captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, february 22: the head of homeland security warns mall shoppers to be vigilant in the face of terror threats from militant groups overseas; what i'm saying if anyone is planning to go to the mall in america today they have to be particularly careful. >> sreenivasan: what walmart's decision to raise wages might mean for the rest of the u.s. economy; and in our signature segment, the poor struggling to stay warm during this harsh winter. i have to decide to buy medicine or see my feed my graj father or pay utility bills.

>> sreenivasan: next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios in lincoln center in new york hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening. thanks for joining us. an international terror group linked to al qaeda is warning of attacks on shopping malls in the united states, the united kingdom and canada, including the mall of america. the warning was conveyed in a video released online by al shabaab yesterday. this morning on cnn, homeland

security secretary jeh johnson urged vigilance, saying terror groups no longer need to rely on people trained overseas to come into the united states to launch an attack. >> we're in a new phase in that these groups are relying more and more on independent actors to become inspired, drawn to the cause... >> and the internet, through the internet. >> ...carrying small-scale attacks on their own through their effective use of the internet. >> so, how seriously are you taking the threat? >> i'm very concerned about the serious potential threat of independent actors here in the united states. we've seen this now in europe. we've seen this in canada. >> but specifically against the mall of america. >> anytime a terrorist organization calls for an attack on a specific place, we've got to take that seriously. >> sreenivasan: al shabab claimed responsibility for a mall attack in nairobi, kenya, in the fall of 2013 that left more than 60 people dead. that month-long strike at oil refineries across the united

states has expanded again. employees at two refineries in louisiana walked off the job late yesterday, hours after workers struck america's largest refinery in port arthur, texas. the workers, members of the united steelworkers, have also waged strikes at plants in california, indiana and ohio. economists say gas prices have crept up in some locations as a result of the walkout. overseas, mixed signals from ukraine. pro-russian rebels and the ukrainian government forces they've been battling both say they will honor the new cease- fire and pull back some of their heavy weaponry. the two sides exchanged prisoners yesterday. but at least two people were killed and ten wounded today when an explosive device was tossed from a car into a crowd of people at a peace rally. this amateur video was obtained by reuters and is believed to show the moment of the attack. fighting continues in some cities, and the ukrainian government says russia is still sending armored columns into the region to support the rebels. for the first time since the civil war began in syria nearly

four years ago, turkish troops crossed the border between the two countries overnight. the troops, supported by tanks and drones, rescued another 40 turkish troops who had been trapped for eight months by isis fighters. the rescued troops had been guarding the remains of the grandfather of the founder of the ottoman empire. turkey claimed the site under a treaty signed in 1921. syria denounced the incursion as" blatant aggression." from nigeria tonight, word of another suicide bombing involving a young child. authorities there say a young girl possibly only eight years old, blew herself up at a checkpoint outside a market. she died along with at least five others. the incident happened in the northeast region of the country where boko haram islamic extremists frequently carry out attacks. just weeks ago, another girl carried out another similar attack there. she was ten. there is a suspected new leak of radioactive material at the stricken fukushima nuclear power plant in japan. authorities there say they detected it this morning and responded by blocking the flow

of water from the plant into a nearby bay. contaminant levels were initially reported to be 70 times above accepted levels before falling. a major art discovery: two unfinished sketches by paul cezanne have been found on the reverse side of watercolors acquired more than 90 years ago. the discovery was made by officials at philadelphia's barnes foundation museum. curators say collector albert barnes likely never knew he had acquired, in their words, "four for the price of two." and legendary jazz trumpeter clark terry has died. terry played with both duke ellington and count basie, and later was featured in the "tonight show" band. clark terry was 94. >> sreenivasan: walmart made news this week by announcing that it is raising the wages for its employees above the federal

minimum of $7.25 an hour. starting pay at the company, the world's largest private employer, is going up to $9 an hour, and $10 an hour next february. to discuss the broader implications, we are joined now by shelly banjo. she has reported the story for quartz, a business site published by the atlantic media company. so how significant is it? we're talking about one in a hundred people employed in the united states are employed by wal-mart. >> pretty significant. wal-mart, as you mentioned is the biggest police officer at employer. so what wal-mart does other people tend to follow. >> srennivasan: is that something target and other competers-- competitors might do as well. >> a lot of competitors are already paying more something like costco or some of the other retailers but definitely competitors like target, best buy those kinds of companies are likely to follow suit as they fight for workers. >> srennivasan: so why did wal-mart do this at this moment? one of the things you pointed out in your story is now 29 states around the country already have minimum wages above the federal base. >> right. and my argument is what took them so long.

because basically they had to do this anyway. the time was coming. as you mentioned 29 states already had higher state wages than the federal minimum and a lot of political pressure from workers from the government from the states themselves. and the economy. wages are raising especially for unemployed workers. not as fast as other parts of the economy but jobs are getting the-- the unemployment rate has been going down and jobs are getting more competitive. >> srennivasan: wage stagnation has been one of those things economists have been struggling with because basic economics says if unemployment decreases meaning there is less people without jobs so the demand for them increases. and they should be getting paid more or they should be able to command more right but that hasn't happened in the past years why not? >> i think that is what is confounding. economists are seeing the economy going up. they are saying we are having a hard time finding good people yet at the same time they are ep coulding their wages low. so maybe this is new an

experiment saying maybe if we bring up the wages we'll get better qualified workers. >> srennivasan: places like the chamber of kmefers and other business groups are using this as an opportunity to say you know what this is an example of the market at work. that the government shouldn't be creating-- creating a federal mandate to try to ask everybody to say 10.10 is the minimum. wal-mart did this on their very own. >> i think that is the political gains you get out of this. because all those business groups are the ones coming out against raising the minimum wage. the national retail federation was saying no we shouldn't raise wages. and then the second wal-mart says we're going to raise wages, then all those business groups rallied around wal-mart and said good job with your decision. so i guess if wal-mart can head them off before it gets to 10.10 by offering $9 this year, then they set the conversation. they decide what they want for their business. >> srennivasan: and how many people does this actually impact inside wal-mart. even if they get $9 this crer or $10 are they-- does this increase their ability to spend money compared

-- comparatively speaking. >> you raise an interesting point. because one of the biggest were upon ents say wal-mart employees-- employs 1.3 1.4 million if you include sam's club or not in the u.s. so you put ex tra dollars in their pockets and a lot of those people will spend their money back at wal-mart. >> srennivasan: shelly banjo thanks so much. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: and now to our signature segment, our original reports from around the nation and around the world. tonight, in the midst of this extreme winter, we focus on a problem that affects millions of poor americans: finding the money to pay their heating bills. today happens to be the warmest day in a week in ashville, north carolina, but even that far south, the low friday was 4 degrees, 3 the day before. and while, for some heating costs have declined this winter for many heating bills continue to pile up. our segment tonight is part of our ongoing reporting initiative

about the causes and effects of poverty in america. in the weeks and months ahead, we'll be looking in-depth at social programs that work and those that don't, as well as focusing on innovative solutions from around the country and across the political spectrum. we call our series "chasing the dream: poverty and opportunity in america." the newshour's stephen fee has tonight's report. >> reporter: asheville, north carolina, a city of 87,000 nestled in the appalachian mountains. it's perhaps best known for farm-to-table dining, funky boutiques, arthouse cinemas. but behind palatial vacation homes and craft beer halls 20% of people here live below the poverty line, outpacing state and national figures. and during the wintertime, when the average january low is 27 degrees, low-income families-- some living in older or mobile homes-- often struggle to keep warm. nine years ago, after betty and mike lanning's daughter fell on

hard times, they took custody of their infant granddaughter. mike was a mechanic, betty worked in home healthcare. >> i took care or people, and i enjoyed my work very much. >> reporter: in 2007, mike died in an accident, and betty was left to raise her granddaughter rhianna on her own. >> after he passed away, it was a real struggle for me. i had to decide to buy medicines or feed my granddaughter or pay my utility bills. >> reporter: a series of debilitating medical conditions left lanning, now 76, unable to work. her only income, $1,100 a month in social security. she started going to food pantries, even stopped taking two medications to save cash. but as the weather got colder, lanning knew she wouldn't have the money to heat her home. >> i heat my home with fuel oil and it's very expensive. it's like $3 and something a gallon. so, if you get 100 gallons of fuel oil, it's over $300.

>> reporter: and then you bring in the income from social security, which is $1,100. so, that's a big chunk of your monthly income. >> yeah. >> well, certainly, this time of year, heating is always at the top of the list. >> reporter: that's bill murdock, executive director and c.e.o. of eblen charities. each year, eblen helps thousands of asheville families pay bills, put food on the table, and, in wintertime, stay warm. you turn on the tv, and you hear that the economy is getting better and that gas prices are lower. is that having an impact here for low-income families in asheville? >> so many of our families have been struggling for a long, long time, even before the economy turned. and a lot of them are the first ones hit when something happens and the last ones to recover if they ever do because they're dealing with so much more than what a lot of us deal with. >> reporter: on a recent january morning, the waiting room at eblen charities was full by 9:00, and most of the folks we met needed help paying heating bills. how much are you looking at? >> it's $500 a month right now

because of the space heaters. >> reporter: 40-year-old jorge londono has four kids. he switched on electric heaters this winter and now has overdue power bills totaling more than $1,000. cecilia lordman gets paid the minimum wage working at burger king. on her salary, she and boyfriend mike roberts can't afford their $300 energy bill. >> her husband lost his one job. >> reporter: jackie henry brought her 36-year-old daughter debra wolf to eblen charities. wolf has four kids and owes $417 this month. the power company says it's ready to switch off her electricity. so, we met some clients just now. some people, it looks like their heating bills are almost half of what they pay for rent. you know, what kind of burden is that putting on families here? >> well, it's a tremendous burden considering economic times, and some were maybe not working, some maybe on social security, some maybe have two or three jobs. >> reporter: in north carolina, low-income families are eligible for a range of government

programs to help stay warm in the winter. generally, they're administered by the state and paid for by the federal government. but in recent years, federal spending on programs for the poor has been cut. so, for example, the federal utility bill subsidy only pays up to $400 a year in north carolina; we met families who owe more than that every month. so, increasingly, local governments are partnering with private nonprofit organizations to try to find new ways to help poor families cope with cool temperatures. phillip hardin is economic services director for the buncombe county health and human services department, which includes asheville. instead of directly doling out federal heating dollars his department contracts with nonprofits like eblen charities to do it instead. he says those nonprofits often have more latitude in distributing government aid. >> so, they can combine funds in a lot of ways, you know, that if

they're administering three or four different pots of funds from us that could help with heating costs, then you may be able to pull from more than one funding source. >> reporter: so, they can basically stitch together state federal resources, also use a little bit of private funds and hopefully give people enough to pay a bill. >> that's absolutely right. yeah. i mean, they... and then they have their own funding as you mentioned. you know, that's something that, from a county government agency we don't go out and recruit or solicit donations. >> reporter: after betty lanning came looking for help, eblen worked out a deal to cover her regular heating bills. government dollars cover a little more than half the cost; eblen's private funds and other donations, including funds from the local energy company, make up the rest. so, does that basically mean that government isn't doing enough? >> you know, i don't know if i could say that. i'm certainly not one to point a

finger and say, you know, "you're not doing enough." but i think there's a great opportunity to do more. needs are always going to outdistance resources. i think, since the beginning of time, i think that's always going to happen. >> reporter: phillip hardin, though, says a public-private model might not work everywhere, especially in communities that don't have charitable organizations. >> when you get into the smaller communities, those partners don't exist. you know, there may not be but one nonprofit in some of these smaller counties, if. ( laughs ) maybe none. >> reporter: what's more, just paying heating bills doesn't solve the whole problem in western north carolina, where many low-income families live in drafty older houses or poorly insulated mobile homes. >> we try to do work that you can't really see from the inside. >> reporter: that's where groups like community action opportunities come in. the nonprofit has seven full- time weatherization professionals on staff who serve four counties in western north carolina.

they seal ducts, insulate doors and windows, and install energy- efficient light bulbs to help families stretch their energy dollars-- at no cost to the homeowner. technician jack heuer says those simple measures will save nearly $300 a year for the family living in this single-wide mobile home. >> we're estimating to spend labor and materials, close to $3,500. >> reporter: their work is also financed with federal funds, and the government requires any improvements to basically pay for themselves after 15 years. in this case, the project will be paid for in about 12 years. but federal resources for weatherization have been trimmed, as well. at the height of the federal stimulus program, community action opportunities had an annual budget of $3.9 million to weatherize 200 homes a year. but today, the budget's down to $1 million, and the group can only work on 100 homes annually. and while there are no firm

figures on how many homes need insulating, the group says its waitlist has only grown. in a time of belt-tightening, bill murdock at eblen charities says there will always come a point when government assistance dollars just dry up and private nonprofits have to fill in the gaps. >> we don't feel we have that opportunity-- that luxury, for the lack of a better word-- to say, "we can't do anything sorry, we've helped you all we could," when we know we're going to go home and be warm tonight and they're not. >> reporter: betty lanning credits bill murdock and eblen charities for keeping her and her granddaughter together. what would she do without them? >> i don't know. i would have to move my granddaughter in with somebody or... i don't know how i would do it. >> sreenivasan: of course millions of poor people across the country face similar challenges paying their heating bills. how widespread is the problem and what's behind it? yesterday, we spoke to mark wolfe in washington. he's the executive director of

the national energy assistance directors' association. >> mark wolfe, how significant is fuel insecurity in these winter months? >> well it's very significant. the average family spends about 2 to 3% of their income on home heating. for a low-income family though, they spend maybe 10 to 15 percent of their income on home heating. the reason is simple they just have less money. so that if you are's poor it doesn't mean you use less energy. you still have a house to heat. and if anything your house might be older might be leakey. so your bill is very high relative to income. where for middle income family, it's much lower. so we think about home energy, you have to think about just the burden it places on poor families to stay connected to the grid and to continue to buy home heating oil. and the problem is that the energy assistance program has been cut from 5.1 billion dollars in 2010 to about 3.3 billion now.

so the loss is close to $2 billion in assistance to help families. >> srennivasan: besides the northeast or midwest are places say for example in the deep south worse off because they don't necessarily have the infrastructure, they don't prepare for it like the northeast does? >> well it's a little bit different. here's what happens. you know, the federal funding that is sort of base funding that we call it. and then states utilities add money to that. most of the extra money that is added to energy assistance in the northeast and west states also in those states they are very strong shuttoff protection. so you fall behind in your bill say in massachusetts, you can't be shut off. it's a public health concern. as you go south especially the southern states and the western states they really are no shuttoff protections or they are much weaker. so if you are a low income family say in north carolina it's much harder. you fall behind in your bill the state has less money to work with. there is fewer utility supports an they're more likely to get into a shut

off situation or fall further behind in their bill because there's just less money to help them with. i mean this is not like curing cancer. we have very very straightforward problem. it's a bill. and the northeast and midwest states have more money than the south or western states. >> this gets to the philosophical question of what is the role of government and what is the role of assistant poverty right? >> exactly. in a sense there's a broad agreement that programs like snap or food stamps medicaid, they are entitlement programs in the sense that if you are eligible based on income there will always be money to help you. energy assistance is discretionary grant program which means when the appropriation runs out the program ends. so that there is a real difference. it's a societal agreement to help people with food to help old age elderly people with social security. there's not a broad societal agreement to help people with energy. and that's the real key

difference. one the other differences in energy, though and this is where i think we get into this situation of families getting to unaffordable cases, it's not just the price of energy it's also how much you use. so if this turns out this winter turns out to continue to be as cold as it is then families will just need more money to pay their energy bill. and there's nothing to help them. that's the problem. they have to substitute. and low income families buy less medicine less food because they have to pay their energy bill. so it is a complicated question. but we've answered it in the area of food. we've answered it with sometimes cases if you are low income getting housing assistance. we haven't really answered it with energy. >> srennivasan: all right mark wolfe executive director of the national energy assistance directors association. thanks so much. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: how are some americans coping with high utility bills this winter? read their personal stories and share your own. visit www.pbs.org/newshour.

>> this is pbs newshour weekend sunday. >> sreenivasan: a report published earlier this week in the medical journal "the lancet" warns that millions of people-- primarily in asia and africa-- are potentially at risk from a new strain of malaria. it's resistant to one of the main drugs used to treat the often fatal disease. i.t.v.'s science correspondent alok jha has our report. >> reporter: malaria is one of the world's most deadly diseases. caused by a parasite spread by mosquitoes, it infected 200 million people last year alone and killed over 600,000. vaccines and drugs that were used to fight the parasite in the mid-20th century soon became useless as the bug developed resistance. a new drug, artemisinin, gave hope in recent decades, but new research shows that that, too, is losing its power.

we now know because of the molecular machinery of the parasite that works to overcome this drug. >> in 2005 the mall ar all parasite were discovered in cambodia. it has now spread to four other countries. laos, myanmar burma thailand and vietnam. today's report in "the lancet" medical journal shows that the resistance is now prevalent in myanmar, and cases have appeared just 15 miles from the indian border. if the spread continues and reaches india or africa, the consequences would be dire. i think it's-- i think it's imperative that we get on top of this. we do have this early warningment now is the time to act to actually take action and make sure that this does not spread. because if it does we're going to see millions of children in africa dying from this. the number of deaths from malaria have been falling in recent years. with the spread of the drug

resistant parasites could easily reverse that trend. >> srennivasan: some more news before we leave you tonight. the win of 2015 just won't let up. frigid temperatures once again are expected over much of the nation tomorrow. and boxing gloves worn by muhammad ali during ali's first successful title defense in 1965 were auctioned this weekend for $956,000. on the newshour monday special correspondent reports from gaza. >> in parts of gaza what were once whole towns are now piles of rubble. it looks like an enormous earthquake ripped through here. but this is all the result of the ferocious summer war between israel and hamas. months later and it still looks like the day after.

>> that's it for this deician of nh sddz weekend edition. i'm hari sreenivasan >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by ntributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

- welcome to independent lens. i'm your host, stanley tucci. ham hocks, collard greens, and fried chicken: this sounds like a perfect sunday meal or a heart-clogging recipe for disaster depending on your perspective. - the reality is that in america there is a class-based apartheid in the food system. - for independent filmmaker byron hurt soul food was a way to connect with his culture, his roots, and his father a connoisseur of this cuisine. but when his pops faced a health crisis, byron began to question whether this high-fat, high-calorie fare was bringing his community together or tearing it apart. - should call it death food, because it will kill you. - this is the story of food deserts and community gardens, of black identity and health politics, and how to honor our heritage when tradition may be too tasty for our own good.