captioning sponsored by newshour productions llc >> ifill: i profoundly regret what happened. >> ifill: president obama apologizes, after confirming al- qaeda-held hostages, including an american, were accidentally killed by u.s. drones inside pakistan. good evening, i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff also ahead this thursday. questions over contributions and conflict of interest. new reports raise questions about the clinton foundation and russian control of u.s. uranium >> ifill: plus, living a true life, what it's like to come out as transgender in america. >> i'm both female in the sense that i'm genetically female, in many ways i'm biologically female, but in some ways i'm

not. i live as a man. so there's a disconnect, some people might say, between my biological sex and my gender identity. >> woodruff: and, an armenian mosaic 100 years after the massacre of a population photographic threads connecting generations of diaspora. those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> at lincoln financial, we believe you're in charge. you're the chief life officer and this is your annual shareholder's meeting. you're overseeing presentations on research and development and welcoming new members of the team. you're in charge of it all. lincoln financial is committed to helping you take charge of your future. life, income, retirement, group benefits and advice. lincoln financial. you're in charge.

>> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> 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: a sudden revelation today, three months after a u.s. attack killed two al-qaeda captives. the victims were humanitarian

aid workers: american warren weinstein of maryland and giovanni lo porto of italy. >> ifill: presidential confirmation came this morning in the white house briefing room. >> it is a cruel and bitter truth that in the fog of war generally and our fight against terrorists specifically, mistakes, sometimes deadly mistakes, can occur. >> ifill: u.s. officials say the two hostages died in mid- january, when a drone fired missiles at a terrorist site inside pakistan. >> we do believe that the >> we believed that this was an al qaida compound, that no civilians were present and that capturing these terrorists was not possible. we do believe that the operation did take out dangerous members of al qaida. what we did not know, tragically, is that al qaida was hiding the presence of warren

and giovanni in this same compound. >> ifill: warren weinstein had made several video appeals for his release after disappearing in lahore, pakistan in 2011. he worked with the u.s. agency for international development. italian giovanni lo porto was kidnapped the next year, helping to build homes for pakistani flood victims. italian prime minister matteo renzi voiced "profound pain" today over lo port and the weinstein family issued a statement, saying in part: back at the white house, president obama offered "deepest apologies" to the families. >> as president and as commander-in-chief, i take full responsibility for all our counter-terrorism operations, including the one that inadvertently took the lives of warren and giovanni. i profoundly regret what happened. >> ifill: it was left to white house press secretary josh earnest to explain why it took three months to announce the deaths.

>> only in the last several days did the intelligence community reach an assessment with a high degree of confidence that dr. weinstein had been killed in a u.s. government counter- terrorism operation. >> ifill: earnest said the government will make payments to both families. an independent review of the attack is also under way. house speaker john boehner suggested congress, too, will have questions. >> we need all the facts for the families and so that we can make sure that nothing like this ever happens again in our efforts to keep americans safe. >> ifill: it also emerged that ahmed farouq, a u.s., pakistani citizen and al-qaeda leader, died in the same raid that killed the hostages. another american, adam gadahn died in a separate drone strike. he had served as a spokesman for the terror network. gadahn was on the f.b.i.'s most wanted terrorists list. he was the first american to be charged with treason since world war two.

>> ifill: we'll return to the announcement of the hostage deaths, and its implications after the news summary. >> woodruff: the u.s. senate confirmed loretta lynch as attorney general today, 56 to 43, after more than a five-month wait. her nomination had stalled over an abortion dispute in a sex trafficking bill. republicans also criticized her support for president obama's immigration orders limiting deportations. democrats, including chuck schumer of new york, said she deserved better. >> she's just great. but, one sad note. there's one cloud on this sunny day and that is the long time it took to confirm her. we've heard about a whole lot of issues completely unrelated to her experience or her qualifications. no one has assailed loretta lynch. >> woodruff: lynch is currently the u.s. attorney for the eastern district of new york. as attorney general, she'll succeed eric holder, who's

clashed frequently with republicans. chuck grassley, who chairs the senate judiciary committee, argued she won't be the "clean break" that's needed. >> no one disputes that she has an impressive legal background. it was her testimony before the committee that caused concerns for many senators, including me. after thoroughly reviewing that testimony, i concluded that she won't lead the department in a different direction. >> woodruff: in the end, ten republicans voted to confirm, including senator mitch mcconnell, the majority leader. lynch will be the first black woman to serve as attorney general. >> ifill: there will be no jail time for former c.i.a. director david petraeus. a federal judge sentenced him to two years' probation today for giving classified material to his mistress, who was also his biographer. he'll also pay a $100,000 fine. the retired general made a brief statement after his court session in charlotte, north

carolina. >> today marks the end of a two-and-a-half-year ordeal that resulted from mistakes i made. as i did in the past, i apologized to those closest to me and many others including those with whom i was privileged to serve in government and in the military over the years. >> ifill: petraeus resigned his c.i.a. post in 2012, after admitting to the affair. before that, he'd led u.s. forces in iraq and afghanistan. >> woodruff: a major merger in the telecom world has crumbled. it was widely reported today that comcast will drop its offer to buy time warner cable for $45 billion. the proposal had run into opposition from federal regulators. a formal announcement could come tomorrow. >> ifill: there's word that north korea may already have 20 nuclear warheads, and the ability to double its arsenal by next year. an account in "the wall street journal" says chinese nuclear

experts relayed that estimate in a closed-door meeting earlier this year. north korea has carried out three nuclear tests in recent years. >> woodruff: leaders of the european union agreed late today to triple the funding for rescuing migrants trying to cross the mediterranean from africa. the announcement came at an emergency session in brussels. cathy newman of independent television news is there. >> reporter: it's a tragedy which for just a minute this afternoon silenced europe's usually vocal political leaders. prime ministers and presidents bowing their heads in memory of the 1700 migrants drowned in the mediterranean after these same e.u. leaders scrapped the search-and-rescue operation. do you think the e.u. has failed in its moral duty? >> i think the e.u. has failed in the sense that 800 people have died. the e.u. has failed in that the flow of vessels and refugees keeps on flowing in. and that's what we're trying to

do now is solve the problem. >> reporter: these more fortunate migrants say military intervention by the west in libya and beyond unleashed chaos which is causing their compatriots to flee in their thousands. so there's a moral obligation to help. >> they're the cause all that is happening in africa. >> reporter: you mean the west destabilizing libya. >> the west and the u.s., they are the cause of what is going on in africa. >> reporter: it's too late for these victims, but the e.u. plan proposed what the italian prime minister has called targeted military intervention, capturing and destroying the people traffickers' vessels. as part of the fight back, the royal navy's hm s "bullwar," already in the mediterranean will pluck hundreds of migrants to safety. once aboard, they have a legal

right to claim asylum in britain, something officials are determined to circumvent. no wonder a senior british diplomat told me this was one of the great insoluble problems of our age-- how to save lives without sacrificing a tough approach to immigration demanded by many european >> woodruff: italy now estimates that up to 200,000 migrants will try to cross from north africa this year. >> ifill: u.s.-led air strikes in syria have killed nearly 2,100 people since september. that's according to the "syrian observatory for human rights", based in britain. the group says more than 1,900 of those killed were "islamic state" fighters, the main targets of the strikes. another 90 were said to be members of the "al nusra front", linked to al-qaeda. 66 of the dead were identified as civilians, including ten children. >> woodruff: back in this country, the u.s. geological survey warned today that man- made earthquakes are on the rise and that oil and gas drilling is to blame.

it's the first comprehensive look at the problem. the report cites growing seismic activity in eight southern and midwestern states where hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is being used intensively. >> ifill: and on wall street, the dow jones industrial average gained 20 points to close near 18,060. the nasdaq also rose 20, finally topping its record close set 15 years ago, in the dot-com bubble. and the s-and-p 500 added five. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour: what deadly strikes say about u.s. drone missions; potential conflicts of interest in donations to the clinton foundation; a personal story of transformation to find one's true self; documenting the armenia diaspora around the world; and, barney frank on his fight against inequality. >> ifill: today's announcement of the accidental killing of two

hostages in pakistan raises questions about the tactics and casualties of war, to explore those we turn to: congressman john delaney of maryland, who was closely involved in the search for warren weinstein. michael leiter, the former director of the national counter terrorism center during the first obama administration. he's now with a national security technology company. and wall street journal national security reporter adam entous. congressman delaney, you were very involved with the family in the effort to find warren weinstein. what canny tell us about that? >> obviously, today is a very sad day for the whole family, and i've had the privilege of getting to know elaine and the daughter, warren's daughters over the last several years as we worked together to try to get warren home. and they're a great family. they've been very strong through this whole process which as you can imagine, has been really hard. but they've also been determined and they've been smart about things to do to both shine attention on warren's case and

to make sure our government is doing everything they can, which is where i was helping them. and our job really was to make sure all of the resources of our government, which as we all know are significant, technological and intelligence resources are being brought to bear on getting warren home. unfortunately, that didn't happen. it's my opinion that we need to do more. we should have done more on warren's case. we should do more for all of these hostages because this is a complicated business. we have a lot of capabilities. men and women who work on bringing our hostages home are terrific people. they work really hard, but it's not clear that things are that it's a signature of an al qaeda operation. and unfortunately in this case and in previous cases we target those spots even though there's a near-certainty that there are not noncombatants or u.s. persons there. but near certainty is not absolute certainty, and intelligence can be imperfect. it was in this case. and when you're going after al qaeda aggressively these things unfortunately, can happen. >> ifill: it wasn't long ago that we heard about kayla

mueller also killed unintentionally. i wonder whether if you're taken hostage now in this region by al qaeda if there is any chance ever of getting out? it doesn't seem like it ends well anymore. >> well, it has ended well in some cases, but the fact is for terrorists, kidnapping is a wonderful force. it forces the u.s. potentially to engage. it gives them an epropaganda value so there are lots of place whrrkz syria, iraq yemen or pakistan, where americans are vulnerable. and putting seals and special operations forces on the ground to try to rescue them, one endangers the hostages and two puts our people on the ground in danger so this is a very tricky operation wherever it happens. >> ifill: adam entous this apparently happened in january, we're not precisely sure when or where. why are we just hearing about it now? >> it took a while per the administration to get else intels which indicated that in this strike, which they assumed was like any other strike, they thought they hit their target.

they thought it was an al qaeda leader. it took a while to pick up intelligence and over heard conversations in which al qaeda memberes were discussing the death of the hostages. at that point they needed to basically go through all the intelligence that they had gathered, other drone feeds that they had to try to piece together what exactly happened. this is, obviously, a very difficult thing to do. it's not like we put a team on the ground to go take samples and collect a body to identify who they were. you can understand why this would take a period of time. >> ifill: how unusual it was to declassify this kind of information? >> i mean, certainly, very limited information has been released about this program. it is largely conducted behind a cloak of secrecy. in this case, you know obviously, al qaeda knows that the two hostages were killed. it was only a matter of time before it did become public. so i think the administration's calculation here was if you keep it secret, it's only going to

make it worse. that said, they didn't disclose everything. they didn't tell us the date of the strike. they didn't tell us precisely where it took place. in fact, in their public comments they're not even cailg it a c.i.a. drone trike. they're calling it a counter-terrorism strike that took place on the border between pakistan and afghanistan. >> ifill: you confirmed it was' drone strike. >> this is a language used in discussing classified information that the administration uses to describe covert programs conducted there. >> ifill: michael leiter, what was the scope of the intelligence failure here? >> well, i think it was potentially significant. and the administration has started an independent review to figure out what went wrong. but i have to say, these operations take a long time to actually manifest themselves. it takes lots and lots of surveillance. usually video surveillance, signals intelligence, maybe human intelligence. and what they obviously saw was a place where al qaeda operatives were assembling, and

what they likely didn't know is there were two other people in there and that's because they were, in fact, hostages so they were never coming and going. so you can sort of imagine what the potential failure was. the second failure, of course, is not knowing in other strike that there was adam gadahan a u.s. person there. clearly, less tragic. he was a member of al qaeda in my view. but there is supposed to be an additional review for u.s. persons. that's important for due process. and that didn't occur before the strike. so we have two separate potential failures one, obviously, with the innocents, vastly more tragic than the other. >> ifill: and both of these failures, congressman delaney occurred in pakistan. and we saw elaine weinstein in her family today raise questions about pakistan's role in this. do you think these are legitimate questions? >> i think they are legitimate questions. i mean it's important not to have all of our focus be on the intelligence around these strikes because i believe the people in our government who are executing against these strikes, you know are working to a

really high standard, and they rely upon the intelligence, doing lots of surveillance. and it is hard, as president said to be absolute certain-- near-certainty is the standard. i think the bigger question as it relates to war know's situation and all the hostages' situations is why aren't we finding these people across in many cases years and years and years they're held in captivity. it's one thing to focus on the 30-60 days before the strike, but to me that's not the most important question. the most important question is why can't we find hostages after years of looking for them when you consider the capabilities we have. that is what elaine i think is getting at was pakistan, where he was captured, as helpful as he could have been. that's the same question i have. we were working to the this and we saw specific things that we would have liked debate better-- better coordination, better access to information-- because in my opinion, not only should we be doing a better job coordinating our resources and

assets here. i've called for effectively a hostage czar to be put together or appointed in the administration that will have the ability to cut through the bureaucracy that inevitably exists in eye lot of areas of our government that touch hostage recovery. but importantly also be able kind of bring pressure on our partner nations, like pakistan, and getting information from them that we think is really important to these investigation. and it's pretty clear that that wasn't happening to the level that would make me happy in this situation. >> ifill: well, let me ask adam entous about that. to what degree is that conversation going on, about a different way of handling these hostage situations? >> the administration launched a review late last year. we haven't seen the result of that review, and see how this current event might affect the outcome of that. i think, you know, the-- you know, the issue of pakistan's cooperation here is an interesting issue. >> ifill: it doesn't seem to go away. the question came up during the

osama bin laden search as well. >> right, and pakistan is operating in the tribal areas now, how serious that operation is is a matter of debate within the administration about whether they're really going after these guys or not. you know, and the issue is, does the united states trust the pakistanis with information. >> ifill: what's the answer to that question, michael leiter? >> i think for any sensitive operation, the u.s. government is extremely sensitive to share that with the pack takens. although the pakistanis have been very good partners some ways and have lost many, many people to al qaeda and other organizations, for the most sensitive operation, sharing that information with the pakistanis means that information may very well get to the bad guys. >> we're not talking about sharing our information with them. we're talking about making sure we get the information from them that we need. right. we're providing a tremendous amount of financial support to the government and at a minimum we should be having access to whatever information, including access to people that they're holding hostage who may

information related to how some of our hostages -- i don't think any of us are talking about some information sharing program with the pakistani government. i'm talking about us getting the help we need in consideration for the support we're providing to get americans home. it's a very different question. >> ifill: congressman john delaney of maryland. michael leiter, adam entous, thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: two news reports out today are raising questions about hillary clinton and the clinton foundation. the new york times reported a company now known as uranium one, sought approval to sell control of the company to russia's atomic energy agency. the owners of that company donated $2.35 million to the clinton foundation. the state department, headed by hillary clinton at the time, signed off on the sale. also today, reuters reported the clinton foundation and another

family charity are re-filing at least five annual tax forms due to errors. the foundation failed to include tens of millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments. spokespeople for clinton and the clinton foundation insist there is no wrongdoing. we are joined now by new york times washington bureau chief and political editor, carolyn ryan. and reuters reporter jonathan allen, who broke their story. and we welcome both of you. carolyn ryan, let me start with you. the "new york times" story today does describe a canadian-- a wealthy canadian businessman. he's the chairman of this company that owns significant uranium mining interests in the united states. he also happens to be making huge-- large donations to the foundations. and then it turns to the move by the russian atoo atomic energy to

buy interest in that country. fill us in there. >> the nub, essentially, the ethical issue here is that this panel, u.s. government panel was overseeing and had to sign off on this deal, and the donations that you speak of were not disclosed by the clintons as they agreed to do as part of the agreement that they set up with the obama administration when mrs. clinton became secretary of state. so it was multi-million-dollar contributions that were not disclosed, leading up to this key vote on whether this deal could go through. >> woodruff: and what is the clinton campaign-- what is the clinton foundation saying? we do have one statement that i guess they put out late this afternoon with regard to the russian effort which was successful to buy a controlling interest in this company. lawyer

company is that pretty much all they've said? >> well, they have been-- some of their answers have been quite general and they haven't answered a lot of our direct questions. this panel is one of the few in the united states government, in the federal government that is actually exempt from public records so we're not able to get any notes or minutes of these proceedings, and we don't know a lot about the deliberations on the panel. so they have not provided us with a lot of information about what went on within the state department about that. and we still don't know why they didn't disclose the contributions. >> woodruff: so, quickly there are still outstanding questions here. >> absolutely. there are a bunch of outstanding questions that we put to them and that we're hoping to get more stwors. >> woodruff: now jonathan allen with reuters let me turn to you now your story today is about mistakes in tax filings by the clinton foundation and by their-- one of their charities that has to do with-- it's

called the health access initiative and what they did not file. tell us exactly what happened. >> they made mistakes on several of their 990 forms. these are the forms charities have to send to the i.r.s. every year to maintain their tax-exempt status. no taxes levied on this, of course. one purpose of these documents is that anyone can sort of walk in, ask to see them to figure out how a charity is raising money, how a charity is spending money. the errors in this case were all to do with sort of the line on the form where you say how how much you got in government grants, both u.s. and foreign. but the clinton charities tend not to receive money from u.s. governments federal or national. >> woodruff: is it known from what sources the money came and how much? >> well, this is actually what i

was trying to pin down when i began stumbling across these errors. it's certainly no secret that certain foreign governments continue to support foundation projects throughout this period. this is 2010 onwards by the way. i believe norway may be an example, australia may be an example. we know it's to the tunes of tens of millions of dollars. that's certainly what it was before 2010 which makes it all the more striking striking that sort of these breakouts weren't included on these forms. we'll have to wait until the refiles appear before we know for sure what they have should have told the i.r.s. >> woodruff: i want to come back to you quickly, carolyn ryan. a part of the "new york times" story today does dsay that some of the information in the piece was based on reporting done by a conservative writer who has come out with a new book about the clintons. how much of the "new york times" reporting was dependent on that?

>> i would characterize that book as really almost a tip sheet or a reporting leads. the two reporters at the "times" who got involved in this, we have jill becker a pulitzer prize winner they did dozens of interviews. they gathered a lot of records so they really went deep. this is very intricate and difficult reporting tracing this money and they really did a lot of original reporting, and i would just note that this whole story began actually in 2008 with a story that joe beck derabout the kazakhstan uranium deal. so peter schweitzer the author, the conservative awght owas sort of following joe becker. >> woodruff: and, carolyn ryan, i want to ask both of you this question, is there a sense at this point of the political implications for hillary clinton's campaign? >> well, i think the timing is not great because i think though many people thought that

she had a good campaign roll-out, she's really trying to present herself in a way that blunt the elizabeth warrens of her party as a sincering messenger for the message of economic mobility economic inequality. and i think these stories they're intricate and sometimes hard to understand, these stories have a way of underscoring the international orbit that the clintons operate in which is sort of a world awash in money and connections and a very privileged place. >> woodruff: and jonathan allen, to you, a sense of the political implications? >> no, i mean i-- i-- i-- agree with what was said. un i think in the case of the problems on these forms, earlier reporting we did that found this transparency agreement mrs. clinton signed with the obama administration was breached by these charities. i think these will add to the

questions that political opponents put to her. she's very proud of the charity, she says. but people are asking her was it as well managed and transparent as you hoped it would be. >> woodruff: thank you, jonathan allen and carolyn ryan, thank you. >> thank you, judy. >> thank you. >> ifill: now to changing attitudes about being transgender in america. a new survey from the human rights campaign shows more americans, 22%, say they know, or personally work with a transgender person. that's up 17% from a year ago. hari sreenivasan has the story of one person's transition and his efforts to change thinking and perceptions. >> sreenivasan: the soccer fields at choate rosemary hall in connecticut turned into an outdoor classroom of sorts this past sunday. high schoolers from area boarding schools gathered for the fifth annual conference on

sexual minorities and straight supporters, or s-mass. >> it's really nice to see the words written into the rule book and to see the words, gay lesbian bisexual and transgender students at choate, they exist, you're making them visible. >> sreenivasan: alex myers was one of the speakers. he's the first conference presenter to be transgender and he uses his life story as a way of educating others about transgender issues. >> i was pretty much a normal little girl. >> sreenivasan: alex grew up as alice in the small, rural town of paris, maine. he went to boarding school at phillips exeter academy in new hampshire and in the summer between his junior and senior years came out as transgender, a first for the school. in 1996, he was also the first openly transgender student to attend harvard university and he worked to change the university's non-discrimination clause to include gender identity. 12 years ago, alex married ilona in a same-sex ceremony in vermont. when his gender was legally changed to male, they had a second ceremony to ensure their

union was by the book. at choate myers' story resonated with students. >> i just really admired him, i think it was really cool that he was able to do that in high school in 1994 to be able to a place where he was the first ever person to do that i just think that's incredibly brave. >> sreenivasan: myers takes his story to high school and college campuses around the country and we caught up with him at american university in washington d.c., where he teaches at the k.o.g.o.d. center for business communications. >> society told me i was a girl, my parents told me i was a girl i wasn't going to think they were wrong at the same time i always felt i was or i wanted to be or i should be a boy. and transgender as a word is a really powerful sort of force in my life. it wasn't until i heard that word, until i saw people who lived as transgender that i got, oh that's how you do it. >> sreenivasan: what was that validation like or what was it to hear about the fact that you weren't strange. >> oh i am strange, let me correct that notion and happy

being so! yeah, it was exactly that i think validation is the right word that other people felt the way i did. suddenly there was a door where i had previously seen a wall. >> i haven't had surgery, i have no plans to have surgery but i do take testosterone so i'm both female in the sense that i'm genetically female, in many ways i'm biologically female, but in some ways i'm not. and i live as a man. so there's a disconnect, some people might say, between my biological sex and my gender identity. and that to me is what it means to be transgender. >> sreenivasan: why is it important, and i mean in the sense that if i was to walk by you on the street and how you express yourself is like a man, we would probably, if i didn't know anything about you, i'd probably make that assumption and treat you the way i treat every man, why is it important for me to know your history? >> i don't think it's important for the casual encounter. it's why i don't wear a sandwich board to announce it, among other reasons, to announce it on the street.

but i do think if we're going to be friends, if we're going to be close if we're going to be colleagues who know each other and trust each other, it's something you need to know about me in the same way that eventually you would share opinions that at first you wouldn't. you might share whether they are political opinions, or you might share some of your family history. i think it's part of becoming intimate and becoming close with another person. it's crucial piece of my identity, it's how i see and understand the world, in the same way someone's religious beliefs or upbringing might influence them. >> sreenivasan: part of myers' story is bound up in his first novel, "revolutionary". it's the story of deborah samson, a real-life ancestor of his, who disguised herself as a man so she could fight in the revolutionary war. >> in order to be free and independent and self-governing she had to be a man so she got men's clothes, cut her hair short and disguised herself as a man. i don't know if she'd had the word transgender she would have applied that to herself. what i do know is that in her life what she was doing was putting on men's clothing and

living as a man and it was a disguise. there's a profound difference between being disguised and being who you are. and that's what transgender has let me do, right? i live as who i am and in part i am able to do that because i have that category, that container to hold my identity. transgender. >> sreenivasan: transgender people are gaining visibility at least in hollywood. several award-winning series showcase transgender characters. the netflix series "orange is the new black" is one, and amazon has its own breakthrough, critically-acclaimed series "transparent." but myers says too often hollywood sensationalizes transgender stories. >> gays and lesbians and bisexuals are portrayed in the media and it's not glamorous it's just who they are. so trans people aren't there yet in the media depictions of them. we're not just normal people. we're always somewhat dramatic still. when you can see it in your own

town, when you can see oh that's how a lesbian couple raises a child, all of a sudden it's really different. whether you share that identity or you don't. all of a sudden they are people, they're not abstractions they're not something that's sensational on tv or that you read about in the newspaper, but they're people you live next to and they become human beings. >> sreenivasan: what's necessary for that normative moment for transgender people? >> i spent a summer working as a forest ranger in wyoming and i wasn't out for that summer, i was just a guy doing the same job as everyone else at the ranger station, at the end of that summer i came out to my boss i felt it was important that he know and he said, okay he had a couple of questions for how i managed that and he said, great are you going to come back next summer? and it was just like that, he knew me as a good worker and as a human being and i think that's how changes are made in this country about identity. yes, there's the big legislation and supreme court cases about gay marriage but they can cause just as much controversy and schism and the real way you bring people together is by living in their communities, by being good citizens and by modeling who you are. >> sreenivasan: myers is attempting to do just that. for the newshour, i'm hari

sreenivasan in washington. >> ifill: on our home page, you can learn more about transgender issues, particularly questions people may have about the language we use. plus, you can watch alex myers's full speech to students at choate. that's at pbs.org/newshour. >> woodruff: one hundred years ago this week, as the ottoman empire was disintegrating, thousands of armenians were rounded up, and deported or executed. it was the beginning of a mass elimination of armenian christians from what is modern- day turkey, killing an estimated one million, and driving millions more into exile. today, some seven million armenians live outside the tiny country of armenia. armenian-american photographer scout tufankjian spent years photographing and interviewing them. in more than twenty countries from ethiopia to india, from

brazil to the united states. they're the subject of her new book, "there is only the earth: images from the armenian diaspora project." tufankjian sat down with newshour's chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner in our new york studio, to talk about the project. >> warner: thanks for joining us. >> so when i was a kid growingup in mass, i spent weekends with my grandparents, who are in the book, there's my beautiful grandmother and my grandfather who has a dog and a goat, as one does. >> warner: from 1948 >> exactly. i spent weekends with my armenian grandparents, and we would go from house to house visiting their friends, drinking some armenian coffee or some tea and i would be bored because it was older people conversation and i would go through the armenian magazines and newspapers that were inevitably on the coffee table and i was

always searching, i would search for kind of glimpses of myself in argentinian soccer player or a perisian school girl and i was always looking for, you know, the answer to this question what do i have in common with these kids? do i have anything in common with them? is there any connection between our people or have the differing paths taken by our refugee grandparents and great grandparenst really changed us. >> warner: and so what did you find? >> oh definitely. >> warner: give us some examples. >> it's actually hard to define and as a photographer i kind of tried to define it in images. this kid in paris blowing bubbles at a wedding to you know, this girl in armenia in the republic of armenia who's a traditional dancer to this armenian girl in india who's experiencing monsoon season for the first time. there is this thread that ties people together. is it he religion, is itthe language? is it the schools, is it the organizations? or is it something kind of more ephemeral? which is what i actually think

it is. i talked to a women in argentina and she said its like belonging to an invisible club that's invisible to everyone but the members. tell us how the modern armennia christianity is. >> having a church that belongs to just your community is something that keeps your community together. every sunday people get together, with their fellow armenians in mass. and so that alone can keep a community together. it keeps young people knowing the language which is also hugely important. and it is also an incredibly beautiful, the music is

beautiful the mass, the badarak is really, is an incredible experience. >> warner: this has been a diaspora that has gone on for, i mean it's been a hundred years. how different and distinctive have the communities become though-- say the large ones in brazil and you have a lot of images from india, a lot from the united states. >> it's paired with a quote by the novelist aline ohanesian. who actually has a book that is just coming out. you can't live somewhere for a hundred years, you can't be an exile for 100 years without being affected by the place in which you live. >> warner: and in fact some of your photos from lebanon really show that sense of community. >> absolutely. lebanon, there is a village in lebanon called anjar that is

very special to me this is from, this picture is from my first trip to lebanon. let me see if it is back here somewhere, sorry. so this picture is from my first trip to anjar. so this is from a henna party and it is the night before the wedding and the groom is right there. the groom's family throws a party and then kind of midway through the party everyone parades with the musicians, we call this the dhow of zorna. the old traditional instruments. and it's this amazing tradition they have kept. so the back story with this village is that all of the people are from this village called mousala or mousalair and it is the one place where the genocide has a happy ending. which is that the people from the village went up to the mountains and they held off the kind of onslaught for about 53 days and then they were rescued by a french war ship because it is right on the mediterranean so they all lived.

i felt very connected to my family in a way that i had throughout the whole project but that was the most connected i ever felt. >> warner: but yet you have a photo here of some armenian americans in l.a. >> oh i love those kids >> warner: let's look at that if we can find them. this is in april. it's important to them. >> on the anniversary. a different anniversary. >> exactly. >> showing this kind of diversity is a huge part of what this project is. >> warner: let me ask you this-- there is the whole controversy about the genocide and the turks unwillingness to call it a genocide. how important is that to members of your generation? >> of course, we think genocide recognition is important in the same way we think everyone watching this thinks holocaust

recognition is important. at the same time, i met hundreds and hundreds of armennians throughout this project and have not met a single person who identifies solely by the genocide. it is something that runs through our past and it is an important part of our history but no one thinks that's all we are. people in the outside world think oh armenians, the genocide. but for us, we know we are more than that. we are mothers and children we are school girls, we are rugby players, we are lawyers we are so much more than that. >> warner: scout tufankijian, thank you so much. >> thank you >> ifill: next, a profile of a crusading voice on financial reform, who also became a public figure in the debate over gay rights. it's the story of former congressman barney frank, son of a mob-connected new jersey father, he went on to harvard and to volunteer as a freedom

rider in mississippi. his public and private story, including his long tenure as a lawmaker, is the subject of his new autobiography. economics correspondent paul solman caught up with him in boston for tonight's installment of "making sense," which airs every thursday on the newshour. >> reporter: for 32 years perhaps the country's most controversial, quick-witted congressman, barney frank, now improbably lolling in semi- retirement. but for almost half a century, his was one of the america's loudest voices for progressive policies, both economic and social, a devotee of using government to help redress inequality. his new autobiography sums up his half a century of effort, and the two stunning surprises of his long career: the revolution in attitudes toward government, and sexuality. so you start out, government in high repute, homosexuality in--

>> --in low repute. contemptible. >> reporter: and now it's the other way around. >> by the time i retired in 2012, my marriage to my husband jim got a much better public response than my chairmanship of the committee that voted the financial reform bill. >> reporter: when frank began his political career here at boston city hall, it was unheard of to be openly gay. so he remained in the closet: a bright-eyed harvard-schooled reformist assistant to boston mayor kevin white in 1968. his government goals? >> personal freedom, an end to discrimination, particularly race at that time, because gay rights wasn't even on the agenda and diminishing economic unfairness. >> reporter: were you already conflicted about fighting for these things, while you're yourself hiding the fact that you were gay? >> i didn't feel the conflict so much at first, because it was just such a one-sided question,

which is, no, there was no possibility of being openly gay and having any kind of ah, of an impact on the rest of the society here. it just was so overwhelmingly anti. i already brought a lot of unconventionality to the table. >> reporter: yeah. >> i'm from new jersey, i talk too fast, i go to harvard phd program, and i'm jewish. >> reporter: but when he won a seat here in the massachusetts state house, government was losing its luster. >> when i got to the legislature, government was a popular thing. i saw it begin to lose public support as the '70s went on, as economic factors started to hurt the average american. interminable lines at the gas pump, rampant inflation and high unemployment at the same time. they prompted the defection of democrats to ronald reagan and the republicans. >> the people we have lost, are working class people. when their economic position

their relative economic position, and to some extent their absolute economic position deteriorates, they blame the government for not helping. >> reporter: frank now ran for and won, a seat in congress, his hair-trigger tongue getting national attention. your wit, that's certainly helped you, right? >> in two ways. first of all, it keeps me from being bored out of my mind, which i would be in danger of doing in some cases. and secondly, it's a good weapon, people don't like to be laughed at. so, if you can come up with something that makes other people laugh at the people you're debating, they shy away. >> reporter: take this 2009 exchange at a town hall meeting about the affordable care act. >> why do you continue to support a nazi policy? >> i am gonna revert to my ethnic heritage and respond to your question with a question: on what planet do you spend most of your time?

( cheers and applause ) >> reporter: as the quips and years went by, frank became a champion of his party's left wing and a frequent guest on this program, his shape and stature morphing with america's views toward both public and private affairs. finally, when asked in a 1987 interview in the liberal boston globe if he was gay, he responded "yeah, so what." two years later, his sexuality became a national scandal. a conservative newspaper revealed that frank's partner was running a male prostitution ring out of their apartment. >> there was, in my life a central element of dishonesty for about 40 years. >> reporter: though censured by congress and humiliated, frank pressed on, was re-elected in 1990, rose to become the powerful chairman of the house financial services committee. >> so i become influential frankly, partly because i have

seniority. partly because i'm good at it. and one other reason, uh, process of elimination. i continue to be a strong believer in liberalism and the government as a positive force, at a time when i didn't have a lot of competitors. >> reporter: and then came the crash, and frank's lead role in government, co-authoring the dodd-frank financial reform bill, which increased regulation, created a new bureau to protect consumers. it has been charged with adding onerous costs to the economy, and especially smaller banks. >> reporter: you are the frank of dodd-frank, there's been huge criticism of that bill. and some modification of it, no? >> very little modification. one that dealt with the ability of banks to do their derivative activity within the bank and that was, that was very controversial. but, but there've been no other legislative changes. >> reporter: and, has it worked? hasn't it worked?

>> oh, i think it's worked very well so far. for example, i think the consumer financial protection bureau has been a great success. i believe the financial institutions in america are much better capitalized now than they were before. >> reporter: how hopeful are you about our economic future? median income stagnating, inequality widening? fewer jobs out there as robots take over? i'm optimistic in the sense that i think it is doable. pessimistic about the near-term political prospects, but largely agnostic, because it doesn't make a difference to me. i'm determined to do what i can to bring about these changes, whether i'm hopeful or not hopeful, what else i got to do? >> reporter: he is working out and taking it easy.

but the irony of barney frank's career never leaves him. >> i started out with a great disparity between the popularity of homosexuality and the popularity of government. i ended my career with the same disparity, but the order had reversed. >> reporter: this is economics correspondent paul solman reporting for the pbs newshour from boston, massachusetts. >> woodruff: finally, to our newshour shares of the day, something that caught our eye that might be of interest to you, too. for literature lovers, it's shakespeare day. when the bard died on this day in 1616, he left behind 154 sonnets. the "new york shakespeare exchange," a group that brings shakespeare to modern audiences has been making short films of those poems, using different actors and locations across the city. historians believe shakespeare was also born on this day 401 years ago. to mark the occasion we compiled some sonnets you might recognize. here's a look.

>> let me not to marriage of true minds admit impediments. >> when my love swears she is made of truth i do believe her, though i know she lies. she might think me some unituteord youth, unlearned in the world's false subtleties. >> when in disgrace with fortune in men's eyes, i all alone weep my outcast state. in trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries and look upon myself and curse my fate. >> let me looks be the eloquence. who plead for love and look for recompense more than that tongue that, that hacket more

expressed. oh, learn to read what silent love hath writ, to hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit. >> woodruff: more of their videos are on our web site, pbs.org,/newshour. that's the newshour for tonight. >> i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your life and become you're own chief life officer. >> 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. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

this is "nighlty business re" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. 15 years in the making the nasdaq closes topping the.com era high and reports could set the tone for tomorrow. >> message to the market what caterpillar, and procte biggest global companies are saying about the health of the world ec why this earnings season is turning out to be a big one for small caps. all of that and more tonight on "nighlty business re" for

this thursday april the 23rd. good evening, everybody and welcome. i'm bill g tonight for tyler mathisen. >> and i'm sue herera. the nasdaq closed at an all-time high. we'll have more on t