more than 13 deaths that the company so far refuses to acknowledge.

>> reporter: going forward, g.m. has created a fund to compensate victims, led by lawyer kenneth feinberg. the names have not been officially released. but in april, when barra appeared at a senate hearing, families also traveled to washington, holding up pictures of loved ones killed or injured. >> we are the people left behind when a loved one got into what was supposed to be a safe car. a g.m. car. a car that g.m. knew for years was dangerous and defective. >> reporter: g.m. has already paid a record $35 million dollar fine, and the ignition switch recall, plus others, have cost the company about $1.7 billion dollars so far. at her press conference, mary barra did not go deeply into the culture of g.m. that valukas described in his report. one where, he wrote, "no single person owned any decision," and there was, "a phenomenon known as the g.m. nod, everyone

nods in agreement and the nod is an empty gesture." more on all of this with two watching it closely. micki maynard is a contributor to forbes magazine. she's the new director of the reynolds center for business journalism at the cronkite school at arizona state university. and eric gordon is a professor at the university of michigan ross school of business. welcome you both. miki, do you both, what did you learn from this internal report that wasn't known before? >> well, what i learned is that general motors doesn't really have a way to explain what happened. it's very interesting because there is a lot of material, a lot of e-mails, slides, that sort of thing. but what we don't find out is why these general motors employees really didn't push to get this matter resolved. and mary beforea was asked about this today, was it fear, was it intim decision an she just sort of skirted the problem. so that's the answer that i'm looking for and we don't

have have it yet. >> did you hear an answer to that question? >> i didn't hear it but i may have read a clue to it in the report. a gm employee named steven oakley said occasionally tried to get the attention of higher ups by using what he called hot wards, and he gave an example, stall. he said that he was reluctant to push on safety issues because he thought his predecessor had been pushed out for having done just that. i think that might be a clue to what the problem was at gm. >> well is that, is that coming through s that being acknowledged by the leadership of gm? >> no, i think they went to great pains to do the opposite. right in the opening the c.e.o. said the real problem here is that lower level people didn't do whatever it took to get it to the attention of the high level people, it's the fault of the low level people. they didn't bang the drums loudly enough. well, we have at least from

one person some idea about they why they don't bang the drums loudly enough and the rest of the report i think you get a second idea which is it will take a lot of drum banging. because, in fact, a lot of people at gm did know about the problem. batted it back and forth and all of those actions apparently somehow weren't enough to get it to the attention of the higher level people. >> miki, this raises the question which we mentioned. and i want to ask you about this. culture where there's a nod or a gesture, what was that all about? >> right so, there were a couple of instances that are defined in the report. one is the gm nod, apparently this is where everyone sits in a meeting. ideas are exchanged, solutions are suggested. everyone nods in agreement, leaves the room and nothing happens which has to be absolutely maddening to a manager. and then the other one is called the gm salute and i have witnessed this myself

where people sit with their arms crossed, sort of their elbows pointing out, almost defiantly as if to say this is someone else's responsibility, 9 elbows pointing out and not mine. and you know when outsiders can read the culture like that i think you have an issue. i think you have an issue of people who maybe say they'll do something, don't do it and that shows that-- they don't trust management or they don't have faith in each other to solve the problem. >> and we should have pointed out, i meant to say this earlier, we did invite general motors to send a representative to be part of this conversation. they kleined. professor gorden, what we want to understand though in the two of you are getting at this is what was it that stopped the information about this ignition switch that clearly people at lower levels knew about, as long as more than a decade ago, maybe 15 years ago, that didn't move up the chain? >> i think there are two

things. and they are somewhat touched on the report if you read it carefully. one is it's a highly technical legal culture. for example, they said that mary barra really didn't know anything that was going on. well, actually, she knew about the stalling, the moving stall problem but she didn't know that it was caused by the ignition switch. so no problem there. so i thinks there a a very technical, we went on technicallities kind of culture. there's also a don't do anything that louses up a product launch. there's a story about an attorney who i think is one of the people who lost his job, bill kemp who somehow getses involved in a story that's going to be run in the cleveland plain dealer about the could balance and he wants to try to do something to soften the story and is advised by another gm attorney that it probably won't work. and his comment as related in the report is something along the lines of wow, if

this story runs, we had better not look as if we haven't done everything possible to support the new product launch. i think those two factors combined make it very difficult to expect information that's negative about a gm product to make it up the line. >> so miki maynard what about these 15 individuals who were fired and i guess some others were suspended. how would you characterize the roles they have had in the company and why no one at the highest level is having to answer for what happened? >> well, first of all, one of the people who was fired is an engineer named ray digeorgia-- digiorgio. and he is probably in the a household name but a name well-known to us in the auto industry. because this is the fellow that apparently approved gm changing the part in 2006 for repair, but not changing the part number.

as the sister of an engineer i can tell you that engineers keep very careful records. and you would not modify a design without changing the part number. but that made it impossible through the years for general motors to tell which ignitions were defective and which ones were okay. and that continued to be a problem until last year. so you have six years of investigation going on. the part number seems to be fine, the design seems to be fine. and they can't find it so he's one of the gentleman that was let go. the head of the could balance program was apparently let go. other people in legal, in engineering, in public policy which usually means washington. but one of the things i und so interesting was that the report specifically says that mary barra, mike milliken who is the head of gm's legal department and mark royce who is head of global product development all knew nothing about this. these are three very senior people at the company. people you would think would be getting briefings on matters like this and

instead apparently the information never got to any one of the three of them at the top of the company. >> so with just 30 seconds left, professor gordon o what are the-- we can expect this is not the end of this. >> it is certainly not going to be. in fact, i think today, especially the press conference that was held today probably damaged gm. i think the lack of transparency, they almost peytonly self-serving approach that seems to have been taken has fired up the critics. i think there will be hearings. i think the hearings will be pretty nasty and i think the easy path that the c.e.o. got because she was knew will not be available the next time around. >> professor eric gordon, miki maynard we thank you both. we did invite general motors. they declined to participate. thank you both. >> ifill: a white house briefing containing more information on

the deal to free army sgt bowe bergdahl from taliban captors hasn't quieted many lawmakers. so the president and other administration officials launched a vigorous defense of the prisoner swap that led to his release. >> i make absolutely no apologies for making sure that we get back a young man to his parents. >> reporter: after days of rising criticism over the bergdahl deal, president obama pushed back. >> i think it was important for people to understand that this is not some abstraction. this is not a political football. >> reporter: in brussels, the president defended trading five senior taliban figures and not telling congress it was imminent. >> we had discussed with congress the possibility that something like this might occur, but because of the nature of the folks that we were dealing with and the fragile nature of these negotiations, we felt it was important to go ahead and do what we did.

>> reporter: in fact, it was reported today, officials kept the planned exchange quiet in part because the taliban threatened to kill bergdahl if it became public. during an interview with the bbc, defense secretary chuck hagel said, "bergdahl's life and health were in peril." >> it's easy for us to sit here and look behind and say well, 24 hours? 48 hours? it was our judgment and it was unanimous by the way, i might add, it was the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, director of national intelligence, attorney general, we all came to the same conclusion, that we didn't want to take any chance here. >> reporter: the pentagon, state department and intelligence officials made that case to senators last night, in a closed-door briefing. the meeting included a video that reportedly showed bergdahl in declining health. afterward, some senators on both sides, including republican john mccain, said they remained unpersuaded.

>> we are glad that sergeant bergdahl is home, but the exchange of five hardcore, hardest of the hardcore al qaeda/taliban, will pose a threat to the united states of america, and the men and women who are serving. >> reporter: but mccain and others criticizing the deal are now being accused of changing their position on a prisoner exchange. in february, for instance, mccain told cnn he'd, "support such a thing depending on a lot of the details." the democratic senate majority leader harry reid accused the critics of playing "political games" with bergdahl's release. >> he is an american soldier. he's been in captivity for five years. the war is winding down. let's bring him home. we did. we all know that the president had a very short period of time to make a decision. he made a decision to bring him home, and i'm glad he did. >> reporter: as the political fighting over bergdahl heats up, new details have emerged about his time in the army and in captivity. "the new york times" reported

today an investigation into his 2009 disappearance found he'd left from assigned areas twice before. and "the daily beast" reported bergdahl tried to escape from the taliban twice, so his captors moved him often and added guards making it harder to rescue him. meanwhile, the pentagon said bergdahl's health is improving daily at a u.s. military hospital in germany. there's no indication of when he might return to the united states. >> ifill: joining me now to walk us through some of the circumstances surrounding bergdahl's time in afghanistan is matthew farwell. he is a former army soldier who served there and helped report a 2012 feature on bergdahl with the late journalist michael hastings, for rolling stone magazine. matthew farwell, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> the debate in washington is completely about whether bergdahl was a hostage or whether he was a hero or

whether he was a deserter. it seems like it is somewhere in between, it is a more complicated story than that. >> yeah, it's a more complicated and more nuanced storiment but at the end of the day the guy was a u.s. soldier in the hands of somebody we're fighting with. and regardless of any other circumstance, he needed to be brought home. and brought back into u.s. custody and u.s. jurisdiction. >> ifill: let's go back and tell people a little bit about who bowe bergdahl is. who he is. how did he come to be in the army in the first place? >> you know, he grew up in sun valley, idaho. and joined the army a little bit later on in life, i believe he was about 23 when he joined which was the same age i was when i joined. and i think you know, he didn't just join the army, he joined the infant ree and the parachute infant ree at that. and so like a lot of people,

i imagine he joined for many different reasons. idealism, the sense of adventure, patriotism, you know, and frankly because there was a war on and some people need to go fight it. >> ifill: but by the time these events came to pass he had become disillusioned, your story, how is that? >> yeah t seems that he wasn't happy in his platoon. he wasn't happy in afghanistan, apparently an he made a very, very poor decision. and you know, really endured some consequences for that, and will for the rest of his life. >> ifill: there is no question any more but that he walked away from his post? >> i mean, i didn't think there was much question when we wrote that in the story two years ago, me and michael for rolling stone. >> ifill: but this debate now is about whether he walked away to join the

taliban, to somehow connect with them or just to get away from his situation. is any light that has been shed on that? >> you know, i don't believe that he walked away to join the taliban. and i think those daily beast reports that you referenced on him trying to escape twice would indicate that as well. >> ifill: let me talk to you a little bit about some of the e-mails that he exchanged with his parents which are in your story which illustrate his kind of growing disillusionment. in the last e-mail he writes the future is too good to waste on lies. he's talking about the war itself. >> yes, ma'am. >> ifill: so what was it about the car that particularly through him off. what was it about battle what was it about combat that disillusioned him so? >> well, you know, i don't think it was necessarily battle or combat. and i don't know for a fact. but i know that i was in the exact same area two years prior as an infant reeman

and battle and combat is actually fun. but the war in afghanistan was a massive-- we would call it a charlie foxtrot if i'm being polite it was a massive cluster. and we didn't know what we were doing there. and we still don't. and that's why we're getting out and it has been the longest war in u.s. history. >> his father described bowe bergdahl in particular as being psychologically isolated. was that true also of a lot of the men and women who were fighting, especially in that area of afghanistan? >> you know, some platoons have good unit cohesion, some people get along. some people don't. and so i can't necessarily make a case for anyone else but myself. and i had a good time with my platoon mates. and you know, i love them all like brothers. but look at other soldiers like robert bales, for instance, who walked off his

post and murdered 16 afghan, you know, women an children in kandahar. you know, soldiers have problems. >> ifill: in this case -- >> some of them. >> ifill: in this case after he walked off your report writes that he was actually seen by afghan villagers that people saw him, what was his state of mind that we know. >> i can't speak to that, ma'am, i don't know. >> ifill: i'm just referencing the story that you wrote in rolling stone which talked about the fact that he seemed kind of dazed. so negotiations that went on to finally free him about the prisoner swap, this has been going on for some time. >> right. we wrote in the story that you know the senate foreign relations committee has been debating it at that time and mccain hasn't flip-flopped in the past couple of months. he was saying pretty crazy stuff back then, calling him the five worse human-rights abusers and human history. and john kerry was actually

the voice of reason there which is bizarre to me. >> okay. well, just for the record we have invited john mccain and others to be on the program and will continue. matthew farwell, thank you very much. >> thank you >> woodruff: as the school year comes to a close across the country, one of the issues that's been grabbing major attention in a number of cities this year is the continuing growth of charter schools. new orleans has been ground zero for this change and the end of this school year marks a historic moment for the city. jeffrey brown has the story. >> in september, new orleans will be home to the country's first all-charter school district. it's an evolution that began more than a decade ago. and was greatly accelerated after the devastation of hurricane katrina. when state officials and others seized the opportunity to overhaul the city's troubled system. special correspondent for education, john merrow, reported

on the effort over the years in a series of stories for us. and has now produced a documentary, titled "re-birth." here's a short clip that takes us back to early days for the charter movement, in 2005. >> december 14th, 2005. much of the city is still deserted. old perry walker high school, one of the few school buildings to escape serious damage is about to reopen. >> hopefully never, ever again in the history of this country-- where any group of folks will be given an opportunity-- because of a katrina or some other natural disaster. but the reality is, we had this opportunity, and we need to seize this moment. >> we have to be on my toes when the kids come. in and you set the stage, we

all know that, in one month you know that the first day sets the stage. >> some us as teachers, we're going to want to go back the way it was done before. a lot of the children, you know, are going to be expecting things to look like they did before. and-- and it's just going to be interesting how we can create a new vision of what, who we are and what we want to be. >> walker's reopening as a public charter school. this meant it was no longer controlled by the local school board although publicly funded, it would be privately run. more like a small business. and like a business, old perry walker charter school had a bottom line to educate its students. if it failed to do that, it could lose its charter and be shut down. it was a far cry from the old way of running schools. >> and john mer and john merrow joins us now. also with us is sarah carr of the "hechinger report," an

online education news site. she's author of "hope against hope," a book about new orleans charter schools. john, help us understand all this. i think you refer to new orleans now as a system of schools rather than a school system explain. >> well, it's almost all charter schools. there are still a few traditional schools within what's the old orleans parish school board. but there are about 88 schools and i think all but five of them are charter schools. they're about 45,000 students. and all but maybe 2500 go to charter schools. so it is a system of schools. >> and sarah carr, has it been a smooth transition, remind us, has there been opposition along the way. where are we now with that? >> you know, you can find people who think what has happened is the greatest thing to occur in the history of urban education

and people who think it's the worst thing. i think most people who are being honest will admit it's someplace in the middle. and i found in years reporting on it that it's really the families at the grass roots level who have the most nuanced and balanced perspective a lot of the time. >> and so john, continuing just to help us understand what is going on here, one of the big questions, obviously, is who is in charge now. what kind of accountability is there. how much political account ability for that matter? >> that's a terrific question. the bureau of elementary and secondary education is ultimately in charge of most of the charters. the metric is very narrow, its test scores, in fact, it's gotten narrower prek through 6 schools are judged 100% by their performance on state tests. it used to be 95% and 5% attendance. 7 charter schools, i think that's the number, sarah may have a better number. but 7 charter schools have

gone out of business because they failed to keep the promise os they made in order to get the charter. but they've discovered they need some kind of central authority. and the charter, the recovery school district and the old orleans parish have just entered into an agreement to codify the rules so that everybody obeys the same rules. and they set up a fund to provide extra money for very expensive special needs kids. so there's a cooperation and recognition. they need some oversight. >> well, sarah carr, continue on that. tell us pore about that theme. but also start us on the sort of what do we know so far about the results at this point, of this switch. >> yeah, well, the principals really do have pretty unprecedented autonomy and flexibility to hire and fire and set their own curriculum and their own calendar. and they have individual

boards that oversee them. but there is sometimes a conflict of interest if those boards are appointed or picked by the principals so i do think there is this question moving forward of how active the state board will be in overseeing the schools on a daily basis. the overall the test scores have been on an upward trend. and the data is very hotly debated just because it's not an apple to apple comparison since thousands of families did not come back after katrina. and i think we really need to watch in the long-term to see what college graduation rates look like and not arrive at sort of snap or quick conclusions based on short-term data. >> john, where do you think the results point to so far. and what are you looking for in the coming years? >> well, i reported for us before katrina and its with a terrible school system, an f or f minus.

it's now i would think a c or a c mineus. the question is right, you have to keep track of the graduation records. there is a new pole that's coming out next week from the cowan institute at tulane. and they suggest that almost 50% of those polled say the schools are either improving or are good. and about 18% say they are actually worse. 25% say they're about the same. they divide evenly. would you recommend the school to a friend, 45% say they would. 43.85 say they would not. so you know, it is an ongoing experiment. there is no question about that. >> well, so sarah carr, how much stable is there in this new system and what kind of new problems, perhaps, arise when you shift to an almost all charter system. >> well there has been a

fair amount of instability just in that you have schools that have been phased-- phased out and closed down and converted to charter operators. and so i have-- you know, i have met families who found more structured ambitious charter schools that they loved. and i've met ones whose children have been bounced between four or five schools just in high school alone. and i think one of the main challenges moving forward will be making sure that the schools are reaching the most vulnerable children and families. >> what do we know, john merrow so far, about public attitudes toward this. >> well, that's interesting. there is a general level, as i said, would you recommend yes, maybe no, but 51% of those polled and as i say this cowan institute poll will come out next week. 51% say the schools do not prepare the kids for college and 56% say the schools do not prepare the kids for work. so there's a real level of

dissatisfaction. and one of the striking things to me is that new orleans, music is the lifeblood. there's no charter school devoted to art and music. there's one that is the creative arts. and there are 88 schools in all. so i find it striking because they're so obsessed with test scores that there isn't the richness that you would expect in charter schools. so i think the challenge going forward will be to try to figure out out a new metric so you can have a variety of schools and provide kids with more challenging experiences. >> and so-- sarah just very briefly, if you could, in ask an experiment being watched as a model in other places, right. >> uh-huh. very much so. and i think a lot of the tensions and changes that are happening in new orleans are happening at a smaller scale in other cities including the growth in charter schools and increased reliance on teach for america and alternative teacher programs and this

sort of attack on teachers unions. so i think that it, even though what happened in and the way it happened was very unique in ou-- new orleans t definitely had a lot of implications as urban school systems restructure across the country. >> brown: all right, sarah carr, john merrow, thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: we'll be right back with a look at a possible crackdown by the security exchange commission on high speed computer driven trading. but first, it's pledge week on p.b.s. this break allows your public television station to ask for your support. and that support helps keep programs like ours on the air. >> woodruff: for those stations not taking a pledge break. it's not just young adults who live with roommates, some baby boomers are returning to the communal living of their youth to ease the burdens of their golden years. we take a second look at special correspondent spencer michels'

report for our "taking care" series. >> i thought maybe we would use the plastic one. >> karen bush and louise like to plan together, everything from dinner parties to the breakdown of chores at their new condo in sar societya, florida. >> -- sarah sode a, florida. >> the projects at the home they share with jean from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. >> i will be home april 4th and i will probably be there most of that upcoming week so if there are things that i need to do. >> long time friends, now in their 60s have been coordinating their lives like this for the past ten years. >> before that like a growing number of female baby boomers, all three were divorced, living alone and unsatisfied with the size of their savings accounts as they neared retirement. >> let's tell the real story. >> she cooks, i do the dishes. >> combining resources, they decided would make life cheaper, easier and more fun.

>> the relationship was easy to describe from the start. >> fight like cats and dogs, lots of drama every day. >> no, no, no, no. >> thank you for being my friend ♪ ♪. >> nationwide about 500,000 women over the age of 50 live with a nonromantic house mate. according to census data analyzed by aarp, that boils down to roughly 1340-- 130,000 group homes from coast-to-coast. louise, karen an jean officially decided to give it a shot in 2004 when they bought a large brick home together in the lebanon neighborhood of pittsburgh an drafted a legally binding document laying out everything from financial expectations to overnight guests. >> it worked so well they wrote a how-to book about living far better for far less. but they also knew the arrangement wouldn't last forever. >> it's a great big old colonial built in the 1930s.

four stories, three winding sets of stairs. ands so it's a great house for us while we were young. we know that at some point that house will become difficult for us to manage. >> still, they're eventual need to move on didn't mean an end to the partnership which the three say is becoming more valuable with time. they recently purchased this condo together in florida, with new legal agreements in the works for what they will and will not do when it comes to things like illness, disability, incompetence and death. >> if one of us goes soon, the other one is young enough, hopefully to just go get a mortgage or fine another person to buy in. >> what are we going do about some of this stuff. >> they're now gutting the place. >> i think we'll widen the door. >> an with the help of contractor brian anderson, an independent living strategist lewis tan enbaum, rebuilding it for a future when the women will be less

mobile, which includes everything from selecting floor tiles with enough traction. >> yeah, they slip. >> to choosing age-friendly countertops and appliances. >> it has some advantage but having this is really nice to have. >> that's really good. >> the whole set up that we have here is going it to help me be independent for a long time. and at the point at which i can no longer be independent, i will have additional resources to pay for what i need. >> but this isn't just a warm weather retirement idea. the golden girls conceptually got started going strong here in minneapolis where a few years ago the median income of elderly women was $11,000 less than for retired men. that discrepancy prompted a local women to start to organize. >> conny runs golden girl homes incorporated. a volunteer based group that introduces ellerly single

women in the twin cities to the concept of communal living and to each other. >> at least once a month she hosts get togethers on topics ranging from picking a roommate to tax preparation. many say it's something they have already considered. >> really, i am not that keen on living alone. but there i am. >> but most admit being more than a little nervous about roommate drama or even sharing a bathroom. >> go to bed at night and there would be half a roll of toilet tissue and then you get up in the morning and then there would be no toilet tissue. and that would be an issue for me. >> and skilling tells them up front it doesn't always work. minor differences can easily ruin everything. but she also leaves the settup if managed well can save lives and keep people out of retirement homes long other. >> i see both women with money and women with no money who need to do this. and who can find a place here for that.

and for example, there are women who have no money but they have a house. they have space and they can share it with somebody and it will help them to survive. >> it's why skillingtad has been spending time lately advising 54-year-old nancy shawna on how to make her home more attractive to a potential roommate. the financially strapped hair stylist has far more space than she needs, even after she finishes construction on a beauty salon in the front two rooms of her home. several 100 dollars a month would go a long way to helping relieve some stress, she says. >> it would uniform my life, i mean physically, psychologically, financially. and i could help them too, you know. it's just not a one-sided thing for a woman to move in to my home. she may want to help me with things too.

so it's a give-and-take, it's helping each other and caring for each other. >> the next step will be finding her own rose, blanch, sofia or dorothy and settling into a future where she doesn't feel so alone. >> if you >> ifill: if you're looking for a dorothy and a rose to share your home we have tips on how to do that online, on our health page. >> woodruff: finally tonight, a federal agency is proposing new rules for financial markets to help them address changes in the way the majority of trading takes place today. dizzying changes in technology and a lessening of transparency. there's been mounting concern among some experts in particular about computer-driven high-

frequency trading after a one day market crash in 2010 and a recent high profile book on the subject. mary jo white, the chair of the securities and exchange commission, laid out new proposals to regulate the market during a speech today. reporter keri geiger of bloomberg news is here to fill us in. welcome to the program. >> thank you very much, happy to be here. >> so give us a fuller picture of how the markets have changed and what precipitated all this. >> well, this really you know high frequency trading has been a discussion for many years especially after the flash crash. and it really quieted down. and then in march 2014, this year, just a few months ago the new york attorney general eric schneiderman open odd up a broad investigation into high frequency trading and some of the practices behind that, including the technologies that really drive this superfast trading where to kind of future into

perspective. it's about a thousand trades can happen in the blink of an eye with this computer driven trading. and his investigation and the new york state attorney general's investigation coincided with the publication of michael lewis's book flash boys which of course brought the issue of high frequency trading to the general public and really showed how a lot of people, an there's a lot of critics in this market, as well as proponents but the critics are really looking and saying that this provides a small number of traders with an enormous vantage over the general public including retail investors. so you know, here we are today. the ag investigation, flash boys and now the sec is likely responding to a lot of that pressure and is looking at ways that they can roll out some new rules that will essentially reign recent in what is considered some of the unfair practise of high frequency trading. >> so what, i mean without getting in too much into the details what is it that mary

jo white the chair would like to see done? >> well, one of the most significant ones which was highlighted back in march when the ag opened their investigation is the issue of dark pools. dark pools are run by some of the wall street's biggest banks. it's essentially trading behind closed doors. you don't see how the trades are done. the buying and the selling. unlike the exchanges which just shows up on a public ticker. marry jo white and the sec is calling for some of the trades and the ways to dark pools are operated to have more disclosure and transparency. another thing is that firms proprietary trading firms that engage in high frequency trading have to have registration at the sec that would essentially make them accountable to sec rules and regulations. also, order flow types. when orders are put in through certain alternative trading venues that use high frequency trading, they don't necessarily tell their

customers where they are being routed. and not to get too technical but that is actually an issue for a lot of customers so they would like to have some transparency on that. so the big theme that came out. sec today with the proposal of rules is more transparency in the markets. and so are these the kinds of changes, keri geiger that are likely to be accepted in the financial market community? >> you know, the market has surprisingly been pretty accepting of the proposal that the markets get more transparent and we kind of understand and learn more about how high frequency trading might create unfair advantages. so i think you're likely go to-- going to see considering that the regulators as well as the new york attorney general and other, you know, kind of government bodies are really looking at ways to kind of open this up. you are going to see the market sort of getting behind him on this also michael lewis's book has had a lot of influence on its

way the public looks at this. there is a public perception with how people will be responding to this opinions quickly again to help the audience understand this. the high frequency trading, you are saying, is often accompanied by less transparency in what is going on? >> that is absolutesly the case. and that is where a lot of this criticism draws. the whole market of high frequency trading has grown-up very quickly in the last few years. and a lot of people don't understand it. we don't see a lot of the ways that the data and the trades are processed just by the way the system is set up. so that is definitely a major issue for this. and it's something that people want to see more of. >> so finally what happens next. who gets a chance to look at these recommendations and when do we know whether this actually is going to take effect? well, this is going to be a process that the sec will go through. and they will be keeping the public up to date on where they are in this process. of course there is this

review period that has to go on here. so this is definitely a work in progress. in a little wait and see mode to see one how the market is going to react to this and at which the speed which the sec can put some of these changes through. >> keri geiger with bloomberg news, we thank you. >> thank you very much. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. general motors announced it has fired 15 employees over the delayed ignition switch recall, but an internal report concluded there was no cover-up. president obama said he makes "no apologies" for the deal to free army sergeant bowe bergdahl. and two senior senators agreed on a bipartisan bill to let veterans see doctors under medicare in a bid to reduce wait times at v.a. hospitals. >> ifill: on the newshour online right now how an apprenticeship can be a ticket to the american dream.

we talk to a former marine who's getting on the job training, and an all expenses paid associate's degree, thanks to his employer, b.m.w. it's a follow-up to yesterday's paul solman report on these types of programs. that's on our making sense page. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> woodruff: and again, to our honor roll of american service personnel killed in the afghanistan conflict. we add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. here, in silence, is one more. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on friday, we remember d-day.

i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks among others 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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