captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: a new czar leads the u.s. government response to the ebola crisis and stop the spread of the virus. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. also ahead, promising news from nigerias military and the a comet's close encounter with mars. miles o'brien reports on scientists' efforts to track space objects before they strike earth. >> it's just a matter of time before a large one is on an earth threatening trajectory. >> woodruff: and it's friday, mark shields and michael gerson are here, to analyze the week's news. those are some of the stories

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thank you. >> woodruff: the nation now has an official "ebola response coordinator." he was named today in a bid to corral any spread of the virus and ease mounting public anxiety. >> woodruff: the appointment of ron klain came in a paper statement this morning and the explanation came this afternoon, from white house spokesman josh earnest. >> what we were looking for was not an ebola expert, but rather an implementation expert. and that's exactly what ron klain is. >> woodruff: klain has no major public health background, but he's been chief of staff to vice presidents gore and biden. for the next five to six months, he'll oversee the federal response to ebola. for now though, the white house is still ruling out a ban on travelers from west africa. this was president obama last night. >> a travel ban is less effective than the measures that

we are currently instituting that involve screening passengers who are coming from west africa. >> woodruff: the president did not address ebola in any detail today, at a washington appearance. but governors in several states did, including maryland. and florida, with briefings to talk up their preparations. in ohio, officials said they're monitoring 16 people who had close contact with amber vinson, a dallas nurse who flew there last weekend, and turned out to be infected. meanwhile, a vinson co-worker is now quarantined on a cruise ship, off belize, in the caribbean. she handled specimens from the liberian patient who died at texas health presbyterian hospital, but has shown no symptoms herself. and nina pham, the first nurse who contracted the disease in

dallas, was transferred to the national institutes of health in bethesda, maryland last night. today, dr. tony fauci said she's in fair and stable condition. >> we fully intend to have this patient walk out of this hospital, and will do everything we possibly can to make that happen. on the international front, the world health organization faced new questions. an internal document obtained by the associated press says the agency has botched the an internal document, obtained by the associated press, said the agency has botched the effort. dr. peter piot is one of the people who first discovered the ebola virus and once worked at the agency. >> w.h.o. is organized in a very decentralized way. and it's the regional office for africa that is the frontline and

that is really handling you and they didn't do anything. and that office is really not competent. >> woodruff: all of this, as the w.h.o. raised the official death toll to 4,546 people, out of more than 9,000 cases in guinea, liberia and sierra leone. >> woodruff: we'll take a closer look at what ron klain may be expected to do, as "ebola response coordinator," right after the news summary. wall street wound up a wild week with a positive finish, thanks to strong corporate earnings. the dow jones industrial average gained 263 points to close at 16,380. the nasdaq rose 41 points to close at 4,258. and the s-and-p 500 added 24, to 1886. for the week, the dow and s-and- p still lost 1%. the nasdaq fell about .5%. government forces in iraq have launched new operations against islamic state fighters. the troops, aided by coalition

air strikes, aim to re-take areas around tikrit and beiji, home to the country's largest oil refinery. and shiite prime minister haider al-abadi met today with sunni tribal leaders urging them to defend ramadi, in the west. in washington, the head of u.s. central command, general lloyd austin, said the meeting is an encouraging sign. >> i'm hopeful that they'll continue to establish some confidence and build upon that going forward. this is what has to happen and i think the leaders understand that. >> woodruff: later, a string of car bombs in baghdad killed at least two dozen people. more than 170 have died in attacks since last weekend. >> woodruff: in hong kong, new clashes flared in the standoff between authorities and protesters demanding elections free of beijing's control. it started early today when police raided and cleared one of the protest sites. hours later, a large crowd tried

to return, and police used pepper spray and batons to beat back protesters and make arrests. the prime minister of nepal pledged today to set up an early warning system, after a blizzard this week killed at least 29 people taking treks through the himalayas. rebecca barry, of independent television news, reports on the ongoing rescue effort. safety, but still clearly in shock. others were not so lucky, their bodies transferred to hospitals in katmandu. the day's rescuers have been struggling to reach hikers trapped along this popular himalayan route, following a violent storm, many still to be recovered from the snow. we spoke to a sheriff seen on the right. this photo was taken earlier in his trip to nepal days before the blizzards hit.

>> the winds whipped up again. >> reporter: some survivors say their guides were properly equipped. >> i think i've bodiwas worried. we thought some were going to day, maybe we were going to day. >> reporter: october is the biggest month for tracking here because the weather is usually clear and sunny. now it could be the month of nepal's worth mountaineering tragedy. bermuda braced today for a different kind of storm, hurricane gonzalo. the center of the system was passing the british island territory this evening, with winds of 130 miles an hour. as the day went on, wind gusts grew stronger and high waves whipped the shore. officials warned of significant flooding from the first major hurricane to hit bermuda since 2003. and in the pacific, the storm ana grew into a hurricane,

heading toward the main hawaiian islands. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour: the challenges ahead for the nation's first ebola czar; nigeria agrees to a ceasefire with terrorist group boko haram; tracking asteroids before they get too close to earth; supreme court justice sonia sotomayor's rise to the nation's highest court; and mark shields and michael gerson analyze the week's news. >> woodruff: the appointment of an ebola czar was greeted with a mix of support and real skepticism over the president's choice for the job. we look at his possible role, as questions keep escalating about just how prepared our health system is. two voices from the world of public health tonight: pamela cipriano is president of the american nurses association, a professional organization representing the nation's 3.1 million registered nurses.

dr. amesh adalja is an infectious disease physician and a representative of the infectious diseases society of america, whose members include doctors, scientists and other health care professions. we well come you -- we welcome you both to the "newshour". to you first, dr. adalja, what does ron klain need to do, do you believe? >> he needs to coordinate a response. we have multiple agencies that have responsibilities now. the c.d.c., f.d.a., department of defense. we have an integrated response where everyone is talking to everyone and there's one plan executed to stop the outbreak in west africa and keep americans safe in the united states. >> woodruff: miss cipriano, what would you add to that from your perspective? >> i think that's a very good description. i think in addition to reaching out across state organizations

and communities because that's often where the information gets disseminated to the healthcare organizations. >> woodruff: miss cipriano, let me start with you, there's some criticism of mr. klain. we're already hearing some from republicans and others saying who the president should have appointed was someone who's a physician or someone with a public health background. how much do you think that's going to matter in this role? >> i believe there's already many experts throughout the c.d.c. and n.i.h. who can provide that expertise. again, what i think we're looking for is someone to manage the response, provide the coordination that's required. this is much like any other emergency situation. when you have an incident command center, the person in charge is not necessarily the content expert for that particular condition, it is someone who's very accustomed to managing overall communications, planning, follow-up, data collection and execution throughout the organization or the geographic area.

so i think these skills are more important and can tap the experts on the ground or, again, nationally or internationally who can provide the medical expertise. >> woodruff: dr. adalja, in your view, should it have been someone with public health experience? >> it doesn't necessarily have to be someone with public health experience. it needs to be somebody who has the ear of the president, that can understand the science and the medicine behind what the interventions are, but we really need somebody that is the lead on not just ebola but also emergent infectious diseases and biosecurity, that's what we need. because after this outbreak ends, there are others. so we really need somebody that's there all the time serving at the pleasure of the president that can coordinate these responses because when you have what happened -- the missteps that happened in dollars, it illustrates the fact you need to have a coordinated response. >> woodruff: we learned today the centers for disease control says they're going to be issuing

new stricter guidelines for healthcare workers to follow. how serious were the lapses leading up to what's happened today? are they understandable haps? how do you see that? >> the american nurse's association along with many other nurses was part of a conference call yesterday with more an 6,000r.n.s that talked with c.d.c. officials. this is something we have been asking for to provide the clarity about, particularly the personal protective equipment and the education associated with the correct procedures to put them on and take them off. and we know that's one of the primary ways that we can safeguard healthcare workers. so we think this is a big step in the right direction. we expect these revised guidelines will be out momentarily. however, the other important thing is to use the lessons learned from the texas hospital to be able to inform those. again, the admission guidelines

at c.d.c. issue have been around for a long time relative to normal protective conditions. they also have instructions for ease cay latter -- escalating precautionary measurers for highly contagious infeshes diseases and again the combination of what is the right equipment and the right techniques is critically important and i think we recognize that if there's any lapse on the part of the users or anywhere in the healthcare organization, that that creates a threat that's really not something that we can sustain. >> woodruff: doctor, we know there are only four hospitals in the country with so-called established containment procedures for patients with ebola. at this point, is it still the correct move for the c.d.c. to be making to have patients transferred to those centers, as long as there are only a few? at what i don't do other hospitals need to be -- to get up to speed? >> well, there is two parts to my answer. all hospitals have to be prepared to initially recognize,

isolate and get the ball rolling if they get an ebola patient because travelers can present anywhere. however, after the events in dallas, it's clear not every hospital can take care of an ebola patient safely. where we have bio-space, that's where they should be transferred. if we get to a situation where we can't take care of any more patients, we need to think about which metropolitan centers are able to to take them. we don't want to repeat the events of dallas again. >> woodruff: miss cipriano. from the standpoint of nurses, how do you view that? which are the right hospitals to be treating these patients as these cases arise? >> well, what we've seen from the four organizations that have these biocontainment units, they are highly-skilled, very practiced and they have not had any lapses or problems with staff getting infected. so i think there is a great benefit, while the number of

patients would be small, to see if they could seek care there once someone is identified and diagnosed. though i absolutely agree, every healthcare organization has to be trained on following the right procedure to screen because we have a mobile society and anyone can cross our threshold. i think it would be important to say that there would be a limited number of facilities initially, again, because the learning curve is so critically important not only for understanding the protective equipment, but the entire organization that has to gear up for handling blood and body fluids, lab specimens, the contaminated waste, everything that requires an organization to muster all of those services together and that, even though organizations are prepared, if you have been doing this or you know that you have the specialized resources, it would be easier to care for those patients. so i suspect that we would be seeing a plan that does limit the murm number of facilities. >> woodruff: finally,

dr. adalja, what should ordinary folks watching this program right now who are worried about ebola, what should they know and look to for reassurance? >> the general public is getting seized with this panic and it's legitimate because they're getting mixed messages, stories are changing, panics all over the country when someone gets sick and they think it's ebola. the key message is ebola is deadly and scary but not very contains. it's something only spread through contact with the blood and bodily fluids of an infected individual, not spread through casual contact. there's no concern over a generalized outbreak in the united states and we have to be vigilant to identify the patients at the hospitals so the lessons are learned. >> woodruff: pamela cipriano and dr. amesh adalja, we thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: in nigeria,

surprising news came today that a ceasefire has been reached between the government and militant group boko haram. jeffrey brown has more. >> brown: word of the unexpected truce came from nigeria's official news agency. >> the federal government and boko haram sect have agreed to a ceasefire deal. >> brown: similar announcements in the past failed to bear fruit. but this time, nigeria's defense chief ordered government troops to halt all action against the militants. there was no immediate statement from boko haram. it was also unclear whether a truce would mean the release of 219 schoolgirls abducted in april. they were among about 300 girls taken from this boarding school in the northeast town of chibok, and declared slaves. dozens managed to escape. the fate of the others remains unknown. chika oduah is a journalist reporting from nigeria. >> what we know is that boko haram has promised not to attack civilians and nigerian troops

are not supposed to shoot at boko haram strongholds. that's as far as we have right now. as far as the chibok girls, there are no details but we do know that talks are ongoing until at least next week. >> brown: boko haram has carried out a wave of bombings and suicide attacks over the past five years in a campaign to create an "islamic caliphate" in northeastern nigeria. tens of thousands of people have died. that and what's been perceived as the nigerian government's ineffective response has fed a deep public skepticism, as newshour special correspondent fred de sam lazaro found on a recent trip. sheikh abdur rahman is the imam of a prominent islamic charity. >> how can you move 300 girls, almost 300 girls, you know, in a state, in a region where you have declared a state of emergency? and nobody challenged the movement of the vehicles?

>> brown: dozens of other girls, boys and adults have also been carried away, as yemisi ransome kuti points out. she's a long-time activist from a prominent nigerian family. >> kidnapping is going on almost on a daily basis in the north. not just girls, but boys being recruited into the boko haram militia system. >> brown: the nigerian military has claimed it killed hundreds of boko haram fighters in recent weeks. and today, neighboring cameroon said its forces killed more than a hundred of the militants in fighting this week. >> brown: for more on the situation, we turn once again to j. peter pham, director of the africa center at the atlantic council. we have heard versions of this before, right? does this feel different, something that might hold? >> well, not only because i'm hopeful for the return of the girls and concerned about it, but also i think there are

indications that things are different. things have been moving very quickly behind the scenes in the region. about two weeks ago, the regional leaders met in chad to discuss boko haram and collaboration among their government. earlier this week, they met again with president goodluck of nigeria. and we saw last weekend a release of a number of hostages taken by boko haram including the wife of the vice prime minister and ten chinese workers kidnapped in may. things have been moving rapidly. what's different is also the announcement of senior level of nigerian military, chief of the defense staff as well as people i've spoken to in the president's office say a break through and talks are coming. >> brown: but do we know much about the deal itself, what each side might be giving up? >> according to what i'm hearing from nigeria, boko haram engaged

in a cease fire earlier today. subsequently nigerian military was given orders by its command to cease. both governments says there has been no fighting so a calm in the killing. >> brown: on the question of the kidnapped girls who galvanized the world's attention, any more detail on how that might play into this? we don't know about their condition or whereabouts. >> i have been told the release of the girls which is a priority of the nigerian government and the national community will be the leadoff in the talks that will take place next week in chad hosted by that country's president. i presume the girls, if you look at the situation militarily, operationally, have become a burden to their captors, moving about 200 girls while you're fighting a war, even if you have been scoring some spectacular successes on the battlefield, is a burden. so boko haram would very much

like to get rid of them and demand the release of some of their commanders and captors. >> brown: if i ask you why it might happen now, what's the situation on the ground in terms of relative strength and weaknesses of bach bog and the government at this point? >> on boko haram's side, in the last several weeks and months, boko haram has successfully carved out a large territory not only in royal state but neighboring yobay and other states. not cutting off entirely the city but making people for the people there, and reportedly shooting down a nigerian air force fighter jet at the beginning of september but it probably reached the limit of what they can do. on the government side, they've suffered reverses not only on battlefield, but troop desertions, lost of equipment and need time to regroup.

so both sides i think are fatigued and the government does need a break from the fighting and this distraction in the north which is, in a way, a distraction from the overall challenges nigeria faces. >> brown: briefly on that, we heard the skepticism in the piece, the government still faces the skepticism, criticism of the other side on its actions and inactions. >> i think this is where the tires meet the road. the government is clear, said the talks will happen. we are given the expectation that the release of the girls is imminent and some broader, more holistic solution will be discussed. they've given a timetable. so we'll see in a week whether these talks take place and we have movement or if this was yet another false alarm. >> brown: peter pham. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: now, a different kind of space mission, finding asteroids and other large objects before they get close to

earth. this sunday, a comet will be making an unusually close fly-by near mars. in fact, it will be coming closer to mars than any other comet has come near earth, in recorded history. it's also a moment when scientists are assessing our own risk from such objects. science correspondent miles o'brien has our report. >> brown: traveling forty times faster than a speeding bullet, it is a menacing messenger from the very distant past. the comet known as siding spring a dirty snowball packed with four billion year old leftovers from the dawn of our solar system, will streak ever so close to mars and nasa's armada spacecraft. for scientists, it is an unusual bonanza. for all of us, a stark reminder. jim green is the space agency's director of planetary science. >> there's not only the scientific interest of where these objects fit in the origin and evolution of our solar system, but indeed ignorance is

not bliss. we can't, in all consciousness, expect us to ignore the near earth population. >> brown: by that, he means the millions of comets and asteroids that come close enough to earth that they could collide with the planet. don yeomans runs the near-earth object program at nasa's jet propulsion laboratory. >> it's just a matter of time before a large one is on an earth threatening trajectory. the only question then is, "will we discover it well ahead of time and do something about it?" >> brown: we humans got a stunning shot across the bow in february of 2013 when an 60 foot wide asteroid exploded over chelyabinsk russia. equivalent to 30 atomic bombs, it shattered windows, injuring about 1,500. >> i think we've gotten over that stage where people dismissed this with a chicken little type attitude in a giggle factor.

>> brown: the mt. lemmon observatory near tucson, is one of three facilities funded by nasa to tackle the problem, by searching the night sky for asteroids and comets that might be a threat. >> on an average night we'll find two or three new near-earth objects. it's almost like a fisherman going out to the lake and spending the day, and maybe you catch something, maybe you don't, but there's always the chance that you're going to find something. >> brown: astronomer eric christensen showed me how he trolls for trouble using a 60 inch telescope built in the 1970s, now outmoded for more distant discoveries. >> so we might take four visits to the same field within about half an hour or 45 minutes. then, we have software that processes these images and compares each of the visits and identifies the stationary objects, the stars and galaxies and identifies objects that are potentially transients.

>> this is a near earth object is moving in a different direction at a much faster rate because it is much closer to the earth. >> brown: collectively, near earth object surveys have catalogued about 12,000 asteroids and comets, including 1,000 that are six tenths of a mile in diameter and larger, big enough to cause a global catastrophe. they have found 95% of them. now they are looking for objects down to 450 feet wide, which could take out a region. nasa's congressionally mandated goal is to find 90% of those by 2020. operating on old small telescopes and a budget of $40 million a year, the survey has found only 10% of those objects and will come nowhere near to that goal. >> brown: in september, nasa's inspector general's office released a report critical of the agency's efforts to identify near-earth objects and mitigate hazards. it concludes the effort lacks structure, has limited

resources. needs to improve oversight of grants and forge partnerships inside the federal government and internationally as well. >> you know we were in the middle of the program. yeah, sort of walking into a car factory and say, "how come you don't have fenders on the car?" well, we're getting in the process of putting them on. if the i.g. came back even within a year, i think they would see a much more methodical and solid program operating under a well-defined plan. >> brown: but as the search homes in on smaller objects, the size of the task grows exponentially. >> if you want to find a million asteroids, finding a thousand a year doesn't cut it, right? >> brown: ed lu is a former nasa astronaut now ceo of the nonprofit b612 foundation. the organization hopes to raise $450 million to build launch and operate an infrared space based telescope designed to find a few hundred thousand asteroids in its first year of operation

alone. >> this is all being done by private organization because nasa simply doesn't have the money to do this. and it's within the capability of individuals to solve that problem because nasa simply isn't doing it. >> brown: the magnitude of the problem became a reality in july of 1994 with the comet shoemaker levy nine. jupiter's gravity broke it into 21 fragments, they then plowed into the giant planet over the course of a week. >> juipter's collision with a giant comet is next. mrs. shoemaker, thank you for joining us. are you satisfied with the little splash your comet is making? >> oh, robin, i'm thrilled with the splash my comet is making. >> brown: the whole world was watching, thanks to the eagle eyes of carolyn shoemaker, who saw the comet in her stereo

microscope 16 months before impact week began. we caught up with her recently at the lowell observatory, near her home in flagstaff. >> you knew it was real. you saw it with your own eyes. >> that's right! that thrilled us in part because so many people had said, "you're not going to see anything at all." it's just going to break up and nothing will be seen. >> brown: she, her late husband geologist gene shoemaker and amateur astronomer david levy were conducting an early survey of near earth objects at california's palomar observatory when they had the eureka moment. >> shoemaker-levy 9 was famous not because of what it was but because of what it did. it was the first time we saw the process of collision >> brown: could something like that happen to earth? just one look at the moon offers case in point we orbit the sun in a rough neighborhood.

65 million years ago, an asteroid six miles wide hit what is now mexico, wiping out the dinosaurs. the evidence of this and other impacts is mostly buried. but not arizona's meteor crater. in the 19th century, geologists thought this might've been caused by some sort of volcanic explosion. there was a lot of debate over this in the first half of the 20th century then in 1960, gene shoemaker settled it once and for all. he found minerals here that are smoking gun proof that was a high-powered impact and an explosion. so what can we do to defend our planet against this inevitable threat? surprisingly, scientists say that is the easy part. the method considered simplest, crashing a spacecraft into the asteroid with enough force to knock an it off of its collision course with earth. in fact, it is something nasa has already done. in 2005, the deep impact spacecraft plowed into comet

tempel one, changing its orbit. >> there are three important ingredients for asteroid or comet impact mitigation. we need to find them early, we need to find them early, and we need to find them early. >> brown: meanwhile, the scientists in charge of the nasa research satellites that orbit mars have gradually changed their orbits so that they will be shielded from the hazards posed by the whizzing debris in siding spring's tail. still, they will try to gather as much data as they safely can. rich zurek is the chief scientist for the mars program at j.p.l. >> our instruments, our cameras and such, aren't really designed to look at a diffused object. however, we have a ringside seat. if we knew a comet was coming, we might have done something different >> brown: backyard astronomers will also be out in force. at david levy's home and observatory near tucson, where the sky is big and beautiful by day and night, he will be on the

lookout as siding spring slides by the red planet. comets are not your facebook activity. comets are a reminder that the universe is all about time. it takes its time about showing these things. levy reminds us the ancients viewed comets as bad omens. if we moderns don't tackle the threat posed by near earth objects, we may prove our ancestors right. >> woodruff: president obama appointed supreme court justice sonia sotomayor, the first latina to serve on the court, in 2009. since then, she has brought her unique style to a normally cloistered and reserved court. reuters journalist joan biskupic takes us behind the scenes of the secretive court proceedings to reveal how sotomayor is shaking things up.

in her new book, "breaking in: the rise of sonia sotomayor and the politics of justice." gwen ifill spoke with her earlier this week. >> ifill: joan biskupic, thank you for joining us. i want to start by talking about the subtitle of your book in which you talk about the politics of justice. when it comes to sonia sotomayor, what do you mean by that? >> no one gets to the supreme court by accident. she, from the start, once she became a federal judge on the lower court, looked forward to that and had built networks along the way. what i did in the book was sort of trace her trajectory with the rise of latinas in america but also through the politics of justice, how one gets on a district court, was elevated to the appeals court and then, in 2009, is this breakthrough justice, first hispanic appointed by the first african-american president. >> ifill: and a disruptive justice, in many ways.

>> people who don't realty know the supreme court don't understand the decorum, the hierarchies that exist there. it struck me that here was this justice who could have shattered a lot of that. if you follow her as i did, in san juan, for example, on her own book tour, you saw tons of people lining up to see her. i was so struck about how different it was in san juan compared to where she spends most of her time in this model palace where everybody lines up by their role and hierarchies. the court police are constantly monitoring who gets in this line, the lawyers, who gets in this line, the public, who gets in the line, the reporters. but the people who came to see sonia sotomayor, her" people "as she calls them, are all sorts and come together. >> ifill: whined th -- behind ts of the institution, tell us

about the texas case, to me that's a sign of the way things work that we might not see. >> it all went on in secret. i went into this wondering how she was using her voice behind the scenes because we know how she would use her voice in public through her own book and through certain statements from the bench. but i found out that on this crucial affirmative action case, it was her work behind the scenes that caused a retreat by some conservative justices and she, in effect, saved affirmative action for another day, and no one would have known that because people don't know what the negotiations are like behind the scenes, and i was able to to get that from a majority of her colleagues and find out how this scorching, dissenting statement altered the course of her case, but when it was all over, we never would have known. >> ifill: and it was never published. >> no. and when i spoke to her colleagues about what she had written in the dissenting

statement that affected the majority and allowed the university of texas policy to stand at the time, people said, just wait and see what she writes in this upcoming michigan case, because theyer are already knew what was in the works and that was the case where she dissented for the first time from the bench and said race matters, and that was the theme that she articulated in her earlier opinion that never saw the light of day. >> ifill: she is so different from the other minority member to have the bench clarence thomas who looks at affirmative action as being in drag and she calls herself an affirmative action baby. >> chance thomas feels stick nay advertise bid it. sonia sotomayor says i was the perfect affirmative action baby because i was given a boost and showed i could compete. >> ifill: why is being the first latina justice more significant than being an italian justice like scalia? >> first, you have a growing

population that by '09 when president obama put her on the bench was really clamoring for this and the nation was ready for it. she's puerto rican, but when she was appointed she stood for all hispanics and was embraced that way. it's not just this breakthrough but also the fact that, for years, hispanics felt on the down-side of the justice system and she recognized that. she recognized it have been people of color, her people who have been on the down-side of justice that gets this representation. >> ifill: you talk about her people, certain celebrity other supreme court justties do not have. i wonder whether that's considered to be divisive or unpopular among colleagues? >> it does cut both ways. i think the justices respect her for her work ethic, her background she overcame and respect her for the 17 lower courts before she got there, but it can't help but rattle them a bit -- not every justice but

some -- that there she is out there as a celebrity figure. can you think of anyone who would have gotten more than $3 million in advance for her book? some of the other justices wrote books but nowhere near that kind of money or attention. >> ifill: does that make her less effective on the bench? >> that's the question i raise. behind the scenes, she has been effective, in the in fact of texas affirmative action case, she also made her mark in terms of criminal procedures, calling attention for the need for fairer procedures. but i raised the question about whether the sort of celebrity, the disrupting the norm, those kinds of practices, whether that -- that's what got her on the bench in the first place. will it make her an effective negotiate behind the scenes? that remains to be seen. >> you don't have an answer yet. i can say she's been effective in some ways but she certainly made it more difficult for herself and others.

>> ifill: "breaking in: the rise of sonia sotomayor and the politics of justice." joan biskupic. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: online, find out "eight things you didn't know" about the supreme court justice. >> woodruff: this week saw the government's response to the threat of ebola, more campaigning in the final stretch before election day and drama in a key governor's race, over a fan. to talk about it all, syndicated columnist mark shields and washington post columnist michael gerson. david brooks is away tonight. gentlemen, wel welcome. let's talk about ebola first. we heard the doctors and head of the nurses association say at the top of the program, people shouldn't be alarmed about ebola, but is the fear getting out of control in this country? >> the fear is real.

the "washington post" poll said two out of three americans fear there could be an ebola epidemic in the country. four out of ten are very worried someone, either themselves or someone close to them, will contract the disease. so there's a real concern. it brings out the best and the worst in people. i think we're seeing plenty of that now. >> woodruff: out of control? ell, i do think it's understandable it's a scary disease and there were some fumbles in the initial response. >> woodruff: but around that, the fear, i don't mean the disease. >> the fear, i think, is not irrational in this case. it is overdone, to some extent. we do not have an outbreak. we have a few incidents. the outbreak in west africa, we do not have that. we know how to control it. the procedures have been there since the '70s, ebola has been controlled in various outbreaks, and we know the disease itself is not as infectious early as it

is late, so it's a real threat to healthcare workers, not so much the general public in those days. but there's one area where we don't have enough fare and that's what's happening in west africa where the c.d.c. is talking about the possibility of 5,000 to 10,000 new infections a week by the end of the year. you could have real threats to the economic, social and political stability of countries in west africa which could dramatically spread the disease. if we want panic, that's where productive panic would be employed. >> woodruff: but you do hear officials saying that on a regular basis, we need to keep a focus on what's going on in west africa. >> yeah, the focus right now in this country is the election, two and a half weeks away, and the recommendly has become canceled all flights from west africa. that has become the man travment quite frankly among republican and some democrat candidates. >> which does not solve the problem.

>> and probably compounds the problem. what we do see, judy, and there is a parallel to 9/11, when we saw 343 firefighters walk into the jaws of death and the fires of hell simply because that was their duty to save fellow human beings who were trapped in those buildings, and i think nina pham has become almost the face of the hero. the nurse who has contracted ebola herself. i mean, they assume the risk. this critical care nurse, the healthcare provider -- terrible term, healthcare provider -- but these are people who put themselves on the line to help strangers they don't know. their knowledge, careers, themselves, not for money or power. i think that is the most admiral development in this whole terrible panorama. >> a lot of accusations flying around.

michael, do you see this asen issue in the november election? >> i think it adds to a vague area of dysfunction. it probably benefits republicans. it makes harder for the democrats to drive their issues. we're not talking about inequality, we're talking about ebola. but i have to say that people who directly politicize this issue may well, in my view, be demonstrating their unfitness for office, okay. this is not a symbol for other things. this is important in and of itself in a central federal role, we need to learn from mistakes, we need to give the government the ability to learn from mistakes because they're in that process, instead of highly politicizing what really is a very serious matter. i know it's hard right before an election not to inject this into campaign commercials, and it's happened right and left, but i think that's a serious mistake. >> woodruff: but you're saying that's happened. >> it has happened. in a couple of tragic instances. i do think it's a case that it

may be a factor in this election, judy. not only for the reasons michael cited, but if you think about it, the democrats had two really good pieces of news in the last several weeks. the unemployment rate at a new low. people returned to work. this week, the deficit, the lowest point in seven years. but it's totally eclipsed by ebola and i.s.i.s., and these are two issues, national security and foreign policy, which the ebola crisis has taken on in many instances where they tried to tie them into illegal immigration, some republicans have, where democrats do not score well and republicans have an advantage. so i think it is an issue that republicans are going to drum from here on in. >> quickly to both of you, the president's royce ro choice, ro, former chief of staff, head of the nurses association said they

think it's fine to pick a government expert rather than public health expert. what's your view? >> well, this is treating a problem as though it was a messages or communications or management problem within the white house. this is a command and control problem on the ground in liberia and other places where supplies are not getting through, our aid is not getting there. we need someone in the david petraeus or colin powell camp who has respect in the military, the global health community, emergency response experience. i think they're viewing this role in a too limited array and the need is greater now. >> one claim has demonstrated -- ron reason has demonstrated credentials. vice president gore and biden and in between. it shows how many few towering figures there are left in public life. michael named colin powell. i don't know. it seems that the generous has

passed. i think you need a figure of command -- who commands respect outside. ron klain, for all he's done, is not well known in the medical world or in the international world. >> woodruff: all right, we talked about the election. we're two and a half weeks away, michael. what does the landscape look like in the senate? we started out ten or twelve races watching closely. where does it stand? >> if you look at the politics summaries, republicans are now ahead in eight of the top eleven most disputed senate races. doesn't mean they'll win them all, it just means they also have momentum in the race ifs you look at the polls compared to september. democrats are starting to reposition in the house and other places, the funding away from aggressive races against republicans and towards defensive races against

incumbents. that's a bad sign. i think this is going in a republican direction. the field on which this is being played is favored to republicans for a variety of reasons. >> woodruff: what does your gut tell you? >> i think democrats are hoping, quite frankly, the couple of races they hadn't expected to be in play will be. kansas who had been a safe republican seat, south dakota which was a safe republican seat, acknowledged they would be a safe republican seat health by democrat tim johnson now retiring and in georgia where michelle nunn is showing strength with sacks b -- sacksby chambliss. the seats won by democrats six years ago when barack obama was getting the highest personally any democratic presidential candidate had gotten in the past 50 years. so they were elected in a good democratic year and this doesn't look like a good democratic

year, so i think they're putting the champagne back on ice right now. >> woodruff: not friendly territory. >> no. >> woodruff: for the democrats. so we haven't talked much in the last weeks about the governor's races. there are about ten of them we are told could change parties. one of them -- and they're getting a lt. of attention now that we're getting close. one in particular, michael, is the florida governor's race, which there was a debate a couple of nights ago between the incumbent republican governor rick scott and challenger former republican now democrat charlie crist and it was a debate and all about a fan that former governor crist wanted under his lectern up on stage. that's become a big story. we have a picture of the fan. >> there it is. >> woodruff: and the fact that governor scott, it took him six or seven minutes to show up. >> i think that governor scott was in the right when it came to

the rules and the organizers pointed that out, but it really doesn't matter. any candidate complaining about the rules doesn't really look good. you don't want to look louder than the debate. it's kind of the james bond rule. you want to look cool under fire in these things and it didn't really work out for him. if this decides the florida governor's race, god help us. >> charlie crist is another former republican governor, former wake forest quarterback. always look like he came off the pains of gentleman's quarterly. never a hair out of place. looks like a million bucks. >> woodruff: the way you two look. >> this is a strikingly handsome man, and he stays cool. he's been very open about this to his entire career, in fact in his own memoir, he writes about it, he stayed clear of that torrid state of florida by having a fan with him under the lectern. it's not like he's got somebody

giving him answers or something. so rick scott, i thought, looked not only petty but small and not concerned with the people of florida, but when charlie crist had a fan, i thought, quite frankly, it was fantastic. (laughter) >> woodruff: is there a lesson about american politics in all of this? >> i think americans like people to keep the rules, but they hate when people complain about other people not keeping the rules. >> i think that's true. i also say, one great thing about debates is they are the one time campaigns where things are unstructured. and i thought this revealed something about rick scott which was not compelling our appealing. >> woodruff: well, this is always unstructured and always terrific. mark shields, michael gerson,

thank you both. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. the president named an ebola response coordinator, ron klain, a former chief of staff to vice presidents gore and biden. hurricane gonzalo blasted ashore this evening in bermuda with winds of 115 miles-an-hour. it could batter the island most of the night. and wall street wound up a wild week with a positive finish. the dow gained 260 points. on the newshour online right now, of all the dangers in the world, what's the greatest threat? on making sense we look at how people around the globe answered that question and why inequality is the top concern for americans. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. and a reminder about some upcoming programs from our pbs colleagues. gwen ifill is preparing for "washington week," which airs later this evening. here's a preview:

>> ifill: one washington, multiple challenges. how to address the growing ebola crisis, how to steady the economy, how to prosecute a war against an elusive enemy, and how to win a senate majority. we explore the debates on every front tonight on "washington week." judy. >> woodruff: on tomorrow's edition of pbs newshour weekend, will a new federal plan give an economic boost to the hardest hit regions of the country? megan thompson reports from eastern kentucky. here's an excerpt. >> miller says his family's farm has helped him get by. he grows most of his own food and already chopped firewood for winter. >> that will be my heat. after unemployment ran out, he did odd jobs for neighbors to stay afloat. >> you just can't go out and find a job that suits you. i mean, it just ain't here. >> since the 1970s, more than 130,000 coal jobs have been lost in the u.s., a decline of about

50%. coal unemployment in eastern kentucky is now at an historic low. more than 7,000 jobs have been lost since 2008. >> the thing that hasn't happened at an adequate rate is the diversification of the local economy. >> woodruff: that's saturday's signature segment on pbs newshour weekend. and we'll be back, right here, on monday with an interview with bob dole. he reflects on a life in politics, and the current state of the republican party. that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff, have a great weekend. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> support also comes from carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org.

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