captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: on the frontlines of the fight against ebola in west africa.. what health workers still need to contain the deadly virus. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. also ahead this thursday, in el salvador stopping the surge of migrant children entering the u.s. at the source by improving the dangerous conditions that force them to flee. >> they explain to stay is to die. to go is to possibly die but to possibly have a better future as well. >> woodruff: president obama's former sectary of defense leon panetta takes aim at the administration's foreign policy. >> it isn't just isis.

we're dealing with north korea. we're dealing with iran. we're dealing with russia, we're dealing with cyber-attacks. it is an unprecedented set of threats that are out there. this not a time to kind of get in the trenches and not say anything. >> ifill: plus, combating climate change by transforming ponds once caked with salt into vibrant marshes teaming with wildlife. >> this pond in particular has been called a disneyland for birds. were really trying to maximize the amount of habitat that's available to them in a novel way. >> woodruff: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> 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: 100 u.s. marines and more military aid arrived in liberia today to battle ebola. at the same time, leaders from liberia and neighboring countries pleaded for the outside world to make good on pledges to help. appeals from west african leaders dominated a world bank meeting in washington today. on video link, the presidents of sierra leone and liberia pressed for action not just talk.

>> the general international response has up to this moment been slower than the rate of transmission of the disease. this slower than the virus response need to change. >> this means the construction of treatment and testing and bearing centers within a timeframe of one month, by mid- november, all such facilities functioning with staff healthworkers, both local and expatriate. >> ifill: the president of guinea appeared in person, adding his own request for money and facilities. together their three countries account for virtually all of the nearly 4,000 ebola deaths so far. the disease claimed its first victim in the u.s. yesterday, thomas eric duncan contracted the disease in liberia before flying to texas. and in spain, officials announced the condition of teresa romero has declined. she's a nurse who treated an ebola patient and was diagnosed

herself this week. >> ( translated ): the patient has expressly forbidden us to give information about her health and clinical condition. i've only come here to confirm that her clinical condition has worsened. >> ifill: four more people who had contact with romero were placed in isolation units for monitoring. they included a doctor who said he cared for the nurse without being told she was infected. the case has prompted protests by health workers and others in madrid and questions about how the nurse was infected in the first place. >> ( translated ): we have followed all the necessary precautions they have told us to follow. are those rules incorrect? that, we don't know. >> ifill: the european commission joined today in demanding that spain give full explanations of exactly what happened. meanwhile, a united nations employee infected in liberia arrived for treatment in leipzig, germany today.

and international airports in new york, newark, washington, chicago and dallas prepared new screening for travelers from west africa including fever checks and other measures. those measures do not apply at new york's la guardia airport, and 200 airplane cabin cleaners staged a 24-hour strike there today citing health and safety concerns. and in washington, a mostly republican group of 26 lawmakers sent president obama a letter calling for even more stringent restrictions including visa bans and quarantines. at the same time, u.s. troops at fort hood, texas, stepped up safety training. ahead of being deployed to west africa. >> ifill: we'll hear from one of the medical groups struggling to corral the outbreak, after the news summary. >> woodruff: american and coalition planes stepped up their aerial assault in syria today, but islamic state forces made gains anyway. syrian activists said the militants now control more than a third of kobani, a key town on

the border with turkey. as the air strikes continued, turkish tanks again looked on without intervening. but the turkish foreign minister called for a comprehensive plan before turkey launches an attack. >> ( translated ): it's not realistic to expect turkey to carry out a ground operation on its own. our negotiations are continuing about all our suggestions. negotiations with our allies are continuing. turkey will not hesitate to do its part when a common decision is reached. >> woodruff: later, secretary of state john kerry called the militants' advance on kobani a tragedy. but he said it will not alter the obama administration's long- term strategy. >> ifill: the rapidly deteriorating situation in yemen took a turn for the worse today. nearly 70 people were killed in a pair of suicide bombings. the attacks bore the hallmarks of sunni militants linked to al qaeda. one of the bombers targeted a large group of shiite rebels who

now control the capital city, sana'a. blood stains and debris littered the streets in the aftermath. >> woodruff: a total of 19 people are now dead in the worst fighting between india and pakistan in more than a decade. heavy shelling erupted more than a week ago in kashmir, a mostly muslim region claimed by both sides. the two sides traded warnings today to stand down, but the fighting continued. >> that's word from mexico that authorities have captured the reputed leader of the juarez drug cartel. mexican officials said he was taken in the northern city of it, oraon. the u.s. had offered $5 million for his arrest. >> woodruff: black leaders in st. louis called today for the justice department to investigate the latest fatal shooting of a black teenager. police said an off-duty officer killed 18-year-old vonderrit myers last night after the teen fired first. the shooting sparked protests, 11 miles from ferguson, where another officer killed michael

brown in august. st. louis police chief sam dotson called for calm. >> i'm being as open and transparent as the department can be and i hope the public appreciates that. i know emotions are high and i know tensions are high, but the reality is, what we've seen or what the evidence tells me right now is an individual pointed a gun at a police officer, fired at least three rounds and continued to pull the trigger. >> woodruff: the teenager's relatives disputed the police account, and insisted he was not armed. police did not identify the officer, or give his race. >> ifill: french author patrick modiano has won the nobel prize for literature. he was honored today for decades of work that focus on the nazi occupation of france during world war two. the 69-year-old writer has published more than 40 books, but he's relatively unknown in the english-speaking world. >> woodruff: this was another wild day on wall street. jitters over global growth sent energy stocks plunging, and triggered a broad sell-off. the dow jones industrial average

had its biggest loss of the year, nearly 335 points, one day after its biggest gain of the year, it finished at 16,659; the nasdaq dropped 90 points to close at 4,378; and the s&p 500 slipped 40 to finish at 1,928. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour. containing ebola at its epicenter in west africa. u.s. efforts to stop the surge of migrant children illegally crossing the border. leon panetta doesn't hold back in his new memoir. creating vibrant marshes to combat climate change. why arkansas republicans are supporting an initiative to raise the minimum wage. plus, a new book explores the importance of living and dying, well. >> ifill: despite new pledges of aid, international leaders

provided downbeat assessments of the current battle against ebola. the head of the world bank said the international community had "failed miserably" in its initial response. the director of the c.d.c. said the situation reminded him of the early days of the aids epidemic. we get our own assessment from one of the few non-government groups treating patients in west africa. international medical corps has built a treatment clinic in liberia and is constructing other facilities in liveria and sierra leone. its president, nancy aossey, joins me now. thank you for joining us. >> thank you, gwen. >> ifill: how many bed, how many facilities, how many people would you say that you're engaged in treating now? >> another so in liberia, international medical corps, opened up a 70-bed hospital-- actually we call it a treatment unit. we opened that up in mid-september. we are scaling up and will be opening up another treatment unit in sierra leone. in liberia we have about 200

people working in this treatment unit trying to contain it, as well as treating people who have ebola with the hopes that they will recover, and they are recovering when they receive treatment. >> ifill: do you have any sense that the progress of this disease is being slowing? >> well, let me say that it's clear that efforts, like ours and other organizations, are working. when there are treatment efforts, when there are health care workers to treat patients as they come in, i mean, our first patients that arrived to our treatment unit, they died at the doorstep. but now we see that patients are recovering, and they're returning back to their families. so any efforts around treatment and containment are working. the problem and the challenge is that there are just not enough operational efforts on the ground. that's the challenge. >> ifill: is that because a lack of international action or nongovernmental action, or is it

because the infrastructure in these communities is so difficult that even if you sent them 10 collapsible hospitals, pop-up hospitals, they couldn't build them? >> another well, it's a number of factors. one, certainly the health care infrastructures are very weak in west africa, under-resourced. they don't have enough health workers. that's one thing. the second thing is the spread was not contained more quickly some months ago. international donors are stepping up. in fact, our treatment unit in liberia was made possible from a grant from u.s.a.i.d.'s office of foreign disaster assistance. it took $5 million to open it up and about 1 million a month. part of it is the resources need to be there. but also, people are really afraid. they're afraid to provide treatment because they also need to keep their own health workers safe. so one of the things we've done is we have said to other community health people, as well as other international n.g.o.s, we will provide case management protocol training. we'll train their workers so

that they can open up more treatment facilities. the problem we have now is that the disease and the outbreak is being-- is out-pacing the operational efforts on ground. there are a lot of plans in place, by the way, to change that, and we're still within that window. >> ifill: well, this part about how you keep health workers safe was something raised in a piece we had on the news here last night about c.d.c. workers preparing to go abroad. it takes 20 minutes to get into one of those suits, as long to get out of the suits. are you suffering from a lack of willing fns volunteers to take all that on? >> the suits, it's very exwhricted. you can only stay them in about two hours in africa. it's that hot. we have a buddy system because people make mistakes. we have someone watching the other health workery soy they don't infect themselves through a basic mistake. what we are finding is when people are properly equip asked they have the proper protocolses

in place, they can successfully treat patients and it can be contained. but that training, that knowledge is very important. so what we've done is we have said, you know, when organizations come to, say, liberia, we will provide seven to 10 days of training, and as well, the u.s. military is putting together a 25-bed hospital in liberia specifically to take care of health workers because one of the challenges around-- you know, they call it the "nurse killer" in liberia. one of the challenges around ebola is health workers are willing to steped for and help, and they're very heroic, but our recruitment efforts are helped greatly by the fact that we can treat them if they catch ebola. >> ifill: an organization like yours, ebola is not your only goal. you are also working in the central african republic or syria among refugees. how do you stop resources being stretched too thin to handle all these crisis?

>> we're in unprecedented times. we have six category-three emergencies. >> ifill: six? >> that is the highest emergency. never in our history have we had that. one of the toughest years would have been two a year. and we have six now in the last six months alone. so, you know, it's all hands on deck. we're hopeful that supporters both government agencies and private sector-- the private sector is starting to step in to the ebola fight, the refugee crises. they're an important part of these efforts. but the fact is, it's like we have to do it on all fronts, frankly. it's impossible to pick among these because they're all at the highest level they can be. >> ifill: there is some place where's they've been able to stop the spread and some places where they haven't. we heard the head of the world bank today say nothing less than the future of africa is at stake right now. do you see that? >> this can be stopped and it can be contained, but it has to be. it absolutely has to be stopped. because the fact of the matter is, we have-- here we have two countries, sierra leone, and liberia, who are coming back

from the brink of civil war. i mean, they have done so much to come back from where they were, and for them to be now deal with ebola on top of it, this-- this crise is a global crisis. it's a world problem. it's not just west africa. we are all in it together and we have to take the view that it is everyone's problem, and whatever resources it takes, we have to be there because it's going to continue to spread if we're not there, and it has to be stopped and contained at the source. ?rief nancy aossey, president and c.e.o. of the international medical corps, thank you very much. >> thank you, gwen, thanks. >> woodruff: earlier this year, a record number of unaccompanied children from honduras, guatemala and el salvador arrived in the united states. sparking a crisis and political backlash on our southern border. as part of its response, the white house announced tens of millions of dollars in new

spending in those countries, aimed at stopping the flow of unaccompanied kids, and the crime driving them from home. newshour's p.j. tobia takes a look at those u.s. funded programs and the children they are supposed to be helping. >> reporter: in central america, this is the front line of the obama administration's fight to keep children from joining gangs or making the dangerous journey to the united states. it's the opening of a new community center in a violent el salvador an city controlled by a gang. 140 of these u.s. government-funded centers are spread between honduras, guatemala, and el salvador. there are plans to double that number. they offer sports, skills training, and computer literacy. it's a response to the flood of children trying to make their way to the u.s. border. one of them is 10-year-old brando. the ""newshour"" has agreed to conceal his and his

grandmother's faces for their safety. brando's grandmother was desperate to get him out of the country after a violent drug gang tried to extort the family. >> ( translated ): things here are awful. they take kids and they return them in pieces. >> reporter: she sent brando north over land with an uncle. it was' grueling journey. >> ( translated ): we slept where the cows are. >> ( translated ): in a barn. there were days they slept in a barn. when they left here, they went to guatemala. when they crossed, mexican immigration caught them. >> reporter: after that, brando was brought back to el salvador. like most people here, he and his grandmother don't leave the house after 6:00 p.m. for fear of the gangs. >> ( translated ): i can't sleep. when i'm able to sleep, i wake up. i only sleep one or two hours when i hear the gunshots during the night. it will be some time before i can send the child to school. >> reporter: brando says he'd still like to try and make it to the u.s., but, his grandmother

says, they can't afford another attempt. elizabeth kennedy has spent last year in el salvador on a fulbright scholarship. she's interviewed more than 300 children like brando who have tried and failed to make it to the united states. >> in june, there was one day we got 300 kids deported from mexico in one day. >> reporter: in mexico, the detained children are sent to a facility in tapachula, then they're sent back home. >> we had one 12-year-old boy who came here who had been robbed and beaten in the detention center in tapachiewl pap he didn't have any shoes. he was crying. there's no follow-up services at the moment for those who are afraid for their lives, they're probably going to try again within two months. >> reporter: that's where these u.s. government-funded children's centers come in. this center, just outside of san salvador, provides a place for children to play and learn computers. for older children, this bakery is a skills training program. but kennedy says that

u.s.a.i.d., the government agency behind the centers, doesn't follow through with long-term funding. >> so i've learned of a number of programs that receive large, multi-million-dollar grants. they were supposed to create something that would be sustainable after the money ended in two years. and there's nothing to show for it two years later, after the money has run out. >> reporter: mark fierstein is an administrator focusing on latin america. he says it's up to the local governments to pate bills when u.s. money runs out. >> sustainability is vital. and the real key here are the governments themselves. they need to be raising revenue. they need to be energizing their own private sector. what the s.a.a.i.d. can do, the u.s. can do is support the governments of the central american governments but they need to be raising the revenue. >> they are often located in contested gang territories. >> the reality is for kids who live in a contested gang

territory, crossing the street could be the cause of their death. >> well, that's the the point. they are in dangerous neighborhoods, and we're trying to create safe havens for children and the fact we're trying to get to these places speaks to their value. >> reporter: another issue is a controversial policy. the agency won't fund programs explicitly aimed at current gang members. the program director at the washington office on latin america: >> i think that's understandable. i think it's a mistake. people aren't going to leave gangs unless there are alternatives and somebody has got to work with that population. and related to that, people coming out of prison are going to go back if they don't have some alternative. and they're going to go back because they pick up gang life again and they are recidivists and they go back to extorting people and threatening them and the whole range of that kind of thing. >> reporter: fierstein says while there may not be programs aimed directly at current gang members, the youth centers don't do background checks for those who come for services and

training. >> people are not being filtered when they arrive there. so if someone, you know, comes to a youth center and wants to participate, wants to get workforce training, they're welcome to do so. >> reporter: usaid officials say the youth centers are only a piece of their effort. meanwhile, the pentagon and state department also play a role through security initiatives and media campaigns, all aimed at convincing central american children not to leave home in the first place. but back in el salvador, the root causes driving these child migrants persist, even getting worse after they return home. >> and so they explain, you know, to stay is to die. to go is possibly to die but to possibly have a better future as well. >> reporter: it's a risk that all too many are willing to take. >> ifill: you can learn more about the state department's efforts to train local police in el salvador we have the latest in a reporting series from our partners at fronteras. that's on our homepage at pbs.newshour.org.

>> woodruff: we turn now to a memoir from an obama administration insider that's gaining headlines for its critical assessments of the president. the author, leon panetta, spent decades in washington, first as a legislative assistant, later a congressman, and then president reagan's chief of staff, before retiring to his home state of california. he was coaxed back into government by president obama who persuaded panetta to serve as director of the c.i.a., and then secretary of defense. in those roles, he was involved in the war on terror, the assassination of osama bin laden and the wind down of the wars in afghanistan and iraq. he writes about all of this in "worthy fights: a memoir of leadership in war and peace." i spoke with him earlier this afternoon. leon panetta, former secretary of defense, welcome. >> nice to be with you, judy.

>> woodruff: so the book "worthy fights" comes in the middle of some fierce debates here in washington about domestic policy, certainly international policy. what contribution do do you think the book will have to those debates? >> well, i very much wanted to, first of all, tell my life story because in many ways it's the american story. and all of the different fight they say engaged in and all of the different positions i've held. and to point out that in fact, if you stay in it and fight, that you can get things done. and i guess the lessons that would like people to draw is that at a time when there's so much dysfunction in this town, that it is a time when leadership really does need to confront the challenges we're facing abroad, as well as the challenges here at home. and i've said, you know, we govern in a democracy by

leadership or crise, and too often today we govern by crisis. we need to get back to governing by leadership. >> woodruff: you said the other day talking about the war against the islamic state, and you said you think it's something that's going to go on for 30 years. if you were at the table right now would you be arguing that the u.s. should ramp up the effort or leave it to the people in the countries in the region? >> well, we're going to have to be very flexible because we're dealing with a resilient enemy. that's obvious. yisis is wellarmed. they're well funded. they're well trained. you can see them using very careful tactics here on the battle field. now going after this town on the border. they go into hiding. they're hiding their equipment. so we have got to be very resilient in the way we handle this. i think the approach of the president is right. we've got-- you know, we've put troops-- we've deployed troops to iraq. we're trying to get their security force to be able to be effective in pushing isis back.

we're going to arm and train the rebels. we've decided to use air attacks which are extremely helpful. but it has to be continuing with a great deal of pressure and a great deal of attention to objectives. you've got to set objectives so that we can show the american people and the world that we can win in this war on isis. >> woodruff: you do talk about the president's leadership in the book. wasn't the administration dealing with prime minister maliki in iraq, somebody who was going to go his own way? how could some more persuasion by president obama have made a difference? >> my experience was maliki operated under pressure. you had to constantly pressure him on almost everything he did. he was that kind of prime minister. and so when we wanted him to make decisions on governing, we had to pressure him. when he wanted to make decisions on security, we had to come down hard on him. so coming down and putting that kind of pressure on him, saying we're not going to provide military aid to you, we're not going to give you f-16 fighters,

i think would have been one way to try to at least see whether or not he could have agreed to it. >> woodruff: you also write at another point in the book that the president-- it was a mistake for the u.s. not to go ahead and arm and train the syrian rebels. and yet, for more than 10 years the u.s. did train and arm the iraqi army, and we saw just in the last few months, the iraqi army completely collapse. this was training done part of the time while you were secretary of defense. my question is what makes you believe it would have worked with the syrian rebels when it didn't work in iraq? >> well, you know, again to return to the book, and how i describe the situation, because frankly, for four years serving this president-- and as i said in the book, it was an honor to serve this president-- he was very strong in supporting the operations that we did at the c.i.a. he supported the bin laden operation. and he supported the efforts that we had as secretary of defense. he was a strong leader with regards to the war on terrorism.

and i think he knows that in confronting terrorism, we are going to have to take these things on. he's learned lessons from the things that i talk about. we have 10,000 troops in afghanistan. he made the decision to do that. i think that's the right decision. he's decided to arm and train the rebels. the reality is unless we are there and defining moderate rebel forces in syria, we won't have any boots on the ground. we won't have any sources on the ground to guide usas we do air attacks. if isis is there and command and control is there, we have got to have somebody, somehow be able to identify those targets so we can go after them. >> woodruff: but you're very candid in the book, secretary panetta, about points at which you think the president should have gone in another direction, should have worked more with congress. i guess my question is, you know, the late senator daniel patrick moynihan said at one point-- he was a great devotee of history.

he said it was wrong. he said it's harmful for people to write candid memoirs while the presidents they serve are still in office. and yet you, secretary clinton, secretary gates, have all written candid memoirs. is it-- is it that patrick moynihan is wrong, or does this president just not engender loyalty? >> no, it's the-- you know, we live in a time when i think it's important to have a debate about these kinds of issues. this is a-- this is a serious time in our history in 2014. it's a serious time with regards to what direction is this country going to take? we've got a washington that's largely dysfunctional and stalemate. we're not dealing with the principal issues facing this country. we're dealing with a series of threats abroad. isn't just isis. we're dealing with with north korea. we're dealing with iran. we're dealing with russia. we're dealing with cyber attacks. it is an unprecedented set of threats that are out there. this is not the time to kind of get in the tremps and not say anything.

this is the time to open up that debate about what is it we need to do? what can we learn from the past? and how do we get together to provide the leadership that's necessary to keep this country strong? i think that's the right debate, and i think people ought to embrace that debate because that's what makes our country what it is. >> woodruff: so we are four weeks away from midterm election, and right now, republicans from mitt romney to senate republican running in tight contests around the country, are saying they're citing you as proof that president obama is weak. do they have a point? >> look, president obama has been a strong leader. he made a very tough decision with regards to the bin laden raid, and it was a risky decision, but he made the right decision. he's made the right decision in terms of helping the economy. he's may the right decision in terms of health care. he's been a president who really is trying to provide the right leadership for the country. that doesn't mean that we shouldn't talk or disagree about

certain elements of the leadership. that's part of what goes on. but this president has the ability to establish a strong legacy for the country. we-- we can do immigration reform. we can do a budget deal. we can improve health care deliveriy. we can be energy independent. democrats, this president can present a strong agenda to the country. that's what they ought to all run on-- the ability to govern this country. and i think republicans have a hard time, frankly, coming at that issue of governing this country because they, in the house in particular, are largely responsible for undermining government and its efforts to try to help people. that should be the principal issue in this next campaign. >> woodruff: leon panetta, the book is "worthy fights: a memoir of leadership in war and peace." we thank you. >> thanks very much.

>> ifill: much of our focus on climate change focused on the impact it could have on people or on the environment in which they live. but one area that tends to get less attention is how climate change will impact wildlife. there's a major habitat restoration project in san francisco bay that's trying to address that very issue. the newshour's cat wise has our report. >> reporter: on a recent morning, a small group of volunteers clad in rubber boots, gathered in a park on the edge of the san francisco bay. >> so when the animal walks in, he sets the trap off. >> reporter: they'd come to help u.s. fish and wildlife officials gather traps in a restored tidal marsh, to determine if an endangered species, found only in this area of the bay, is making a comeback. wildlife biologist rachel tertes carefully opened the first trap and out spilled a tiny creature just what they were hoping to find.

>> this cinnamon belly would tell us pretty right away that this is a salt marsh harvest mouse. >> reporter: the endangered harvest salt marsh mouse is, well, pretty cute. its lost about 90% of its habitat due to human development along the bay, and now according to tertes it faces a new threat: climate change. >> the mouse is really tied to the pickleweed habitat. they live on this plant. they move up and down the plant through the tide cycles. one of the concerns with the climate change is really going to be the sea level rise portion of it, so as the tide increases you have more water covering more plants, and so they have less areas for the mice to move up. >> reporter: while the odds are stacked against them, the harvest salt marsh mouse and several other endangered and threatened species in san francisco bay, may have a fighting chance, thanks to a

large-scale ecological project now underway. its called the south bay salt pond restoration project and its the largest tidal wetland restoration effort on the west coast. >> were at over 15,000 acres, which is an area about the size of manhattan. >> reporter: john bourgeois is the project's executive manager. he's heading up a multi-agency collaboration to turn former, industrial salt ponds back into thriving marshland habitat for wildlife and fish. the ponds, which have lined san francisco bays southern shores for more than a 100 years, used to be owned by the cargill corporation. in 2003, the state, the federal government, and several private foundations acquired them for $100 million, and turned them back into public lands. since then, 3,500 acres, about 25% of the overall project have been restored. to see the results first hand, we hopped on a boat with bourgeois and traveled several miles to one of the first salt ponds that was opened back up to

bay waters. >> were entering into what used to be an industrial salt pond. we actually had to cut through this giant levee. what used to be here was a moonscape, hard packed salt. and 8 years later, weve got several feet of mud thats accumulated and with this a new marsh. >> reporter: the restored marshes have quickly been repopulated with wildlife. native bird populations have doubled and fish are thriving. leopard sharks and other predators have returned, a sign scientists say, of a healthy ecosystem. while it may seem like a typical wetlands restoration, open up the levees, and let mother nature do its thing, the project is actually charting new ground in restoration science. and officials here say with climate change looming in the future, they are taking a very hands-on approach.

>> as these marshes are creating sediment, and keeping pace with sea level rise, were also trying to put other enhancements into the landscape. >> reporter: john krause of the california department of fish and wildlife showed us one of those new features specially built into the restored areas to help the harvest salt marsh mouse, and other wildlife, adapt to rising sea levels. >> there's a mound out in the marsh, and what that has is higher ground that's still within the marsh plain, and away from the developed edge where there are predators, and providing a place for them to seek refuge, and have a place to hide when there are high tide events. >> reporter: in addition, the sides of existing levees are being widened, and planted with native grasses. krause says scientists are closely monitoring how wildlife and fish react to these changes. >> adaptive management is a term of art and science where you are incorporating change in the landscape, and watching those changes over time, to learn how you might apply that into the future. >> reporter: some species of birds actually flourished in the former salt ponds.

so project managers have decided some areas will remain as ponds, but with less salinity and newly added nesting grounds. project manager john bourgeois: >> this pond in particular has been called a disneyland for birds. were really trying to maximize the amount of habitat that's available to them in a novel way. >> reporter: while the focus of the restoration has been to help wildlife, people will also benefit from new recreation opportunities and most importantly, from increased flood protection. seven million people live near the edge of san francisco bay, which is expected to rise between 16 and 55 inches over the next century. and many silicon valley companies, including facebook and google, are a stones throw from the waters edge. scientists say the restoration of these marshlands, which can dampen storm surges and prevent tidal erosion, may be the best hope some communities have at mitigating the impacts of sea level rise.

>> we consider ourselves the st. bernard parish of new orleans of the bay area. >> reporter: charles taylor is a high tech worker who lives in a small community called alviso at the southern end of the bay. the town has sunk about 13 feet over the years due to groundwater depletion. flooding is a common occurrence. and now taylor says residents are worried about what might lie ahead with climate change. >> tidal marshlands of course are the best prevention for flooding. so were definitely hanging our hats on this project. >> reporter: but while the community is embracing the restoration of the salt ponds, taylor says residents feel the effort has been too focused on wildlife. they want project leaders to help them open up seven acres of slough near the town which has grown over in recent years. >> we'd like to see the port of alviso restored. they're concentrating on the wildlife, they're saying its a wildlife habitat. but it was human habitat prior to that, so at what point do you decide, how far back do you restore?

>> reporter: the projects' billion dollar price tag has also been criticized. some house of representatives republicans took issue with federal funding to protect the harvest salt marsh mouse during the 2009 stimulus debate. >> we'll be paying taxes and interest on this $30 million dollar mouse. >> reporter: in recent years, the project has been hampered by budget cuts, but bourgeois says hes doing the best he can for everyone. >> the folks that are very wildlife orientated are concerned that were providing too much public access. the people that are really concerned about flooding are concerned that were spending too much time on habitat, and vice versa, so its all a balancing act, and i figure in my role, if everyone is just a little bit upset with me, im probably walking the right line. >> reporter: the project is expected to take another 30 years to complete. planning is now underway for a new levee breach which will bring back bay waters to several hundred acres for the first time in more than a century.

>> ifill: online, we have an even better view of exactly how much is left of the tidal wetlands in san francisco bay. find that video, at pbs.newshour.org. >> woodruff: in this midterm election, the fight for control of the senate dominates the headlines. but as jacob kauffman of kuar public radio in little rock, arkansas, reports there are issues like raising the minimum wage which might be key to driving voters to the polls. >> we're out here urging people to get out and vote. >> reporter: going door-to-door in the oak forest neighborhood of little rock, gloria smith is urging people to get out to vote for a minimum wage increase. currently, the arkansas minimum wage is $6.25 an hour, a dollar less than the federal minimum wage.

georgia and wyoming are the only other states to have rates below the federal level. the proposal on the arkansas ballot would raise the rate in stages to $8.50 by january 2017. smith says such an increase is long overdue. >> it would help a lot of families. especially mothers that have children in daycare. a lot of people have to go to churches to get food to make out because they can't afford to buy food. >> reporter: i guess you'd really like to see businesses start to take care. >> reporter: thirty-six year old gregory stewart would certainly like to see employers pay a higher wage. he holds down two jobs throughout the year: at a restaurant and a ball park. and still, to make ends meet, he and his two daughters had to move in with his mother and grandmother. he says raising his wages would make a huge difference for his family. >> as far as being able to get them the things that they need

certainly being able to provide a good home life where they can have at least three very good meals a day. >> reporter: but roger lacy, who owns a janitorial service company, says he believes raising the minimum wage will actually hurt the people it intends to help. lacy employs more than 200 workers most are part-time and nearly all earn the minimum wage. he says if the wage is raised, businesses will be far less likely to hire young people looking for their first job. >> my big opposition to the minimum wage is what it does to the teenage community. currently about 24% of minimum wage workers are teenagers. and when you price the per hour rate to where people don't want to hire them, then they won't get on the ladder to getting a job and that hurts the community, it hurts the teen. >> reporter: and what do you think some of the negative repercussions are of those teens not being able to get their first job.

democrats are hoping that these measures will help spur liberal- leaning voters to turn out in greater numbers which could help democratic candidates up and down the ballot. >> there's a large number of voters that vote in presidential elections but drop off or don't vote in off year elections. so issues like the minimum wage are meant to reach those voters and get them to the polls. >> reporter: gregory shufeldt is a political science professor at the university of arkansas little rock. he says it's no accident that in most of the states where minimum wage is on the ballot, there's also a competitive senate race. in arkansas, the race is between two term incumbent, mark pryor, the democrat. and republican u.s. representative tom cotton. pryor is the first statewide elected official in arkansas to support the increase. cotton, until recently, said he opposed minimum wage increases, but just two days after the measure was officially put on the ballot he said he would vote for the november initiative. with polls showing overwhelming support for the measure, republicans have virtually no choice but to indicate approval, says shufeldt.

>> they might have philosophical reasons or economic reasons why they think it might be a bad idea, but politically it's a non-starter for them. >> my dad started this mill in 1947. >> reporter: that is certainly the case with state representative david branscum. he owns a cattle ranch and saw mill in northern arkansas. he pays above the minimum wage but says as a businessman, he's opposed to having the government dictate the wages he pays employees. >> the reality is in the small business environment that i'm in, i can only pay so much. i am dictated by the national markets, the lumber market, the tile market. they all tell me what i'm going to get. i have no control over that, but if the government is going to come in and say you're going to have to do this and this, then maybe i can't, maybe i shut down. but as a representative, branscum says he's going to have to support the ballot initiative. >> that's because 80% of the people are for it. i mean, it's hard to come out and be strongly opposed to a

position when everybody wants to try to help everybody out. that's why we're here, to try to help people. but as a republican, you don't want to hurt business. so it's a delicate balancing act that we have to do. >> reporter: patrick hayes is the former mayor of north little rock. a democrat, he's running for a u.s. house seat in arkansas's most democratic-leaning district. he recently greeted people at the taste of the town an annual festival featuring local restaurants. he says he's hopeful that with republicans saying they support minimum wage measures, there may even be enough bipartisan cooperation to get a federal increase passed. >> there needs to be an increase and whether it's $10.10 or whether it's something less, i hope we could arrive at that on a bipartisan basis and then go forward because i think the country will benefit by that. >> reporter: prospects of a federal increase are unlikely with many democrats, including sen. pryor opposed to a higher rate. but passage of the five

different state measures is quite likely. especially if history is any guide. since 2002, ten states have voted on minimum wage increases, and all ten measures were approved with overwhelming support. >> ifill: finally tonight, deciding what's important, and preparing for the inevitable: a conversation about the end of life. jeffrey brown has that. i learned about a lot of things in medical school, but mortality wasn't one of them. if you take out the reference to medical school, that's probably true for most of us. that is the subject of a new book titled "being mortal" and we have the author gawande. welcome to you. >> thank you. >> brown: there are two facts of life, yes, we all age and

die, and the other is we don't seem to understand it very well. >> no, medicine has taken over mortality in some sense. we are responsible more and more for trying to fix the problems of aging and dying. but we don't know how to do it. and i think the thing that i discovered was we have a fundamental failure. we don't recognize that people have priorities besides just living longer. >> brown: why do we not understand that? i mean, that we want to live longer, but we want to live longener a certain way with certain values and beliefs. >> yeah, i think you're exactly right. some people will say it's really important to me that my brain work, that i am who i am. other people will say, look, i just want to know that i'm not suffering and that i'm not in pain. others will say i have a life project that's really important to me. and the fact that we in medicine, we pioritize health, safety, and survival. we think that that must be what people place first. but in fact we make choices all

the time in our own homes about risks we take, and one of the consequences is that in medicine, as we face problems we can't fix-- like aging or a terminal ill oons we often sacrifice the very reasons that people want to be alive. >> brown: you're writing about your profession. you're writing about some large societal issues but you write about it in very personal terms. >> i interviewed more than 200 patients and family members about their experience with aging and serious illness. i tracked ger tricians, pallative care specialists, nursing home workers, and my dad along the way got a diagnosis of a brain tumor in his brain stem and his spinal cord. and i realizedly the stakes of this was how could we make it so that he gets every chance he has, but then that we're also not making him suffer right through the end and taking away things that are really important to him. what i found is that it's pretty simple.

priorities really matter for patients. the most reliable way to know people's priorities is to ask about them. >> brown: just ask. >> and we don't. we don't in medicine. >> brown: why is that? i mean, it seems so-- i read it and you say it and it sounds obvious-- "just ask what is it you want at the end of your life?" but doctors don't and family members don't. >> first of all, is the words. that's a painful set of words to say to somebody, "what do you want at the end of your life?" "you're saying i might as well give up now." what i found was tracking people who are really good at these conversations they ask the questions in very dirve different ways. they ask, "what's your understanding of your condition?" and people often say, "well, i know i can't be cured, that i might even die." then you say, "what are your fears and worry for the fighter? what are the goals you have if your health should worsen? and what are the tradeoffs you're willing to make and not

willing to make?" and ask that way, what you're saying to people is, "i want to know your priorities besides just being a, you know, pulsing body alive but not getting to have life, not really living." >> brown: and all of this, of course, in a society that is-- we're living longer. technology allows that. so these kinds of issues come up ever more. there are probably not a person listening to this that hasn't faced it in some way. >> that's right. either because we ourselves face it or we have a parent that is facing it. the difficulty is all of the success, the ability to have technology that can always do something more. we can put you on the the ventilator. we can give you another round of chemo therapy, that we haven't learned-- what does it mean to even die? and going further upstream, what does it mean to make choices where some of these things take away quality of life that we care about, even before you die. and i think the answer is that we evaporate had the words

around articulating what our priorities really are. for example, doctors our approach used to be 50 years ago, it was doctor knows best. paternalism. we're going to tell you exactly what you're going to get and we're not going to actually tell you what's going on with you. we rebelled against that. and we moved to doctor informative, here are the options, the risks, the benefits, the pros and cons, what do you want? and people would say, "what do you recommend, doctor. and i was taught to say, "well, it's not my decision. this is yours." what people want is a counselor. an effective counselor is someone who can talk to you about what do these numbers mean? what are you worried about for me, doctor, and let me tell you my priorities and help me choose which option will meet them. >> brown: do you see that changing in your profession? do you see a better understanding of the empathy that's required to ask the kinds of questions you're proposing? >> i think we actually are full of people in our profession who

have had that empathy. if i can judge from my own situation, i wanted to do better. i tell the story of a 34-year-old woman diagnosed in her eighth month of pregnancy with terminal lung cancer. and we actually spoke about the idea that we did not want to-- we did not want to be on the train all the way to the end to the point that she never had time and quality of life because she knew it was going to be incurable, but she wanted the best possible treatments. and yet we took that train right off the cliff, practically. we never got off with making sure that quality of life got there. and i think the reason why is we have anxiety about asking these questions-- patients, doctors, family members. because we haven't had the words. and i think we know now increasingly more about what people who are really good at these conversations do, and it's important to understand they are a skill. they require asking a few of these questions. and you have to ask them repeatedly over time because people's priorities change as

time goes on. >> brown: we'll continue our discussion online. and for now, the book is "being mortal," gawande, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. west african leaders appealed to the outside world to help stop the ebola outbreak that's killed nearly 4,000 people. wall street had another wild day, as energy stocks plunged and triggered a sell-off. the dow jones industrial fell 335 points. comedian and tv actress jan hooks has died. she was a on "is the night live" in the late 80sand had roles on "designing women" and "third rock from the sun." jan hooks was 57. >> ifill: on the newshour online right now, you may know london's subway as the underground, or the tube, there's also a whole world below the city's streets.

a group of urban explores went in search of the subterranean city, braking into the sewers and discovering abandoned bunkers and shuttered train stations. you can see a photo gallery of what they found on our art beat page. all that and more is on our website pbs.newshour.org. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on friday, we'll look at a new movie that tells the harrowing story of the lost boys of sudan, and the actor who lived the struggle he now capture on screen. i'm judy woodruff. and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and michael gerson. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and goodnight. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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