captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: unmasked, the islamic state extremist in most of the gruesome execution videos has been identified. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. also ahead this thursday a parade of republican presidential hopefuls gather to talk conservative priorities and strategy for 2016. >> if i decide to run for president im not worried about what polls say 21 months before we're going to elect the president of the united states. i will run a hard fighting campaign where i will fight for hardworking tax payers of this country. and i'll take my chances on me. >> woodruff: then, former senator jim webb on his possible bid for the democratic nomination for president. >> i think it's time to put my oar in the water and actually try and lead and do some things rather than to observe.

>> ifill: plus, building a bigger safety net in retirement, tips on how to maximize your social security benefits. >> woodruff: and, the triumph over slavery captured in the brush stokes of painter hale woodruff. >> once a triumphant story where the underdog, who is underdogs who are black men, are able to take control of their lives and actually set their own destiny was something that people found thrilling. and i think some other people found quite threatening. >> woodruff: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's "pbs newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> this is about more than work. it is about growing a community. everyday across the country, the men and women of the i.b.e.w. are committed to doing the job right, doing the job safe, and doing the job on time. because while we might wire your street, we're also your friends

and neighbors. 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. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the worlds most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting.

and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: house republicans are now considering a short-term measure to keep the homeland security department functioning. republican sources tell "the newshour" the temporary bill could fund the agency for three weeks. otherwise, it runs out of money tomorrow night. until now, the house g.o.p. has been demanding a funding bill that rolls back the president's immigration policy. senate democrats repeatedly blocked it. their leader, harry reid, stuck by that today. if they send over a bill with all the riders in it, they've shut down the government. we are not going to play games. we've been working for a month to come up with a clear funding proposal the president can sign so they can, they can put all the riders on it they want, we will not allow that to take place. >> ifill: senate republican leaders have now agreed to go ahead with a long-term funding bill without the immigration language.

but house speaker john boehner would still not say today if that's acceptable. >> it is not a fight amongst republicans. all republicans agree that we want to fund the department of homeland security and we want to stop the president's executive actions with regard to immigration. so we are waiting to see what the senate can or can't do. and then we'll make decisions about how we are going to proceed. >> ifill: unless something is signed into law by the weekend 30,000 homeland security employees will be furloughed. another 200,000 will have to work for a time without pay. >> woodruff: a sweeping regulatory shakeup is coming to the internet to ensure "net neutrality," the idea that no one has favored or faster access than anyone else. the federal communications commission voted three to two today for a new rule. it says comcast, verizon and other service providers must act in the "public interest." they're barred from slowing or

blocking web traffic or creating special "for pay" fast lanes. the broadband industry vowed to challenge the rule in court. >> ifill: russia has now become the leading cyber-threat to u.s. national security. the director of national intelligence, james clapper, said as much to congress today. it's part of an annual assessment. but this year, russia displaced china as the lead threat. clapper offered no explanation. >> woodruff: in syria, the number of christians abducted by islamic state forces this week has risen to at least 220. that's according to a report today by syrian activists. meanwhile, in iraq, a new islamic state video showed militants smashing ancient artifacts at a museum in mosul. they declared the objects were unholy idols. some were nearly 3,000 years old. >> ifill: the death toll from avalanches in northeastern afghanistan rose to at least 186 today. funerals were held for many of the victims, in the panjshir

valley, 60 miles from kabul. relatives hand-carried the bodies through deep snow. >> ( translated ): the snow was too strong and so heavy. i have never seen such a heavy snow in nigh my60-year life. it is too strong. we could not even reach out to our neighbors for several hours. >> ifill: officials say the death toll could go higher once crews reach the hardest hit areas. >> woodruff: a judge in argentina has dismissed allegations that president cristina fernandez covered up iranian involvement in a 1994 bombing. the attack killed 85 people at a jewish community center. a prosecutor filed the complaint before he died, under mysterious circumstances. evidence implicating fernandez. >> ifill: back in this country a federal jury in new york convicted a saudi arabian man today in the 1998 bombings of two u.s. embassies. prosecutors said khaled al- fawwaz was an early leader of al-qaeda. the bombings in kenya and tanzania killed 224 people.

>> woodruff: the senate judiciary committee approved the nomination of loretta lynch today, for attorney general. three republicans joined committee democrats in the 12 to eight vote. if the full senate confirms her lynch will be the first african- american woman to serve as attorney general. >> ifill: running back adrian peterson has been cleared for re-instatement to the minnesota vikings. the national football league had suspended him through mid-april over a child abuse case. today, a federal judge found the league punished him under a policy that was not yet in force when he was charged with the crime. the nfl said it will appeal. >> and on wall street, a fresh drop in >> woodruff: and on wall street, a fresh drop in oil prices hurt energy stocks. that sent the dow jones industrial average down ten points, but it's still above 18,200. the nasdaq rose 20 points, and the s-and-p 500 slipped three. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour, extremists at home and abroad.

conservatives gather to test candidates for 2016; former senator jim webb on testing democratic waters; legalizing marijuana in washington d.c.; what you need to know in order to maximize social security benefits; the life of pioneering journalist ethel payne, the first lady of the black press; and, a tale of enslavement, rebellion, and repatriation, in murals. >> woodruff: following yesterday's discovery of three men in the united states attempting to join the islamic state, the world learned today the identity of "jihadi john" one of the extremist group's most infamous members. >> i'm back, obama and i'm back because of your arrogant foreign policy towards islamic state. >> woodruff: the british voice behind the mask has repeatedly threatened the u.s., britain and

their allies, in videos showing hostages being brutally murdered. >> woodruff: today, it was widely reported that british and u.s. intelligence have identified the man as mohammed emwazi. born in kuwait, he grew up in a predominantly muslim neighborhood in west london. and graduated with a degree in computer programming from the university of westminster. in 2009, emwazi traveled to tanzania, on what he said was a safari. he told a muslim advocacy group that british intelligence accused him of trying to reach the "al-shabaab" terror group in somalia, and he was deported. later, he moved to kuwait, and visited london at least twice. he ultimately traveled to syria in 2012. outside his former london home today, neighbors expressed

disbelief at emwazi's alleged actions. >> he thinks it is jihad, no it is not jihad, i am telling him no it is not jihad, you are killing people as jihad, no it is not jihad, sorry. >> woodruff: the "jihadi john" news came a day after the f.b.i. charged two brooklyn men of uzbeki and kazakh background with trying to fly to syria to join islamic state fighters. new york city police commissioner bill bratton. >> it was made quite plain based on their own statements that if they were not able to go, that they would seek to acquire weapons here, handguns, machine gun, and seek to attack very specifically police officers and so that those aspirations were made quite clear by their own statements. >> woodruff: the two men, plus a third man in jacksonville, florida are being held without bail on charges of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist group. >> woodruff: to help fill in both stories, i'm joined by peter neumann director of the

international center for the study of radicalization at kings college in london. peter neumann, welcome back to the newshour. is there any doubt that this man is the man in those terrible videos? >> i don't have any doubts. i think confirmations have come from different angles, and i read today that a member of the u.s. intelligence services even though he didn't want to be named, confirmed the identity. so i'm pretty certain it is the man. >> woodruff: what is it about him that you see and his journey from being born in kuwait, moving to london. what is it about that journey that stands out to you that may be distinctive or like what you've seen happen to others who have become radicalized? >> so there's a lot of pieces of the puzzle that we do not have

yet. it's certainly not unusual for someone from fairly middle-class background who went to university to become radicalized. it is a fallacy to think that you necessarily have to be poor and uneducated to become attracted to that kind of ideology. what we often observe with people like that is that wherever they come from, they do not feel that they have a stake in their society and that they have conflicts of identity that do not automatically turn them into terrorists but that make them receptive for the sort of black-and-white message that comes from extremists the sort of message that says, you do not have a stake in this society because you do not belong to that society. you have to pick. are you british or a muslim? you cannot be british and muslim at the same time. i think in the case of this particular individual, that may have happened at the university where he was going, which is known to have been a university where radical groups were active. >> woodruff: there was also--

there seemed to be a suggestion that-- from the information coming out of london that he-- that he had been harassed bye-bye british intelligence, and maybe this was something that pushed him over the edge. how do you see that? >> well, i i think this is an argument that has been put forward by a group called cage. cage is calling itself a human rights group, but it is quite controversial because it essentially always tries to portray people who have become involved in terrorism offenses as victims. and again, i think they are confusion cause and effect. the reason why he was harassed by the security services is because even before the conflict started he tried to go to east africa and join al-shabaab. so if you want the harassment of the security services was an outcome. it was not the cause of his radicalization. what i'm really interested in is what happened in the years

before he went to east africa because that is his real radicalization. >> woodruff: peter neumann now, let me ask you about these two men in brooklyn who-- one was uzbek. the other was kazakh in baectd. they were background. they were involved in internet chat rooms. what do you see about their background that helps us understand what happened here? >> it's very difficult. i mean, we would consider them in our research we would consider them to be so-called "fan boys." there are hundred if not thousands of people on the internet who are making supportive statements of-- in favor of isis. and they were unlucky, from their point of view in the sense that the f.b.i. picks up on them and involved them in a so-called sting operation. we do not know what would have happened to them had the f.b.i. not picked them up. what's really difficult though

in defense of the f.b.i., is because they there are so many people out there, it is very very difficult to distinguish which ones of these people on the internet are just talking and which ones are actually ready to pack their bags and go to syria? we've seen evidence both and nition this particular case, the f.b.i. did not want to take a chance. >> woodruff: peter neumann, with kings college in london we thank you for being with us again. >> thank you judy. >> ifill: conservative activists flock to suburban washington every year to join forces streamline their message and provide an audience for the men and women interested in running for president. this year is no different. over two days, potential republican candidates are making their case at the conservative political action conference, also known as cpac. newshour political director domenico montanaro was there.

♪ o, say can you see >> reporter: welcome to the republican race for 20-16. >> this is a room full of patriots. >> reporter: texas senator ted cruz is one of more than a dozen republicans thinking about running for president who spoke at the conservative political action conference, better known as c-pac. he fired up the crowd with tough talk on terrorism. >> we need a commander in chief who will actually stand up and defend the usa. we cannot defeat radical islamic terrorism with a president who is unwilling to utter words radical islamic terrorism. >> reporter: despite trailing in early polls, new jersey governor chris christie showed some of the defiance he's famous for. >> if i decide to run for president i'm not worried about what polls say 21 months before we're going to elect the president of the united states. if i decide to run let me tell you one thing-- i will run a hard-fighting campaign where i will fight for hard-working

taxpayers of this country. and i'll take my chances on me. >> reporter: for conservatives looking for a fresh face neurosurgeon ben carson, who has never held a political office, is a tea party favorite. >> we need to move in a very different direction, we need to understand what true compassion is in order to reach out to individuals who think that maybe being dependent is reasonable as long as they feel safe, and it isn't. >> reporter: the candidate with recent momentum is wisconsin governor scott walker. >> we understand that people create jobs, not the government, and we're going to help the the people of this great country create more jobs, create more careers, create more opportunity. >> reporter: many conservatives believe walker is best positioned to give florida governor jeb bush, the current front runner, a strong challenge. cpac faithful will have a chance to hear him tomorrow. >> ifill: domenico is back from the conference and joins me

now. chris christie has a point. 20 months out. what was today's conference supposed to accomplish? >> it's really a first chance for a lot of these candidates to be able to woo some of these activists that they're going to hope might be on some of their campaigns in 2016. it all gives us, frankly, an opportunity to see what some of their messaging might be like. speaking of christie, it really struck me, as he's trying to really own that blue-collar message, which is new for him, i think, but he also saw in 2012 that worked for rick santorum to be somebody who could really capture the plu-collar message. it helped meefs running against somebody worth a quarter billion dollars but i think that's something we learned today we're going to hear a little more from christie as he struggles in the polls. >> ifill: we're hearing from washington a lot of conversation about immigration reform and other domestic policy issues. what dominated the discussion there? >> there were some domestic issues. we heard about repealing obamacare, which is something that came up way more in the cpac discussions but i was interested in the fact that the hawks were back in town. foreign policy really dominated

a lot of the conversation and fired up the crowd more so-- >> ifill: for instance. >> cruz in that bite we heard, he was saying the way you fight isis or fight these terrorists, the islamic state group. you kill them, you don't try to offer them a job, referring to a state department employee who said the economy is one of the issues. carly farina, not something you would think of as a big policy hawk, she mostly talked about foreign policy, really got the crowd going. >> ifill: and lot of love for benjamin netanyahu coming to this give this controversial speech. >> scott walker mentioned netanyahu and we need a president who will stand with one of our staunchest allies as well. >> ifill: did it seem like they were already running against hillary clinton? >> that's part of it for sure. many candidatementioned hillary clinton. i think barack obama is the bigger lightning rod. that said we didn't hear another single candidate's name mentioned when it comeses to 2016. clearly they have theirsitis set

on hillary. >> ifill: behind the scenes, who is working hardest today? tomorrow we see jeb bush and the others. >> i thought it was interesting being down there, the most professionalization around the conference looked like it was from senator ruz really. if he does well in the straw poll, then he'll be back in the conversation. there were professional posters of him that were put out for people. buttons that looked like real campaign but frons maybe a generation ago. and-- because now everyone has twitter handles. it's not about buttons anymore. he was mentioning "text me and text constitution." so him and walker were really doing a lot of that. >> ifill: domenico montanaro thanks again. >> woodruff: tonight we begin a series of interviews with the men and women who are considering running for president next year. it is a wide field from both the

left and the right. and we start with democrat jim webb of virgina, an author and veteran who served six years in the u.s. senate and was secretary of the navy under president reagan. senator jim webb, thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me sphwhroo.>> woodruff: so you formed an exploratory committee. why are you considering running? >> i think leadership. i think the country really is in need of leadership that people can trust, and this is sort of the third time that i have done this in my professional career, in terms of deciding to come into public service after leaving for a while. i've had this professional life where almost exactly half the time identify worked as a writer and business consultant, sole proprietor, and half the time i've been in public service. i came back in actually to the reagan administration after i had been in beirut when the building blew up and 240 americans died, i called the

reagan administration who i had talked to before and i said i think it's time to put my oar in the water and actually try and lead and do some things rather than to observe. i did the same thing when i ran for senate. and so i think i've had a set of experiences inside and outside of public service that would help me understand the issues that we have and hopefully be able to put together the kind of an administration that can actually get things done. >> woodruff: what would be say the economic landmark of a webb administration? what would you do, for example, about-- to get employers to raise wages in this country? >> well, i think we've seen over the last 30 years the breakdown of the way that our corporate leaders took care of the average american worker. and i've spoken about this during the senate campaign and during the time that i was in the senate, we don't have two americas anymore.

we have three americas. we are people at the very top who have moved away from the working people in the country, and we're seeing two different sets of challenges with respect to working people. the first is growing our economy getting manufacturing jobs back. we can do that by reducing the corporate income tax, eliminating loopholes, intent vising the money to come back in. the american worker is the most productive worker in the world. the second is the reality, particularly among younger workers today, that the old model doesn't work anymore. people are basically becoming independent contractors rather than full-time workers and we have to create solutions for people who are in that situation over a career. >> woodruff: you've also talked. when the two parties -- both parties you said have been taken over by elet's. hillary clinton is someone you suggested, along with others, who may be too close to with the. how do you see that part of what

the democratic has done? >> well i haven't really commented, and i don't want to comment on other people who might be run ago. >> sreenivasan: they're saying she's the front-runner even though she hasn't announced. >> in january, i think we need to be developing formulas that will create an understanding of true fairness in our country. and the biggest breakdown, if you look at the time period from april 2009 to today when the recession bottomed out and started to come back has basically been between people who have capital safeties people who were part of the corporate environment particularly, and people who are just salaried workers. the stock market has tripled since april 2009. it's above 18,000. it was 6400. the average working person's income has actually gone down, and we need a voice in the democratic party that will focus on the economic fairness package as a principal governing factor. >> woodruff: you have been

quoted as saying democrats have "used white working males as a whipping post for a lot of their policies in an effort to focus on the poor women and minorities." >> well, no i didn't see on an effort to focus on the poor women, and minorities. there are a lot of poor, white working people. here's i think what i said has been a little misunderstood by some of the people who have been reporting on it. if you guys look at, for instance, your show, your recent show that talked about the demographics looking into i think 2016 was on your show, and one of the projections was that by 2060, i think it was 37 states will be majority minority. the term "majority minority" is an orwellian term. it shows what's happened in this country, and that is that we have all these different racial groups that have i think aligned themselves by party rather than by economic circumstances. every single racial group in this country has people who are

very successful and people who are not. and that also includes the whites, by culture, rather than simply by individuals. the poorest county in america is clay county, kentucky which is 94% white. what i've been saying is, in terms of inclusiveness in the democratic party, they need to include this group as we move forward in terms of issues of economic fairness. >> woodruff: white working males. >> well, rather than dividing people by race, we should be examining the obligation to everyone in terms of their economic circumstances. i think the democratic party can do a much better job of this. and we're going to see a transformation in the american political process over the next 10 to 20 years. we're going to put racial politics aside and we're going to start looking again at

economic glooshz just a word excuse me about foreign policy because you've been very critical of the obama administration, former secretary of state clinton, about interventions, in libya in particular overseas. you were against the iraq war under president bush. my question is how far removed would you keep an american military presence? for example right now in iraq the hundreds of u.s. trainers who are there working with the iraqi military, the kurds to fight isis, what would-- would you take those trainers out? what would your posture be towards isis? >> again this wasn't simply a comment about the obama administration and libya. i have been saying this each since the end of the cold war, that we need to have a new doctrine that clearly articulates american security interests around the world, and to build our objectives based on clearly articulated doctrine. on the one hand, i did say five months before the invasion of

iraq, that this was going to be a strategic blunder and i did say the way we went into libya creates serious problems for us. but on the other hand, i have led what has been called the pivot to asia. i focused on this all my adult life, the fact that we need to be militarily, economically, and culturally strong in the east and southeast asia. so this isn't simply, you know, we shouldn't be using military force. it's clearly articulating the circumstances under which we address our national policy glooz what would you be doing about isis right now? >> well, isis has demonstrated i think clearly that they are an international terrorist organization. their principal focus is not the united states. i don't see that. it is in that region. but since they have demonstrated that they are an international terrorist organization, we should be carefully articulating a military policy that goes after these people.

i don't think there's any question about that. that doesn't mean we should become an occupying force in that part of the world. we now are reaping the consequences of the way we invaded and occupied iraq. >> woodruff: jim webb, who is considering running for president, we thank you for talking with us. >> thank you. thank you for having me. >> woodruff: for the record, senator webb won an emmy for an essay he did for the newshour in 1983 on marines in beirut, just before the deadly bombing of the barracks. you can watch that on our webiste, pbs.org/newshour. >> woodruff: the use and possession of small amounts of marijuana became legal in the nation's capital today. last november, voters overwhelmingly voted to allow possession of up to two ounces of the drug. the initiative was not as sweeping as in colorado and washington state, which

legalized recreational use in 2012. or in alaska, where cultivation and use became legal this week. but washington d.c., a federal jurisdiction with local laws, has run straight into the crossroads of the nation's drug debate. what's permissible? what's legal? for that, we turn to mike debonis of the washington post. one of the interesting things about this particular law is that congress, or at least some members of congress, tried to stop it. why is that? >> well, gwen thanks for having me on. quite simply, there are certain members of congress almost all of them-- all of them republicans, most of them members of the house who simply do not think that the marijuana should be legally possessed and used in the nation's capital. and they took action to stop the district from moving forward with the law passed by its residents by attaching a piece of language to the funding bill passed by congress in late

december to fund the government through the rest of the fiscal year this year. and what the language said was no funds could be used by the district government to enact any measure that would liberalize marijuana laws in the district of columbia. now there is a dispute between the republicans who sponsored that language and voted for it, and the city and democratic members of congress who say there's room within that language to allow what was passed by the voters in november to go forward. >> ifill: there was overwhelming passage of this, 70%-- >> 71%. >> ifill: vote forward it. and in addition, last july, they decriminalized. instead of going to jail, you just pay a fine if you are found in position of weed. is this a difference without a distinction? >>ening a lot of ways it is, but

it is another step. it really is more of a big psychological distinction to say that marijuana is legal, we have legal marijuana possession and use in the district of columbia versus decriminalized. i think much as there is a big difference between civilians same-sex civilians and same-sex manner for a lot of people, i think there's a similar difference in the use of terminology, even if the practical effect is not very different. >> ifill: let's talk for a moment about the practical effect. because this law will allow people to possess small amounts to grow what, six plant at a time, but not to sell it, not to even smoke it outdoors. >> that's right. the big catch is that due to the timing of all of this, the fact that the referendum was passed in november, and then congress put a halt to any further action in december, what you have is the letter of the law that

passed in that november referendum is now on the books. but the city is powerless to do anything to add, subtract, or modify what was in the referendum. so that means that they cannot establish a taxation regime, a regime to regulate the sales of marijuana. so what you have now is that people can have marijuana. they can smoke it. they can grow it on their own private premises. they can use it on their own private premises but they cannot sell it. they cannot buy it. >> ifill: i just want to-- i'm curious where that puts the district of columbia on the continuum of other jurisdictions which have moved to legalize marijuana. is it less liberal, more liberal? >> it's hard to even put it on that continuum. it's really one of a kind. in some ways it's more liberal. in the district under this new law, you can have two ounces of marijuana, which is more than

you can have legally at any one time in washington or colorado or alaska. on the other hand, the fact that there's no legal sales or there's no legal public use, public accommodations for using marijuana makes it more conservative than those other place glfs and it is still a federal violation in the city that so much of its land is federal property. >> that's right. >> ifill: to have-- or use or sell or exchange marijuana in any way, right? that's right. and what's notable about that is that our local u.s. attorney here has said that he is basically going to treat the district much as the justice department has treated states that have liberalized their marijuana laws. they are going to follow the same guidance which was contained in a memo issued by the justice department more than a year ago. basically what that means is the justice department is sending

the signal that they're not going to be concerned with enforcing federal marijuana laws where local authorities aren't going to be concerned with enforcing their local laws. >> ifill: one thing we know for sure there will be no pot smoking on the steps of the jefferson memorial. none of that is going to happen. >> and certainly not in the halls of congress. >> ifill: and certainly not in the halls of congress. mike debonis of the "washington post," thank you very much. >> thanks gwen. >> woodruff: most americans depend on social security in retirement, yet navigating the system is often complex and confusing. economics correspondent paul solman has co-authored a new book on the ins and outs of the benefit system and tonight he shares some of what he's learned. it's part of our ongoing reporting: "making sense," which airs every thursday on the newshour.

>> reporter: it's often said that aging america faces a retirement crisis, and according to the aarp, the main source of income for nearly half of americans in older age is social security. a simple system established during the great depression to provide a safety net for the indigent in their old age. today, it's become a mountain of rules, more than 2000 of them, successfully climbed only by those who get good guidance from social security or from someone like economist larry kotlikoff. a few years ago on this tennis court on a somewhat more hospitable day. he asked me a question: >> what are you doing about social security. >> and i said, "we have it all figured out as i absolutely thought we did. we're going to wait until 70, and then we get the maximum benefit. >> right, and i figured you didn't know what you were doing so i asked how old you and jan were. >> and i said, perhaps

defensively-- what difference does it make. i'm about to turn 66. jan is roughly the same age. >> it makes a big difference. i bet i can get you an extra $30,000 $40,000. >> he said my wife should apply at age 66, but suspend it. get herself into the system, that is, but not take any. s yet. then when i turn 66, i'd apply for a spousal benefit amounting to half of what my wife was entitled to. then, when we each hit 70 we'd take our own retirement benefits, which would have risen to their maximum. the result-- almost $50,000 in additional income for my family in spousal benefits over the four years between 66 and 70. there are lots of secrets like the spousal benefit, it turns out. for the disables, the divorced, the widowed, those taking care of kids or elderly parents.

so i invited larry to answer viewer questions on our "making sense" page every monday. his column's success prompted us to write a book of social security advice "get what's yours" "money" magazine's moeller completing the trio of authors. moeller explained how important social security is for most people. >> it's the most valuable retirement asset they have. >> so the first piece of advice you give people? >> the first piece of advice is to get all the benefits to which you're entitled and among these the one that is most often overlooked is spousal. s. the second point is get them in the right time and that means being patient. >> reporter: the average social security benefit in america at age 62 is just over 12,000 a year. but for every year you defer your benefit, it increases. and if you wait till 70 you get

fully 76% more, more than $21,000 a year in this example. but close to half of all recipients start taking their benefits at the age of 62, thus locking in the lowest monthly benefit rate for the rest of their lives. and less than 2% of us hold out for the maximum retirement benefit at age 70. many people have no choice but to start early. >> but it turns out that when people learn about their benefits and how they can grow a lot of them decide to take them later. how old was your dad, paul, when he passed away? >> just a little over 99. >> yeah, so you might live that long. imagine that whatthat will be like. >> reporter: yes, i had planned to wait until 70, but it turns out, as i discussed with larry kotlikoff in a made-for-tv hospital, i was following the wrong prescription. i thought how long do i have to live before the higher benefits waiting until age 70, will be as great or greater than the

benefits i left on the table by not taking social security earlier? >> that kind of break-even analysis is just nuts because social security is really an insurance mechanism. you don't look at buying homeowner's insurance on a break-even basis. you look at the worst-case scenario, the catastrophe that your house burns down. >> reporter: that argument of yours actually clinched the deal for me, because i thought, hey what's the worst that could happen? i outlive my savings, and then my kids are on the hook for health care costs. >> right. we have to think about social security as providing insurance against one of our biggest risks which is what? it's not dying. it's living to a very old age and you end up in a place like this, and you have a huge expenses, medical expenses and you need money. >> reporter: but americans take their benefits early for reasons other than just needing the money. >> they take them early because they don't think they're going to live a long time. and medicine of people take their benefits early because

they're pretty convinced the system's going to run out of money and they better get every dollar they can as soon as they can. >> reporter: and aren't people taking their money early because of chicken littles like you. you've been arguing for years that social security is bankrupt. the system is proak. so why shouldn't a person take their money as soon as they can? >> well, the system is absolutely broke but i still don't think that anybody who is now retired or anybody who is close to getting retired is going to see any benefit cuts politically. >> reporter:and by "politically" you mean it's just too hot an issue? >> that's why-- that's why cutting social security benefits has long been described as the third rail of politics. >> if you look at the system in the nearer term despite all of its problems, it has enough money to pay every dollar it's supposed to pay for more than 20 years, about 20 years, and then it can still pay 70 cents on the dollar for every benefit it owes. >> reporter: and that's assuming no reforms at all.

reforms like, say, getting rid of or heavily taxing benefits such as the ones my wife and i took benefits some people consider loopholes. >> well you could view it as a loophole. on the other hand you paid a lot of tax and there are other loopholes in our sthe mortgage interest deconduction for example, would it be fair for some of us to take it and not others because we know about it? i don't see any reason why people shouldn't take what they're legally entitled to. >> this is economic correspondent paul solman reporting for the pbs newshour. >> ifill: now, as black history month draws to a close, we talk to the author of a new book about a black woman journalist who was nearly alone in her field. >> ifill: she is the the most influential journalist and activist most have never heard

of. ethel payne began her career at a strd black newspaper that specialized in telling stories. payne traveled the world covered every president from eisenhower to reagan, traveled to vietnam, and repeatedly to africa. she was front and center at the montgomery bus boycott at the deseg exwaigz of little rock central high school. she is known as the first lady of the black press. her groundbreaking work has been obscured by time. biographer james mcgrath sets out to correct that in his new book "eye on the struggle." welcome. this strikes me as one of those stories where how you tell it depends on the person whose story you're telling. she's a storyteller, but ethel payne's story was different. >> ethel payne's story was very different. and the thing that her not being known today is really a legacy of segregation in that she was iconic to a large segment of the u.s. population, but like most

black institutions the chicago defender was entirely invisible to white americans. and so she functioned in this world, was incredibly important in informing her readers and activating her readers yet the rest of the nation marched on without knowing who she was. >> ifill: one of the things about the black press at the time is that they were advocates for people who had moved north, many of them because of the great migration. it was a different role. >> a very different role. but she also saw herself as vehicle a different role as a correspondent in washington, merely getting for her apartment to the white house could be a problem because a cab might not pick her up as an african american. so the notion of discussing civil rights with the president of the united states, in that case eisenhower, she felt she was part of in her words the problem, and she couldn't pursue typical objective reporting. instead she adopted a measure of being fair. it may seem like a small distinction, but it wasn't. her questions were ladened with an agenda. >> ifill: and how did these presidents and powerful people react to her?

>> well, it depended. eisenhower at first called on her repeatedly, and at this point, she was discovering that asking a question at a national press conference, having a seat at the table, if you wish made a huge difference, because when she asked a question, it forced the main stream-- white media-- to report on an issue, civil rights that they were ignoring. so eisenhower took the questions, but when they became difficult, he got very upset and he froze her out of-- he wouldn't call on her anymore. >> ifill: and yet she didn't necessarily always toe the line on civil rights. for instance, she was critical at times of martin luther king. >> she was. she was critical of him, but what she worried about-- and this is a fine line somebody like her had to dance or walk-- is that she was worried that criticism being aired in the white world. for instance, there were moments when a black leader would say something to a mixed audience, and that worried her. but within her reporting and within her own audience, she was

at times very critical of different leaders. >> ifill: she was in the journalism business. she was out of it. sometimes she was an advocate work labor unions or she was doing very many things. >> oh, voter registration for the democratic party. >> ifill: could someone like her, who was as easily an advocate as a journalist, could they exist today in this environment? >> well, they do. i mean, if you look at some forms of the media there seems to be no line between their advocacy and their job in the media. but no, i think traditional journalism would object to what she was doing. but there was also economic need. when worked for "the defender" as the washington correspondent she had to pick up extra work to make ends meet. this wasn't a world of high-paid journalism. >> ifill: she got a job working for cbs news that added substantially to her takehome pay. >> it certainly did. when she became on television oradio a black commentator or a commentator who was black, what was interesting to me is what a profound effect that had on viewers. i met a man with who became an

anchor in several major markets, an african american male who is now retired, and he said when he saw her on tv he realized that career was possible. >> ifill: that's kind of what i'm curious about with ethel payne and other journalists of her generation whether they had a lasting impact even if many people now are thinking who is that, whether the kinds of walls they broke down made a difference. >> i think less so in terms of the walls but more so in terms of their journalism and writing. one of the things that happened is she helped change the national agenda by her questioning. and then when she left washington and went to cover the front lines of the civil rights movement what, she was reporting back to people, particularly in the north-- you know, chicago is a place martin luther king would come to raise money was a really important link between the movement and the readers. and that really helped change things. and she also was incredibly perceptive as a journalist, even though, as i said, the white media wasn't reading her work. she was the first to see the

change in leadership that took place in montgomery where men of the cloth, as she described, she said this new gladiator goes into the battle wearing a reverse collar and bible in his hand. that may seem light in town toen but what she was noticing is a really important transformation and who was getting the news first were african americans and not the white press. >> ifill: i have to end by quoting back to you something in your book from ernest green, one of the little rock 9. looking back he said, "ethel and the black press put themselves out of business." >> and he's right. their success of being part of the civil rights movement meant the best reporters got hired by the white press and the economic base of black press disappeared. when the black press got started in chicago, the "chicago tribune" had no interest in covering anything involving african americans. "the defender" had an economic basis. but as soon as the media the mainstream media started paying

attention, that cut the economic feet out from underneath most of the blark newspapers. >> ifill: james mcgrath, "eye on the struggle," ethel payne, the first lady of the black press. thank you for bringing bringing this story to us,. >> you're welcome, thank you very much. >> woodruff: finally tonight, a national tour of paintings by african american artist hale woodruff lands in washington telling a powerful story of enslavement, rebellion and repatriation. jeffrey brown has more. >> brown: though rooted in a tark chapter of american history, the paintings are rendered in brilliant colors and together convey a story of triumph over one of the worst forms of adversity. >> these men had been captured as it turned out illegally, had been taken against their will to cuba where they were destined to be enslaved on sugar plantationing which was the worst fate you could have.

>> brown: "rising up" an exhibition in atlanta and now at the smithsonian in washington showcases what are known as the talladega murals. they were commissioned in 1938 by talladega college in alabama. one of the early historically black colleges founded after the civil war. to tell the story of the amstad, when 53 africans revolted on a spanish ship carrying them to slavery in the americas in 1839. i spoke with jaclyn sawyer, the chief curator of the soon to open african american history and culture museum. >> you see these are people who have taken control, who have decided what has to happen and they're willing to risk their lives to do it. >> announcer: it's a story made familiar by the 1997 steven spielberg film "amstad."

the mural shows the violent rebellion on the spanish ship, in which the africans broke free, killed the captain and cook, and took control. a second panel shows their first trial in the u.s. where after 63 days at sea attempting to return to africa, they'd landed. they were tried in connecticut for murder in a case eventually argued before the u.s. supreme court where they were defended by former president john quincy adams. finally a third panel shows their return to africa following their exoneration. the man behind the murals was hale woodruff, an african american painter who in 1926 bought a one-way ticket to paris. four years later, upon his return to the u.s., woodruff founded the art department at atlanta university. and then he studied under mex dan painter diego rivera, who was known for his murals. >> he had seen the cubism and picasso and matisse and all the work that was going on the

interest in african art there, and so he was very much up to date and imbued with the new ideas associated with modern art, and he was very political, and so he figured that rivera was the person he needed to see and rivera was very much a mentor for him. >> brown: woodruff's work in the 1930s was inspired by the difficult life of southern blacks during the great depression. he showed scenes of poverty and exploitation and in a series of block print he portrayed lynchings, as in this work titled "by parties unknown." >> remember, this was 1938, 1939. this was not the happiest time in the united states for african americans. there were great problems still in the south, lynchings and problems with segregation and so on. >> brown: in 1938, talladega college asked woodruff to commemorate the stories of the amistad, and of the founding of the college in a series of

murals. >> to have for once a triumphant story where the underdogs who were black men are able to take control of their lives and actually set their own destiny was something that people found thrilling and i think probably some other people found quite threatening. >> brown: the murals will be on display in washington until march 1, when they'll head to alabama and cancas city, missouri, before returning to talladega college next year to reside in a new permanent home. fromimjeffrey brown for the pbs newshour. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day, house republicans began considering a measure to keep the homeland security department functioning

for three weeks. and the black-hooded "islamic state" extremist in beheading videos was identified as mohammed emwazi, who was raised in london. >> ifill: on the newshour online, you have an antiquated british tax law to thank for the tradition known as pub crawls. to avoid paying a seventeenth century "hearth tax," british subjects would destroy their chimneys, and they would be forced to find a hot meal at local watering holes. the law didn't last, but "pub culture" did. read about that and other creative ways used to get out of paying taxes, on our home page. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on friday, we'll look at the political firestorm behind israeli prime minister netanyahu's upcoming address to congress. i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you on-line. and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night

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this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera.

historic vote. the fcc approved sweeping new rules for the internet giving the government greater oversight of one of the nation's most important economic engines. black and blue. ibm ceo announces an ambitious spending plan but was she able to win over wall street? why our nation's airline industry is overloaded and under stress. all that and more "nightly business report" for thursday february 26. >> good evening and welcome everyone. a historic day in washington today. here's why. nearly 90% of american adults use the internet and today, a landmark decision in the nation's capitol ushers in a new erea for internet use.