captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: a battle over economic priorities, from taxes to public works, president obama delivers his budget to capitol hill. paychecks go farther. we know families are struggling to afford childcare, struggling to afford to send their kids to college. so we what we have is a comprehensive proposal to make paychecks go further. >> ifill: good evening, i'm gwen ifill. judy woodruff is away. also ahead this monday, one journalist released, two still behind bars, the uneven fate of jailed journalists in egypt.

and a mass death sentence is imposed on violent protestors. >> ifill: then, from disneyland to the heartland, the return of the measles once thought to be eradicated. the vaccination debate that may have sparked the latest contagious outbreak. plus, director richard linklater on using the passage of time as a story-telling device in making his oscar-nominated film "boyhood." >> all film is a construct. it's just how you want to be perceived and how you want an audience to take in your particular story. i want an audience to lose themselves in the story i'm trying to tell and make it feel like it feels like your own life to some degree. >> ifill: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs "newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

i.b.e.w. the power professionals in your neighborhood. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your life and become you're own chief life officer. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> 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: the latest winter storm dumped fresh misery across new england today, after pounding on the plains and midwest. well over a foot of snow fell in the chicago area and around the great lakes region. a number of schools cancelled monday classes. as the storm pushed east, new york state and new england braced for the blow with more than a foot forecast for boston. mayor marty walsh said plows are still clearing last week's big snow. >> this weekend michael dennehy and his team removed about 6,000 truckloads of snow off the streets of boston. as you can see before the storm today there was a lot of snow out there. shows you how much we got during the blizzard. so we're going to continue that effort after this snow storm is cleared up. we're going to continue to try to get as much snow off the street as possible particularly with the very cold weather. >> ifill: the storm also disrupted air travel, with a

combined 6,200 flights canceled since sunday. many of those were supposed to bring super bowl fans back from arizona. wall street started the month on a high note. a gain in oil prices outweighed the news that manufacturing grew in december at its slowest pace in a year. the dow jones industrial average gained 196 points to close at 17,361; the nasdaq rose 41 to close at 4,676; and the s&p 500 added nearly 26 points to finish near 2,121. there was no sign of a break today in the standoff over a jordanian pilot, held by "islamic state" militants in syria. the government of jordan has agreed to the group's demand to release a convicted terrorist but it said again today it needs reassurance. >> ( translated ): we demand and emphasize our demand for proof of life of the pilot muath al- kaseasbeh, then we can speak about further steps. we follow up around the clock and our security organizations are following up on this case. >> ifill: fears for the pilot's

safety ran even higher after a second japanese hostage journalist kenji goto was beheaded over the weekend. in ukraine, pro-russian rebels pressed their offensive across multiple fronts today. civilians ran for cover as rockets streaked across towns in the embattled province of donetsk. many scavenged the rubble for belongings as they prepared to evacuate from their homes. meanwhile, rebel leaders announced plans to swell their ranks to 100,000 fighters. >> ( translated ): we will mobilize enough people to the army, because considering the situation on the fronts and what ukraine does, we will have to mobilize people who are able to carry weapons. after today's events it has become urgent. >> ifill: almost 2,000 people have fled the fighting in the last few days. the first large-scale ebola vaccine trials began today in liberia. about 600 volunteers are taking part in the effort which

ultimately may involve 27,000 people. they're testing two potential vaccines, one developed by the u.s. national institutes of health and the other by canadian health officials. it's been 800 years since rebellious barons forced an english king to accept essential rights under law. they were enshrined in the magna carter. and today, the surviving copies from that summer of 1,215 went on display in london. sally biddulph of independent television news reports. >> reporter: the founding document behind our rule of law and citizens rights. these four remaining original copies, have been brought together for the first time in eight centuries two from the british library, and one from each of the cathedrals in salisbury and lincoln. >> it's unprecedented for salisbury to move its magna carta out of the cathedral. we did it for a little while just during the second world war when we put it in a quarrey in wilshire, but you can guarantee that our copy has never left wilshire in 800 years. >> reporter: when king john

stamped the magna carta in runnymede with his royal seal in 1215, little did he know it would herald parliamentary democracy. >> well, the magna carta's global resonance established for the first time that everybody was subject to the law. nobody, not even the king, was above the law and that's a principle was has, which has stood time and is still valid today. >> reporter: the magna carta manuscripts are only together on display for three days with tickets to the event drawn from a ballot. translated from the latin it means great charter and great it was, it's impact still resonating down the ages. >> ifill: weeks after king john accepted the magna carta, the pope voided it, but it is fundamental tenets were reaffirmed in succeeding documents. back in this country, union workers at nine oil refineries and chemical plants were out on strike for a second day. those are the first such walkouts since 1980, and they're affecting plants that account for about ten percent of the nation's refining capacity.

the workers are demanding higher pay, better benefits, and safer work conditions. and, the new england patriots celebrated their dramatic win in super bowl 49, which turned out to be the highest-rated ever. 114 million viewers. the patriots edged the seattle seahawks, 28 to 24, last night, in glendale, arizona. it's their fourth championship in six tries, since 2000. a victory parade is delayed as the city digs out from its record snowfall. still to come on the "newshour", policy priorities and the president's new budget. egypt's complicated crackdown on the muslim brotherhood. the alarming new spread of an old disease, the measles. and playing with time in richard linklater's oscar-nominated "boyhood."

>> ifill: the president unvieled his four trillion dollar spending plan. setting off what's sure to be months of political wrangling with the g.o.p. controlled congress. more taxes, more spending, president obama delivers his budget to capitol hill with a four trillion dollar sticker price. the boxes rolled down congressional halls this morning. while across town, the man who sent them appealed for a fair hearing. >> we've got to put politics aside, pass a budget that funds our national security priorities at home and abroad and gives middle-class families the security they need to get ahead in the new economy. >> ifill: the centerpiece of the president's plan is a six year, $678 billion public works program to repair highways, bridges and transit systems. half of the money would come from a one-time tax on u.s. companies overseas profits. the budget also calls for, raising the capital gains tax rate to 28% for wealthier americans.

and using the revenue for $320 billion in low and middle-class tax breaks. there's also $60 billion for free community college. all told, mr. obama wants to increase defense and domestic spending by seven percent. that would break mandatory caps imposed in 2011, under the so- called sequestration. >> i'm not going to accept a budget that locks in sequestration going forward. it would be bad for our security and bad for our growth. >> ifill: the president rejected republicans' calls to lift the caps for defense spending only. and they immediately accused him of reverting to tax-and-spend policies that endanger the economy. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. >> rhetorically, at least, we hear the white house echo republican calls for policies aimed at helping the middle class but then we see the white house push more to have the steal, pop-down policies favored by political bosses on the left.

>> ifill: house speaker john boehner said there's no provision for ever balancing the budget. republican leaders promise to offer their own plan this spring. we dig a little deeper into the budget, beginning at the white house. i spoke with shaun donovan director of the office of management and budget, a short time ago. director donovan, welcome. much of the advance, discussion about the president's budget including what we see in the actual document focuses on the plight or kerns of the middle class. why is your approach better than any other on that? >> because i think what we've really done is look at what are the core things that are eating away at the fortunes of the middle class in this country and first of all we have to make sure that paychecks go farther. we know that familiar his are struggling to afford childcare, struggling to afford to send their kids to college. so what we have is a comprehensive proposal to make paychecks go farther today. at the same time, we've got to look to the future and say, what

are the ways we're going to grow the good middle class jobs of the future? that means we've got to invest in manufacturing our infrastructure. we've got to make sure we remain the best in the world at new things, that means research and development. we have to make sure that as we create the jobs in the future that americans are ready to take them so in this budget we doubled the number of slots for job training, doubled the number of apprenticeships and we made sure that community college is going to be like high school is today. in the future, everyone should be able to go to community college and that the why free community college is a key part of the budget. >> ifill: when you use the word "invest," republicans hear spend and tax. how do you hope to make progress with your priorities if the -- if that's the translation of "invest." >> in ten years we achieve

$1.8 trillion in deficit reduction, that's undeniable if you look at the numbers. second, what we're doing is taking a bipartisan example the so-called murray-ryan deal that was reached two years ago we're taking that and building on it. we're saying let's get rid of harmful cuts called sequestration and do them dollar for dollar on the defense side and pay for them on revenue side overlong term. that made progress two years ago on the budgeted and the model we build on. >> ifill: you're talking about raising taxons corporate profits, raising taxons nadges firms and inher tabs taxes. why isn't that as some republicans are describing i think paul ryan called it envy economics or chases war? >> an example on capital gains

right now a family forced to sell, whether their home or a business before they die, they're taxed at regular rates. if a family is wealthy enough to be able to hold on to that asset and pass it on to their kids, they're taxed at a much, much lower rate on that asset. so what we're really trying to achieve here is fairness, and as the president said we're asking the wealthiest in the country to pay a little bit more. 99% of the cost of the capital gains proposal would come from the wealthiest 1% in the country. we think that is a very reasonable proposal. so we're proposing that. at the same time, we're proposing hundreds of billions of dollars of savings on the spending side as well, so we're proposing a balanced plan that we think has a real chance of getting done this year. >> ifill: do you have any reason to believe that there is any consensus or any willingness on the part of the people who are going to receive this budget

on capitol hill for middle ground on things like infrastructure, transportation spending? do you see any room there? >> ifill: absolutely, and i do think, first of all, the structure that we're following is based on murray-ryan. it's established bipartisan precedent we're building on. second, there are lots of areas if you look more closely where we're building on bipartisan ideas. community college is something that's been pursued at the federal level and at the state level, like many tennessee, on a bipartisan basis. the proposal that we have for a second earner tax credit has actually been sponsored by one of the republican leaders in the house of representatives. infrastructure has traditionally been a bipartisan area and we're linking it to international tax reform that has both democratic and republican sponsors, and i could go on. there's a long list of areas where there's the potential for bipartisan agreement.

>> ifill: how about pentagon spending or homeland security spending, rolling back the across the board budget cuts you talked about? >> you don't need to take my word for it, gwen. if you listen to the testimony the joint chiefs of staff gave this past week, they said the most dangerous threats we face around the the world is se questions --sequestration. if we can't invest in the cuts we won't invest in the critical things we need to keep folks safe overseas and at home. now we're having a fight about whether we're going to fund the department of homeland security for a full year. we need to do that and invest in cybersecurity and other things, the technology of the future, where the wars of the future will be fought. >> so. >> ifill: so the battle is joined on the budget front. shaun donovan, director of the office of management and budget thank you for being here. >> thank you.

>> ifill: for the republican view from capitol hill, i'm joined now by iowa senator chuck grassley. he serves on the senate budget and finance committees as well as the joint committee on taxation. welcome, senator . the president said today he welcomes g.o.p. ideas but that the numbers have to add up. what is your reaction to his budget? >> well, first of all, i think you have to look at not only this budget but past budgets that have been put before the congress for a specific vote and, in most instances -- maybe every instance over the last five or six years -- there hasn't been one republican or one democrat vote to approve of the president's budget. so i think you have to look at it that this budget put forth by the president isn't serious but even if it were a serious budget the president proposes and congress disposes. there's obviously going to be some areas where the president and the congress would agree, like, for instance, not having sequestration because of

national defense because national defense is the number one responsibility of the federal government, so i think you will find more spending on defense. that area we agree with the president of the united states. but in other areas of domestic spending, i think you're going to find sequestration, if it isn't followed, it surely isn't going to be modified to the extent the president wanted to modify it. i'll stop with this by saying you can't consider a budget as omb director said reducing spending by $1.8 trillion when it actually increases the deficit from $18 billion to $26 billion over a period of these ten years. that's an $8 trillion increase in the debt, and the president has already increased the national debt since he's been president by at least 6 $6 trillion. >> ifill: the director said he

seen what you've seen and leaves republicans ought to put their priorities on the table. what are the republicans priorities in general? >> ifill: we would disagree with the president on taxes because when you have a lot of people left in the labor force and you're talking about helping the middle class, the only way you're going to help the middle class is not by these envy politics and redistributing wealth. you're going to help the middle class by growth, and you gotten get economic growth by increasing taxes by taking can tall out of the economy. you've got to put more capital into the economy. so we would disagree you should have tax increases. we're going to agree with the president on national defense and probably disagree with the president on expenditures for domestic programs, and you've got to remember that he doesn't have any idea whatsoever what to do with social security,

medicare and medicaid which is about 40% of all the expenditure right now. >> ifill: so let me try to figure this out. infrastructure proposals he's making are off the table in your opinion as well as spending for what he calls middle class economics? >> first of all on the infrastructure, no. by may, we have to pass an infrastructure bill and it will be verifying on the agenda of the republican congress. in regard to helping the middle class, yes, we'll help the middle class by having economic growth. our program will be one that gets economic growth above the 6 year or 7 year average of 2.6%. we have to have economic growth of 3% if you're really going to increase jobs and get more wealth into the middle class. >> ifill: i have to ask you senator, about the homeland security issue in which both across the board budget cuts the

president would like you to lift when it comes to homeland security not tied to immigration reform. what do you say about that? >> we're going to attempt to pass in the united states senate undoing the president's immigration reform because we feel he has acted unconstitutionally, that he doesn't have the power to do what he did for undocumented workers, only congress has that power. >> ifill: so what does that mean about what's going to happen next with that vote? >> i won't know until we find out if we can get a bill to the president. if we can't get a bill to the president, we'll go to plan b and plan b hasn't been figured out yet because we're going to try to deliver to the american people what we promised to in the last election that we were going to stop the president's unconstitutional actions on immigration. >> ifill: senator chuck grassley of iowa, thank you very much. >> thank you.

>> ifill: for more on the political side of the budget debate and on the budding presidential campaign, we turn to our new weekly politics discussion. where every monday we'll hear from amy walter of the cook political report, and nia-malika henderson of "the washington post." this ought to be fun. >> i think it will be, thank you. >> ifill: the budget issue, is this a document the president sent up for negotiation or just sending it up to be aspirational to capitol hill? >> you saw from the back and forth that the white house says they would like it to be a starting point for negotiations, but when you listen to the senator from iowa, it's pretty clear there's not much room for negotiation in this and that, at the end of the day yes, this is a stake in the ground for the president and for other democrats to build on as we go into a 2016 election. >> right. it's a companion piece of the state of the union address where he claimed the title i think in that address as liberal. one of the common critiques of this president had been that he would give away the store even before he would get to the negotiating table. i think in this document he's

being a bit bolder. some of the things are warmed over -- you know, the tax cuts and tax heights on the rich and trickle down or spread it out amongst the middle class. but he also isn't touching medicare he's not suching social security the way he did in other budget documents, wrarchgling many in his party. >> ifill: he's less ambitious because maybe it's not worth the fight to be in a second term. >> it's not, democrats don't want the fight nor do the republicans. you have them up in their own races and a handful have their own race in 2016. >> ifill: looking at the polling and the conversation you've seen and the positions you've seen in the last few days who benefits from romney's exit.

>> i think the republican party benefits from him developing out. in 2012 they had to write a whole document figuring out what went wrong in 2012 and obviously mitt romney was a big part of that. if he had run, it would be rerunning what happened in 2012. broadly i think the entire party benefits. but specifically you have to look at the governor's lane, chris christie, scott walker, the moderate establishment lane, they will get some of the money mitt romney would have locked up if he had run. >> ifill: relief or opportunity? chris christie in london getting his foreign policy chops together and immediately stumbling into domestic debate over vaccination. >> you can't win. even when you go overseas, you have to ask questions happening here, the question about, of course, whether or not vaccines should be considered parents could make their own decision on. chris christie has a very big problem and that is chris christie has a base problem.

he has to expand his horizons to bring in international experience or clean up whatever comments he made today. you look at his numbers nationally and in some of the very important states, his disapproval ratings among republicans are in the 40s. so people know him in the republican party and they're saying we don't like what we see. so i don't know how much he benefits if people at the end of the day republicans, are saying we just don't think he's the right guy. >> ifill: the person who looks the best in the polling is scott walker the governor of wisconsin, not jeb bush immediately but scott walker, who for a lot of people is a brand-new name. >> ifill: yes, and gave a great speech in iowa and rocket eted to the top of this and he was very much top of mind to these iowa voters. he's someone who straddles really the establishment wing because he's the sitting governor now and also seen as a tea party guy as well, has done

well in that state, done well this terms of conservative grassroots and also does well in iowa because it's a neighboring state to wisconsin so he benefits in that way. >> gwen, you know i love polls. i check them every day. they make me so happy. this is a year out. i'm not going to take where people stand in terms of the -- >> ifill: okay, bell, let's look at donors eyeballs, credibility, who is shifting ho -- >> i can do both of those things. the front top line number i don't care so much about in this new iowa poll. what i do care about is looking at the perception of these candidates in terms of are they liked? do voters think they're too moderate, too conservative? and christie, in a lot of trouble, and jeb bush, too, his rates had 43 republicans not liking him and 18% unfavorable rating. that's not good for someone

designated the frontrunner. big problems in that state. for donors a lot of donors, what we're hearing is they will be sitting on the sidelines, giving some here and there, but not going all in for jeb bush. >> ifill: that's not necessarily great news. >> but it also is probably a little early to put so much focus on iowa, too. some conventional wisdom in iowa is you don't particularly need to win, placial with someone like jeb bush, there are really three winning tickets out of iowa, as in 2012. >> ifill: the affordable care act, there will be another vote like in the '60s, attempting to roll back all or part of the healthcare law, is that mostly dissatisfied new members who want a chest chance to put their handprint on it or sth setting the republican party on a path that will affect it in 2016 in congressional and presidential?

>> i don't think they will have an alternative to obamacare. >> they haven't needed one before. >> that's right. the supreme court may make that happen because if they come out and decide that states that had not set up their own exchange but set up a federal exchange, can't give subsidies, that's going to put a lot of pressure on the states themselves, the republican governors there the republican legislators there to figure out what they have to do with that. the congress and president will have a role in it but a lot of the focus will be on the state. >> you take mike pence in indiana, he has been created in terms of how you have figure out the medicaid subsidy and do your own thing in the state somebody like scott walker same thing. i think the eyes are on other people, like what does somebody like bobby jindal and chris christie do. >> ifill: it's about

positioning. nia-malika, "washington post," amy, political report, thank you. >> ifill: an australian journalist released yesterday after being jailed in egypt for more than a year spoke for the first time today about his ordeal. while in cairo, a judge sentenced nearly 200 muslim brotherhood supporters to death. jeffrey brown reports. >> i can't tell you how relieved i am at being free, i really didn't expect it. >> brown: it was the first full day of freedom for peter greste, the "al-jazeera" journalist released yesterday after 400 days in a cairo jail. but in cyprus today, he said his own joy at being released is mixed with fears angst for two colleagues who remain imprisoned in egypt. >> amidst all of this relief, i still feel a sense of concern, a real sense of worry, because if it's appropriate for me, if it's right for me to be free, then

it's right for all of them to be free. >> brown: greste, along with canadian-egyptian mohammed feh- mee and egyptian national baher mohamed, were arrested in december 2013 over their coverage of a crackdown on islamist protests. the three were accused of providing a platform for president mohammed morsi's muslim brotherhood after morsi was overthrown by the military. separately, in a cairo courtroom today supporters of the brotherhood chanted in protest, as a judge sentenced all 183 of them to death. they were convicted of playing a role in killing 16 police officers in the wake of morsi's ouster. it was the latest in a series of mass trials and death sentences that have drawn international condemnation. including today, at the state department in washington. >> it simply seems impossible that a fair review of evidence and testimony could be achieved through mass trials.

we continue to call on the government of egypt to ensure due process for the accused on the merits of individual cases for all egyptians and discontinue the practice of mass trials. >> brown: egyptian officials also face accusations that during protests last week, police killed at least 27 people. one of them was 32-year-old activist and mother shaima sabbagh. president abdel fattah el-sissi said today he was pained by sabbagh's death, and promised an investigation. we invited egypt's ambassador to the united states to appear on tonight's program. the embassy did not respond to our request. joining us now from cairo is borzou daragahi. middle east and north africa correspondent for "the financial times." borzou, there's been conjecture that the release of peter greste was tied to al jazeera's closing of its egyptian channel. what's known about what led to his release? >> we know there have been intense negotiations on multiple

planes. there have been ongoing talks in dohar and other parts of the arabian peninsula, other cities between egyptian, saudi and am ratty officials for months now in an attempt to work out this conflict that has created this breech between qatar on the one hand and turkey to some extent, although turkey was not involved in the talks, and the other so-called pro u.s. moderate arab states, and that these talks have included, for example, lawyers, international lawyers working on various issues including the billions of dollars now from qatar that are in the central bank of egypt and we also know that there's been intense attempt by canadian australian and other western officials trying to get this issue resolved, to get these journalists freed, and this has been going on for many months nower. every single western diplomat

that's come here has raised this issue. the western journalists as well as many civil liberties n.g.o.s constantly bring up the matters of these three journalists. so intense pressure on the government here. >> brown: what's the likelihood of the other two al-jazeera journalists' release? >> based on the indications i'm getting it looks like one of them, mohamed feh-mee may well will on the condition he would renounce egyptian citizenship and leave the country just as a canadian citizen. this must be a tough decision for him because he truly loves egypt and this must be such a harsh thing for him to do to have to renounce that egyptian citizenship. as for the other one, baher

mohamed, we don't know what will happen to him. he's been sentenced to ten years in prison and has three children, one born while he was in captivity and he would not be part of the deal peter greste got and mohamed feh-mee may get. >> brown: does president el sisi still have a lot of public support for this? >> well, i think that he does have a lot of public support. i think in part the local media here is sort of complicit in whipping up hysteria, in making a lot of incitement on air, in whipping up anger from the public dens any kind of -- public against any kind of

dissidents or secular activists who challenge the current status quo. to i think there is a lot of support for it publicly still, but perhaps less than six months ago as egypt's economy, at least the macroeconomic improvements we have been seeing, have not really trickled down to street level yet. >> brown: we saw the u.s. state department expressing concern and anger over there. is our government being heard? does it have any influence in these matters? >> i think it does and i think there are well-meaning people around sisi and perhaps sisi himself who are aware of how bad these things look these mass sentencing of scores of people to death, these continued detentions of people including one photojournalist who has been in prison for 540 days.

his mental health is failing and he spends most of his days sitting in the corner of the cell basically just suffering and has not yet been formally charged with a crime yet. but i think there are forces within the security establishment and the judiciary and the interior ministry and intelligence services who have a very hard line approach to any kind of opposition to the current status quo. >> brown: borzou daragahi financial times in cairo, thanks so much. >> been a pleasure. >> ifill: the measles outbreak in the u.s. has now infected more than 100 people in just over a month. there have been no deaths, but cases have been reported in 14 states with the overwhelming number in california. where public health officials believe the current outbreak began at disneyland. but just over a dozen years ago, measles was considered eradicated. yet last year, 600 cases were

reported many of them in unvaccinated amish communities. skepticism about the usefulness of vaccines has long been gathering steam in some circles. for a look at what started it all, we bring you part of a piece by retro report, a non profit news organization whose documentaries are distributed by "the new york times." the narrator is zachary green of newshour weekend. the current vaccine scares and controversies that we're still dealing with today stem from a 1998 paper that appeared in the "lancet" a very respected medical journal published out of the u.k. >> the paper written by dr. andrew wakefield claimed there might be a connection between the measles mums, rubella vaccine and autism. >> in his press brches andrew wakefield stood up and said parents should not give their children the mmr vaccine, period, till we get to the bottom of this. >> the mmr vaccination in combination, i think it should be suspended in favor to have

the single vaccines. >> the notion you would take a 12-person skys study and make claims about a population as a whole is ridiculous. this paper was historically bad, and what the media in the u.k. did was they ran with that. >> it's a dilemma. you know, that's a sensational story. >> reporter: follow-up stories of hundreds of thousands of children could not find evidence the mmr causes autism. it was found he distorted data and acted unethically. >> he lost his license the lancet paper hash retracted. he repositioned himself as a martyr and in some odd way every piece of evident that comes out against wakefield sort of solidifies in the community that pays attention to him.

>> complicated science proved difficult for public health institutions to communicate. when response was raised over a vaccine that included mercury. >> children get mercury injected into their bodies. >> a known neural toxin. but not the same as methyl mercury which is found in fish and accumulates in the body. nevertheless, the public health serious and the american academy of pediatrics recommended the drug be removed and the messaging backfired. >> in 1999 health officials denied the link between the vaccines and autism epidemic yet urged the vaccine makers to take out the mercury to be safe. >> what the american academy of pediatrics said is we are recommending the step to make safe vaccines even safer. as a parent, if you tell me something safe, i don't think that's on a slaying scale. i assume that if you say it's

safe, it is safe for my child,eth not safe, safer or safest. there are almost two languages here. there's the language of science and then there's english. in the language of science, you have these signifiers, like to the best of our knowledge, as far as we know, based on the available scientific evidence because you can't say anything with 1 pun% -- you can't prove a negative. so when scientists speak in their language and the rest of us translate that into english, it sounds like they're saying something very different than they're saying. >> ifill: a clarification, when they talk about the mmr vaccine, they're talking about mumps, measles and rubella. president obama echoed the kerns of health officials yesterday when he said in an interview that children should be vaccinated. joining me is patricia stinchfield, director of

infection prevention and control for the children's hospital and clinics of minnesota. welcome. thank you for joining us. how does this outbreak compare toll what we have seen in the past? should we be really worried by these numbers? >> i think we should be concerned by the numbers because the spread of measles is so easy to happen amongst people who are unimmunized. that virus can stay aloft in the air two hours after someone with measles has walked through a room, whether a lobby in a clinic, grocery store or football game, and anyone who comes through that room who is not immunized will get measles 90% of unimmunized will get measles. very contains. i spent my 27th year of my career at children's trying to explain how dangerous measles was. we had an entire ward filled with measles kids, two died. ever since then i tried to commit myself and children's at

minnesota has as well to the message that measles is dangerous, measles kills. it gets in the lungs and brain it is not just a virus. the vaccine is safe effective, it works and should be used by parents to help protect their children. >> ifill: is there any other reason to explain the sudden return of measles other than the fact that people decided that vaccinations are not safe? >> well, we're a global society and we do know that measles cases in the united states do have an international link, oftentimes. but we also know that, in the last few years, we've seen a dramatic increase in many communities of people opting out of vaccines. this is a recipe for an outbreak. if you have a vulnerable community and an introduction of the measles virus, you will have disease, and we're seeing that come out of california and spread very quickly through the united states. i think the good news here is that if we didn't have 90% of parents following the usual

immunization schedule, we wouldn't be talking about hundreds of cases, we would talk about thousands and thousands of cases. >> that number confounds me. if 92 90% of people are getting the vaccination, how dangerous is this except for a small subset who are not? >> we always have vulnerable populations. you can only get the vaccine when you're 12 months of age and older. that's the first dose. lots of babies are under one year of age and the special vulnerable valley is from six months to 12 months where mom's antibodies have dropped uhoff and they're not old enough for the vaccines so 6-12 months are vulnerable. pregnant women can have miscarriages if they get the measles, and people with chemotherapy or cancer are highly susceptible to a measles

outbreak. >> ifill: how does this compare to ebola flu. >> they're all viruses and con stages. but there is nothing as con stages as measles. flu is next h.i.v. below that, and ebola is the lowest in terms of viral contagen. it's very difficult to get ebola. it's very easy to get measles. both can take people's lives, however. there's a vaccine for measles, measles, mumps rubella, and there is not a vaccine for ebola. at this point in time, there's no reason for parents not to vaccinate their children and protect them against measles. >> are there other diseases where choosing not to have a vaccine has shown that disease is back or on the rise? >> we are definitely seeing more whooping cough than we have been. there's been spread of whooping cough or pertussis throughout the country in the last few years. that vaccine is not quite as

effective as measles vaccine, but also the spread is going through communities of those who are opting out of vaccines. we are seeing an increase in that as well. >> finally and briefly, what are the symptoms that we should be on the lookout for when it comes to measles? >> measles are fever, rash and the three cs -- cough, conjunctionivitis or pink eye and then runny nose. the rash looks like it's been poured over the head and goes down on the trunk. get in and get seen if that's the rash you're seeing. >> ifill: dr. patricia stinchfield, children's hospitals and clinics of minnesota. thanks very much. >> thanks for having me. >> ifill: one of the most honored movies of the year, and a leading candidate for several oscars is "boyhood," a film by

an independent director with a unique style of telling stories. jeff spoke with him recently, as part of our occasional feature, newshour goes to the movies. yes! yes! yes! all right. all right don't worry about it. >> in most films, the aging of characters is a slight of hand. suggested through makeup of using multiple actors. in "boyhood," the passage of time is real. director richard linklater shot the film over the course of 12 years, annually gathering his four leading actors together for a few days to shoot scenes and tell the story of a young boy named mason played by eller coltrane from ages 6 to 18. >> how much can you plan for the next 12 years? you can have goals and outline of what you're working toward which is certainly what the film did. nie the last shot.

i knew where i wanted it to end, but i didn't really -- you know, i'm clab right here with an unknown future like we are all at all times so it had to incorporate that into the actual storytelling. >> linklater age 54, has played with time and storytelling often in his career. notably in the so-called "before" trilogy. before sunrise, before sunset and before midnight which tells the story of a romance between two characters played by julie and ethan as they grow older. >> i think the book i wrote in a way is like building something so i wouldn't forget the details of the time that we spent together. >> i've always been obsessed with cinematic narrative and storytelling. the artificialality of so much plot always bugged me so i think i've kind of naturally tended toward time structures because i think that's closer to how we actually process team and the

way we perceive the world and even our own -- the way we drift through, you know a day a year, or a life, you know, is -- it's kind of time-based. i think it's one of the fundamentals of my cinematic thinking. it must be because i keep playing around it. i don't intellectualize it too much. >> i'm realizing my life is just going to go, like that. a series of milestones -- getting married, having kids, getting divorced -- >> what does that mean, though, the artificialality of film? >> it's not inherent to film. it's inherent in storytelling in general, depending on how you approach it. i think the three-act structure is an artifice, a lot of plot points that work so well in a thriller, you know, that doesn't happen in most our lives but there are beautiful constructs. but all film is a construct. it's just what you want, how you want to be perceived and how you want an audience to take in your

particular story. if you're not -- i'm often going for a very realistic. i want an audience to lose themselves in the story i'm trying to tell and make it feel like it feels like your own life to some degree. cinema can be anything. let's face it, it's wonderful. it's the greatest storytelling medium ever. i've done a lot of movies. each has its own requirement. >> brown: "boyhood" is filled with scenes that feel like real life sometimes in all its awkwardness. as here when ethan hawke playing the divorced dad picks up his children. >> how was your day. fun. what did you do. nothing really. still working on the snrojt. yes. how is it? all finished. comes from the did i was once talking a lot with my dad who would pick me up on the weekend and our best conversations were in the car because you're just

in the car -- i live an hour and a half away so we would spend three hours a weekend driving and that was the best conversation. >> that is not how we are going to talk to one another. i will not be that guy. you cannot put me in that category, all right, the biological father i spend every other week with him and make polite conversation, you know, while he drives me places and buys me -- no. >> it's fun to see him sort of figuring out fatherhood and being a very conscientious parent and trying to hard. it's endearing. ethan and i are very similar in that way that, you know, our parents were divorced and we have these relationship both in our past and to varying degrees in our present. so, you know a theme like that comes up pretty natural for us. >> brown: linklater gets ideas from his actors including the one yuns but he says it's not improvised. >> i never have improvised

really. there's a couple of moments even in "boyhood" when i knew what they were going to say. i was on subject and i had two cameras, and in one case, it's a camp fire scene where ethan and eller are talking about to pensionle future "star wars" movie if there ever was going to be one. >> you think they will ever make another "star wars"? >> i don't think. i think if they were to make another one that the period it was set is where it would have to be because there's nothing after really. yeah, return of jedi was over. >> yeah, already been there. i knew what they would talk about in general, i think it had to be scripted. but everything other than that is very scripted and rehearsed and planned out. it has to be very tight for me to make it seem loose. i wouldn't know how to turn on the camera and see what happens. >> one time i had lunch with tolstoy, another time a roady

for zappa. >> brown: richard scored early hits like slacker in 1991 and in 199 p dazed and confused. >> i want that piece of paper on my desk before you leave here today, do you hear me! >> brown: in a world of blockbusters made for far more money -- >> mr. bernie teadham -- >> brown: he built a career of smaller, more personal films. >> a look at the films people are talking about attend of the year here would definitely fall into personal visions from directors and, you know, they're not big, manufactured entertainments, but they are -- you know, they six seed in their own way. so there's always a lot of films like that. hollywood is more -- i would think their business model changed. they're structured because of the cost to only do bigger films so they've kind of abdicated the middle ground of the films they used to do or have completely done kind of outside their

system. they will still distribute them though. it's always changing, but the bottom line it's always a good year for movies. there's always a ton of great movies, more than you will have time to sea worldwide, and people will always want to make movies that mean a lot to them personally. >> brown: "boyhood," richard linklater is the director. thanks for talking with us. >> good to be with you. >> ifill: jeff continues his conversation with richard linklater online, where the director recommends five of his favorite films. find that list on our home page, pbs.org/newshour. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day, washington's annual struggle over taxes and spending priorities began in earnest, as president obama unveiled a four trillion dollar budget. republicans mostly dismissed the plan. for the second straight week, a major winter storm socked the northeast and new england, after dumping heavy snow in chicago.

and wall street gained ground to start the week. a rise in oil prices helped energy stocks and pushed the dow industrials up by nearly 200 points. and former hip hop music executive marion suge knight was charged with murder in a hit and run inciden that killed a man last week in los angeles. and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we travel to west virginia to examine how innovative efforts in education may break cycles of poverty. i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you on-line, and again here tomorrow evening, for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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