captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> ifill: nepal rocked again by an earthquake. more death and devastation just weeks after the massive tremor that killed more than 8,000 people. good evening, i'm gwen ifill. judy woodruff is away. also ahead this tuesday, trade on ice. democrats freeze a bill to give president obama authority to craft a historic agreement with asia. plus: >> we needed some way to help doctors deal with the deluge of information that's available now. >> ifill: the frontiers of artificial intelligence. from instant diagnoses to treatment recommendations; doctors harness rapid advances in technology to tailor medical

care to each patient's needs. >> watson is being trained to sort through reams of information about the patient, the most current medical research, and get it to the doctor to help make a decision all at a pace beyond humans. >> ifill: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> 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. >> ifill: secretary of state john kerry met face-to-face today with russian president vladimir putin, but there was little sign of easing tensions. top officials from both countries sat down in the russian black sea resort of sochi. the agenda was topped by divisions over ukraine, syria and other issues. opposition activists in moscow reported at least 220 russian soldiers have died in the ukraine conflict. the kremlin denies its troops are fighting there. iran drew a warning from washington today, after announcing its warships will escort a cargo ship to yemen. the iranians said they're sending humanitarian aid, not weapons for shiite rebels. the rebels are fighting a government backed by saudi arabia. but white house officials said if iran really wants to help yemen, it should work with the u.n. >> iran understands they can't

afford to play games with humanitarian assistance to people who are in dire need like those we see in yemen. and the iranians know as well as anyone that a political stunt to defy their regional rivals outside the un system is provocative and risks the collapse of the humanitarian cease-fire. >> ifill: that cease-fire officially took effect this evening, after fighting flared for much of the day. a new wave of saudi-led air strikes blasted houthi rebels across the capital city of sanaa. heavy fighting also continued in the country's south. u.n. refugee officials warned today that thousands of migrants from bangladesh and myanmar are stranded at sea. they say many were abandoned in rickety boats after thailand cracked down on smuggling operations. now, they're trying to reach malaysia and indonesia. jeffrey savage is with the u.n. refugee operation in indonesia. >> we've been stuck overseas for weeks, for months. they've been held on these

ships and then the smugglers just deserted them and left them with very little food, very little water, no fuel for the engines. so it's something that really is a massive humanitarian crisis waiting to happen. prosecutor in madison, wisconsin back in this country, a prosecutor in madison, wisconsin announced he will not charge a white policeman who killed a bi- racial man last march. police said 19-year-old tony robinson was unarmed, but was shot after he punched the officer. the district attorney said today the use of force was legal, and he urged the community to remain peaceful. >> i am reminded that true and lasting change does not come from violence but from exercising our voices and our vote. >> ifill: tony robinson's family has criticized the prosecutor,

and called today for a new march to the state capitol. "rolling stone" magazine now faces a defamation suit for a discredited story about a gang rape at the university of virginia. the school's associate dean of students sued today for $7.8 million. police have said they found no evidence that the alleged rape occurred, and a columbia university review cited "rolling stone" for extensive journalistic failings. in economic news, telecommunications giant verizon will buy a.o.l. for $4.4 billion. the move is expected to turn the nation's largest wireless provider into a major player in mobile video and advertising. a.o.l.'s holdings include "the huffington post" and "tech- crunch". on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average lost 37 points to close below 18,070. the nasdaq fell 17 points and the s-and-p 500 slipped six. the new england patriots and quarterback tom brady are going to fight n.f.l. penalties for using under-inflated footballs. brady's agent says he will

appeal his suspension for four games at the start of next season. and patriots owner bob kraft said he'll challenge the million-dollar fine imposed on his team, and the loss of two draft choices. and it's confirmed: president obama will build his presidential library on the south side of chicago. his foundation announced today the complex will rise on park land near the university of chicago. both the president and mrs. obama once worked at the school and while she is a native, he launched his political career there. still to come on the newshour: a second earthquake devastates nepal; democrats turn on president obama's trade deal with asia; teaching a supercomputer to diagnose cancer; new research shows more americans abandoning religion; hardships faced by afghan translators after arriving in the u.s.; and, a photographer's songbook for america.

>> ifill: in nepal, a u.s. military helicopter carrying six marines and two nepalese soldiers has been declared missing. the aircraft is believed to have gone down while ferrying supplies to earthquake victims. this news comes in the wake of another devastating quake today, which killed dozens of people in addition to the already thousands killed a few weeks ago. john sparks of independent television news reports. >> reporter: they were debating a bill in parliament, when the earthquake struck. measuring 7.3, it shook the chamber floor and house members and their staff fled for the exits. they joined their fellow citizens pouring out onto the streets and alleyways of the nepalese capital, an instinctive act this, a bid for survival,

and they had every reason to feel scared for themselves and their loved ones. >> i'm worried for my family. >> reporter: they've been through this before, 17 days ago, a powerful quake ripped through central nepal, toppling buildings and claiming the lives of more than 8,000. some thought this gate about to come down on them, the community terrorized for a second time. the epicentre of the quake was located 50 miles to the east, but the seismic waves were strong enough to destroy this five-story structure in the cap.

capital. and inevitably there have been casualties, the authorities says dozens of people have died and more than 1,100 have been injured. at an emergency cabinet meeting tonight the prime minister begged the international community not to abandon nepal: >> ( translated ): i urge all those who have worked tirelessly on the relief and rescue missions to once again extend your helping hand. >> reporter: and the need is great. today's earthquake set-off avalanches and landslides multiple rock-falls blocking roads and destroying villages in areas already damaged by the first quake. the government says it has sent out helicopters to help but it's a process that's going to take time.

nepal was starting to put itself together again, but the normal routines will have to wait. 6,000 people are expected to sleep under canvas at this spot tonight, because they do not feel safe indoors. and it is a cruel setback, a psychological blow after several weeks of hardship. >> ifill: donatella lorch, a freelance journalist living in nepal, told us earlier today how she rode out the latest earthquake. >> it was just before 1:00 p.m. here in kathmandu, and my husband and i were having lunch on the top floor terrace, so we were on the fifth floor of this building in downtown central kathmandu overlooking the former royal palace. and then the table started moving, and then it started waying. it slowly... the whole building

started swaying, back and forth, rolling in all different directions. that's when the screams started, both from the street and from the other diners. everyone got up and started running toward the stairs. my husband grabbed me by the hand, and he said, "don't." he said "it's a really narrow staircase, a rickety staircase next to two very straight walls, and if they collapse we're done for. we just held hands and splayed our feet and tried balance ourselves. what seemed like an eternity was only 25 second but it seemed way longer than that. kathmandu has calmed down a lot within ten days. the districts that were very hard hit were either extremely poor or under very bad construction on mud and clay areas. the problem with the outside of kathmandu is that it is carpeted destruction. it is everywhere. it is through the hills, through the valleys. it's entire villages and hamletses and these sheer

mountain cliffs that have crumbled that have been destroyed. i mean, if you drive the paved roads east, and there's only really one were to paved roads east, it's like walking... it's driving 40 kilometers of utter destruction. it is worse than mogadishu in 1993 1994 and 1995, and in addition to that, there's land slides, so getting aid out has been very difficult and very complicated, and they've been able to get the aid out to the big towns and to near the big towns, but they were just getting a bit of a grasp on it. many people still had not received even tarps from the april 25th earthquake because they're so far removed. you had to... their villages were two or three land slides away from where the truck could go, and then everything had to be carried by hand. i've heard the land slides are very bad now. the new land slides, it's been raining very heavily for the

past three or four nights. villagers, i heard the villagers say there's huge cracks in the upper mountains and the high-level villages which makes them very prone to land slides. and with this rain, it's even worse. there have been land slides reported near the the town buried in land slides. further south of that, the big large called dun he has been hard hit by land slides. just before coming to this interview, i was putting my son to bed, and he grabbed my hand and put his head under the pillow. i said, "what are you doing lucas? i have to go to do this interview." he said "but ma mark it's a earthquake, it's a earthquake. i said "no you're just thinking it's an earthquake." a door had slightly slammed. i wake up in the middle of the night, and that's the worst time. i lie awake for hours thinking, is it going to happen? are we going to have another one? we slept outdoors for two weeks, but like everyone else you have

to get back indoors. you have to get back to a settled life. the monsoons are... it's already spring monsoon time right now. it's raining very heavily on and off, which means that the big, heavy rains are right around the corner. it's going to be really grim for everybody. >> ifill: one of the president's remaining top legislative goals is to get a major new trade accord with asia. but he suffered a stinging defeat today in the opening battle to gain the authority to speed a deal through congress. the magic number to start a full senate debate was 60 votes. but, in falling short, it showed just how polarizing the disagreement over international trade really is. >> on this vote, the yeas are 52, the nays are 45. >> reporter: in the end, trade politics put the president at odds with many in his own party, and in line with most republicans.

>> we're talking about president obama's top priority. his top legislative priority. and one of the most important bills in this president's service as president of the united states of america. >> we know the global economy is a rough sea. and republicans are asking us to pass a trade package that forces the american worker to navigate those waters in a leaky boat. we want to plug up those leaks. >> ifill: the result, at least for now, is that the senate has blocked renewal of the "fast track" negotiating authority that mr. obama wanted. that would allow congress to approve, but not amend, future trade deals. it's deemed vital to winning passage of a "trans-pacific partnership" agreement. t.p.p., as it's known, would include 11 mostly asian nations that, together with the u.s., account for some 40% of the global economy. supporters say it would bring greater prosperity, by removing

tariffs and other barriers and opening trade. the president visited the sportswear manufacturer nike last week, which announced the deal would create allow them to create 10,000 american jobs. >> the future of nike and this country depend not only on what we make, but how we make it. and we want to get to the future faster. >> reporter: but opponents, including most democrats, have a litany of complaints. only one democrat voted with the president today. they argue the trade pact would actually cost american jobs and fail to include enough environmental or labor protections. some public health groups say the agreement would also delay introduction of low-cost generic medicines. there are also concerns it does not adequately address currency manipulation. and some on both sides of the aisle say the deal might give foreign corporations too much power to challenge u.s. laws. opponents also complain the white house has kept the details

of the negotiated plan secret. democratic senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts spoke on n.p.r. this morning. >> i have been able to go to a special secured room. i can't take any electronic devices, no computer, no iphone. i can't even walk out with paper notes. i can go and read about the agreement, but i cannot come out in public and talk about any of the specifics. >> reporter: the president took on warren directly in a "yahoo news" interview last week. >> when you tick off the concrete arguments that are being made, there's no logic that i think a progressive should embrace that would make you opposed to this deal. >> reporter: but as the fast track vote went down in flames today, press secretary josh earnest dismissed it repeatedly, as a "procedural snafu." >> what i'm confident is that a

"no" vote on this procedural situation shouldn't be interpreted as a change in position on the substance of the bill. >> reporter: supporters of the bill say they'll regroup, but it's unclear for now, what their next step will be. after the vote president obama met with senate democrats to discuss what happens next. as battles sort itself out, we begin our own series of conversations at what's at stake in the debate over trade. first tonight, a leading voice for labor. richard trumka is the president of the a.f.l.-c.i.o. the american federation of labor and congress of industrial organizations. its membership includes 56 unions representing more than 12 million workers in the unites. welcome, mr. trumka. your side won the debate today, but your side is calling it a procedural snafu. where do things stand tonight? >> well, i think it's an

indication that this agreement is not worthy of the american people and the american worker, that they do not want to pass this thing with an up-or-down vote. members of congress want to say this is where it needs to be fixed. let us help you fix it. i think we're in the position where if the president would go along with that we could fix this agreement and make everybody a winner, all the american public and everybody else. >> ifill: was today's vote really about the nuts and bolts of the deal itself, or was it just about this idea of fast tracking it, orys greasing the skids? >> first of all, it was about fast track and if you wouldn't mind, i'll elaborate on that just a bit. congress has the constitutional authority to do trade deals. they can delegate that to the president. in this specific instance it makes absolutely no sense because the only way congress has to control the agreement whenever it's delegated is to give the president negotiating

objectives and then come back and make sure he's met them and voted up or down. in this instance, the agreement's almost totally negotiated before they give him any objective, and they'll come back with a bad agreement. we know a little bit about what's in it. it had been kept very secret. they won't be able to change it. no one is willing to do that in light of what's happened and the history of all the other trade agreements that have cost us jobs and encouraged outsourcing. >> your concerns are about transparency. your concerns are about enforcement. your concerns are about whether, as you just mentioned jobs will go away. the president says unions are stuck in the past. this is an old fight that has already been one, in part because any of the jobs that were going to go to asian nations already have. >> with all due respect to the president, it's he that's stuck in the past. this is a nafta-style agreement.

what we wanted is what we promised, that's a new type of trade agreement that would protect american jobs and grow the economy and let everybody win from a trade agreement and not just wall street. this agreement is patterned after cafta and nafta and as a result it's not us stuck in the past. >> ifill: the argument, of course, i'll be the devil's advocate here, is that the north american free trade agreement the one you just referenced, that that was a different time and it was a different place and our technology and where we are in the world now allows us to enforce the kinds of promises that maybe you feel were not kept at that time. >> well, first of all, the rules are the rules. and if you use the same old rules that you did under nafta, you'll get the same results now regardless of a different period of time. second of all, you're right they didn't enforce those rules, and there's nothing in this agreement that will give them more rights, more ways to enforce workers' rights and environmental rights and to

protect the american public, the american worker and the american environment. in fact this will encourage and give opportunity to foreign investors to attack our laws in ways that no u.s. citizen has. it's specific to corporations and through a special try back to you nal they get to access that no american does. that's just not right. it's not good for the country. it's one of the old, tired features of nafta, and it's something that should be changed to modernize it and bring it into today's economy. >> ifill: let me ask you about who you represent now, which is very different than it used to be. less than 10% of your membership are in manufacturing and that's what you're talking about here. why such a fierce pushback? >> well, because it's a bad trade agreement. it will hurt everybody in the economy. it doesn't just hurt industrial workers. it hurts professional workers. it hurts teachers. it hurts public workers by doing away with the tax base. look, since 2000, we've lost

60000 factories. when a factory closes down in the community, the tax base goes away the high-paying jobs go away. they're replaced with either low-paying jobs or no jobs at all. that means there's less revenue for government the operate on, less services for the general public and the entire community loses. that's why this is so important. look, gwen, this is going to cover 40% of the world's economy. and it has a docking provision where we're going to be able to add other countries to this, which means that maybe the last trade agreement -- it may be the last trade agreement ever negotiated by the united states. that's why it's so important for us to get it right, to get those rules right because those rules will decide who wins and who loses under nafta and cafta, workers lost. we want to make sure that doesn't happen again. >> ifill: is it true the a.f.l.-c.i.o. felt so strongly

about this it threatened members of congress to withhold congressional fund-raising or donations if they didn't vote against this? >> it's simply not the case. what we said is we're not going to give out any money. we're going to use it to fight this fight so that we can actually put on a real campaign to protect the american public and the american people and quite frankly some of the democrats from themselves. this is a bad deal. this will hurt our economy. this will hurt our community. it will hurt our country and it shouldn't be done in a fast-track manner where you only get to vote it up or down after it was negotiated in secret. >> ifill: so you're protecting democrats from themselves by withholding support? >> i'm sorry. i didn't hear the last part? >> ifill: you're protecting democrats from themselves by withholding support? >> we're not withholding support. we've closed our pact to use the money that we have in them to be

able to fight this fight. whenever we're done, we'll open up things again and our friends will be our friends and things will go back to normal but right now, we need every resource that we have to fight this. the president has all the business community behind him. he has wall street behind him. fortunately for us he doesn't have the american public behind him. and so we're using all of our resources to fight this fight so that we can get a bill that really does help every american worker out there and not encourage low wages and outsourcing. >> ifill: richard trumka, president of the a.f.l.-c.i.o., thank you for joining us. >> gwen, thanks for having me on. i really appreciate it. >> . >> ifill: we plan to have a conversation with a strong supporter of the trade pact later this week. >> ifill: next we continue our

series about artificial intelligence, a.i. where computers are able to make intelligent decisions without human input. as computing power gets stronger and people continue to generate massive amounts of data, a.i. is making its way into the marketplace, and into your doctor's examination room. hari sreenivasan has the latest in series on "breakthroughs" in invention and innovation. >> sreenivasan: advances in artificial intelligence continue to push the boundaries between science fiction and reality. like this brain-controlled device at the university of minnesota. it enables users to fly a model helicopter, with only their thoughts. the hope is it will soon help disabled people to operate robotic arms. but you don't need to be in a university lab to find a.i. it's all around us. what's the 5th planet from the sun? >> jupiter is the 5th planet orbiting the sun. >> sreenivasan: our smart phones use a.i. to navigate us choosing the least congested

traffic routes. even the u.s. postal service uses it to sort mail. and on wall street, autonomous machines help make major financial decisions. >> at least 90% of the financial transactions are guided in one way or another by artificial intelligence. >> sreenivasan: ray kurzweil directs google's engineering lab, but spoke to us in his capacity as an independent inventor. he's convinced that a.i. programs are already on track to solve many of the problems vexing mankind today. >> they're helping us find a cure for disease, helping us diagnose disease, analyzing environmental data to help us clean up the environment. virtually every industrial process is a combination already of human and machine intelligence. >> sreenivasan: large tech firms are betting big on the promise of a.i. last year, google paid $400 million to acquire deepmind, a london startup specializing in deep learning.

facebook is raising eyebrows as it continues to pluck a.i. talent. and i.b.m. is investing $1 billion to grow its watson division, based out of new headquarters in new york's silicon alley. >> sreenivasan: remember watson, the supercomputer which beat a pair of jeopardy game show champions in 2011? >> watson? >> what is jericho? >> correct. >> sreenivasan: well, in the four years since, i.b.m. has sped watson up 24-fold. what used to be a room full of computing machines can now fit into a pizza box, all accessed from the cloud. you could say these are the brains that power watson, but since all the data lives on the cloud, it's hard to visualize. >> what you see is how watson works. >> sreenivasan: guru banavar is vice president of cognitive computing at i.b.m. >> watson has come a very long way. we have taken some of the underlying technologies that helped us win the jeopardy game show, and applied it in many domains that matter, like healthcare, education, business

decision making, and many other domains. >> sreenivasan: last month i.b.m. introduced "watson health," its entry into the personalized healthcare space. the idea is to use watson's a.i. to make sense of vast troves of health data to deliver tailored information to physicians, insurers, researchers and hospitals. >> the difference between any data that previously we were able to analyze and the new data we have to apply artificial intelligence techniques to; the new data is natural language. it's just written in english. computers have never been able to understand natural language typically these are very high end complex info that's published by scientific researchers, and now watson is able to read those. >> sreenivasan: at the memorial sloan kettering cancer center mark kris, a thoracic oncologist, is leading a team that is teaching watson how to diagnose cancer. >> we needed some way to help

doctors deal with the deluge of information that's available now. >> sreenivasan: watson is being trained to sort through reams of information about the patient the most current medical research, and get it to the doctor to help make a decision, all at a pace beyond humans. >> our idea here though is that this system is going to be like what we call a "learned colleague." >> sreenivasan: a colleague that can assist with instant diagnoses and recommended courses of treatment. the recommendations are highly personalized based on a patient's unique genetic make- up. >> the person i'm asking about is a 55-year-old man who already has had surgery for his lung cancer. it was discovered that this cancer had spread to lymph glands that were nearby. the first thing this system does is it shows all the different treatments that are recommended. now i ask what kind of chemo to give and it points to a chemo regimen, two different drugs. if i want more information about

exactly why this decision was made, there's a little button right next to this chemo choice that takes you to the medical literature and some key publications about this regimen, the benefits it can give, and why that choice was made. >> sreenivasan: but, wachter >> the computers will probably be best at low-level simple also rhythm i have a low-grade fever, what should i do and very high complexity stuff like i have an unusual form of lung cancer and i have these genetic mutations and what should i do? >> but where computers and a.i. still struggle is in the middle.

>> a lot of medicine sort of lives in that middle ground; where it's really messy where someone comes in to see me and they have a set of complaints and physical exam findings and it could be if you look it up in a computer; it could be some weird; the bubonic plague, but it probably is the flu. >> sreenivasan: wachter is also concerned about fatal implications that can result from an over-reliance on computers. in his book, he writes about a teenage patient at his own hospital, who barely survived after he was given 39 times the amount of antibiotics he should have received. >> so in two different cases computers threw up alerts on the screen; but the alert for the 39 times and a 1% overdose was the same. the doctor and pharmacist clicked out of it. why? because they get thousands of alerts a day, and they have learned to pay no attention to the alerts. where people are relegated to being monitors of a computer system that's right most of the time, the problem is that periodically the computer system

will be wrong; and the question is; are people still engaged or are they now asleep at the switch because the computers are so good? >> sreenivasan: that's one of many ethical questions facing scientists, and society, as artificial intelligence continues its rapid advance. for the pbs newshour, i'm hari sreenivasan in new york. >> ifill: now, to surprising new findings about our changing religious landscape, and how and if we believe. jeffrey brown has our conversation. >> brown: the u.s. remains an overwhelmingly christian country. that hasn't changed, but a new survey shows a significant drop in the number of americans who identify as christian. the survey was done by the pew research center. it showed that in 2007, 78% of americans identified as christian. by last year, the percentage had dropped to under 71%. those years have seen a dramatic rise in the number of americans who say they are religiously

unaffiliated, from 16 to nearly 23%. the largest drop was in mainline protestant denominations, but the number of catholics also fell. several non-christian religions, islam and hinduism, saw modest gains. alan cooperman is director of religious research at pew. also with us is reverend serene jones president of the union theological seminary in new york city. welcome to both of you. alan cooperman, let me start with you. one aspect of this that might surprise people is just how widespread this drop is. did that strike you? >> absolutely, jeff. i mean, i think the important thing for people the realize, this is really widespread, broad-based social change. it's taking place not just in the big cities or in the northeast, it's taking place in every region of the country, including in the bible belt, among men and women, among blacks latinos and whites, among older people and younger people, and among people with college degrees and those with only high school degrees.

>> brown: and dr. jones does it jive with what you see happening around you? are you surprised at all? >> yeah, it's surprising to see the statistics lay it out so clearly but on another level it's not surprising at all. it's what we all look around when -- what we see in new york city and in small towns. it's the reality. >> brown: what explains this? >> even in theological seminary, we're seeing the unaffiliated this growing group, actually walking through the doors of seminary. so i have occasion quite often to talk to them about why they have left religious communities and what it is about spirituality in general that seems to still attract them. i think one of the reasons why we're seeing the bigger drop in the main line than we are in the evangelical is in a lot of main line communities, the line between what it means to be in the church and out of the church

is a very fluid line. and we see the unaffiliated, you know, perhaps coming back to church once or twice a year, not quite sure what they think aboutling john, whereas in evangelical community that demarcation is much sharper and the pressure not to leave the community is greater. i think it's interesting in a main line context to ask, what are the incentives to stay and i think it's causing the main line churches to do a lot of soul searching first of all to figure out why people are leaving, but secondly to ask a really interesting question: is it always bad that churches shrink? those are sort of interesting political and theological questions that the survey doesn't touch upon but i think we're being prompted to deal. with. >> brown: let me ask alan cooperman about what the survey does touch on, the unaffiliated, this rise. it too is fairly widespread, right? we have a graphic of age demographics. tell us about that. >> it's especially concentrated among younger generations.

so while it's true it's taking place amongst old err adults as well as younger adult it's really startling among the youngest millennials 36%, as what in the country as a whole, it's down 23%. muck the older generation, it's a much smaller percentage some a lot of what's handning is what we call generational replacement. it's a nice way of saying that the older generations, which were very heavily christian, are passing away and they're being replaced by younger cohorts that are far more unaffiliated not only than the older generations are today but than those older generations ever were. >> brown: let me stay with you, because this is another question that follows: is this an affiliation or denominational-type issue, or is it an issue of actual religious faith? how much do we know about that distinction? >> oh these labels matter. now, of course, we see every religious group, and within every group of people that

identify themselves as christians, there is a spectrum. there are people who don't believe and there are people who are very strong believers. there are people who attend church regularly and people who seldom or never go. we see in every group there is a spectrum, but for sure, jeff, those who are unaffiliated are much less likely to attend religious services. they pray less often. religion is less important to them, and there are also political factors. for example the unaffiliated as a whole lean almost as strongly democratic as white evangelical protestants lean republican. >> brown: serene jones, you asked that question about how much this matters to particular churches and particular denominations. what do you... can you begin an answer here for us? >> well, it's a challenge to all the denominations. the main line in particular. why is this drift happening? i think one of the biggest challenges when asking that

question is to say look religion is not like going to, you know it's not a campaign. it's in the a sport event. it's not about numbers. it is, though interesting to look at demographic and say, what do they tell us about the world in which these religious communities find themselves, and one of the interesting things i'm seeing in union and the demographics in the new study bear this out is the religiously unaffiliated are growing in numbers but we're also seeing an up take in the numbers of pentecostal and charismatic black and brown christians coming to seminary. so at the two ends of the spectrum, we see growth where in the middle we're seeing a flattening and at times a decline. so what does it mean that at both of these, that would appear to be different ends of the religious spectrum with relation to the way they express their faith are both sort of taking

ahold of this younger generation. >> brown: alan cooperman, i want to ask you about a separate pew study i saw slightly earlier, but it suggests that this u.s. path differs from the rest of the world. other surveys suggested the world is becoming more religiously affiliated. >> yeah the united states is on a path that in some ways looks similar to what's happened in western europe, what's happened in other parts of the developing world, where secularization has been taking place, where the unaffiliated are growing, but you're absolutely right, the fastest growing parts of the world, in terms of population, are places like sub-saharan africa, south asia, and these are places where almost everybody identifies with a faith. and so they are somewhat contrary trends. on the one hand the world population as a whole is over time becoming, if anything more religiously affiliated while western europe and the united states are becoming less. that does raise very interesting questions: will we be able to

understand each other in the future? >> brown: very briefly, do you expect what you see happening, the trend here in the u.s. to continue? >> on demographic grounds yes. of course, there's a great deal that i don't pretend to be able to predict, but when we see the younger generations increasingly unaffiliated and even the younger mill -- millennials even more unaffiliated than older millennials, i see no reason in the immediate future that this will turn around. 50 years 100 years from now, i don't know. >> brown: we'll talk then. alan cooperman, serene jones thank you both very much. >> thank you, jeff. >> thank you. >> ifill: next, the story of those who helped america in war, but struggled when given the chance to live here. afghans who served as military interpreters qualify for a special visa program. but for years, getting that visa was a long, complicated process,

that left many applicants in limbo, forced to hide from the taliban while waiting for approval. congress streamlined that process in 2013, and more than 15000 afghans and their families came to the u.s. with green cards. but as special correspondent sean carberry reports, once they arrived, they faced a whole new set of hurdles. >> reporter: this is 26-year old aminullah sayed. the kabul native spent seven years accompanying u.s. forces into battle. he worked as an interpreter in some of the most dangerous parts of afghanistan. it took him years to navigate the convoluted visa process. he and his wife and son finally arrived in the u.s. in late february. since arriving in the u.s. sayed has spent much of his time walking around his new home of woodbridge, virginia looking for a job. he looks for places like this moving company that have help wanted signs out front. he has to walk because he doesn't have a car.

like most afghans when they arrive in the u.s., he's provided three months of rental assistance for an apartment, he also has food stamps medicaid, but he has to find a job quickly before the rental assistance runs out and he's on his own. sayed spends about 20 minutes inside filling out a job application to be a moving assistant. >> so i hope they call me because i've been filling out many applications to the stores like wal-mart, dollar tree general dollar, other stores when i see hiring sign posted there. >> reporter: resettlement >> reporter: resettlement organizations are required to find initial housing for refugees.

they assist people like sayed with signing up for benefits and and finding a job. about 70% of afghan interpreters come to the us with the assistance of a refugee agency. they are provided the same benefits as refugees fleeing violence in syria or south sudan. the rest come on their own. sayed is approaching the end of his period of rental assistance and will soon have to support himself. >> i'm really depressed because of that, what will happen, my kids will be on the street, so i don't want them to have that, to be on the street. i find a job now it's okay, if i don't then that's the question, who will support, and who will help? >> reporter: one person trying to help is u.s. army reserve captain matt zeller. he's the founder of no one left behind. it's a non-profit that provides assistance to interpreters in the d.c. area. >> these guys are veterans, they did tours of combat just like we did. >> reporter: this is a personal cause for zeller. while on a mission in afghanistan, his interpreter picked up a gun and killed two taliban who were ambushing their position.

>> he literally saved my life. to me he's, you know, he's an american veteran, and we ought to be taking care of folks like we do our other fellow veterans. >> reporter: zeller helped get his former interpreter janis shinwari to the u.s. a year and a half ago. now, shinwari and other afghan volunteers spend their weekends visiting thrift shops like pender methodist in chantilly virginia. the shop donates furniture and kitchen supplies that zeller and his team deliver to newly arrived interpreters. zeller says the first person no one left behind helped was an interpreter named ajmal. he once served as translator to former secretary of defense robert gates. >> when we found ajmal he was living homeless on the streets of san francisco, with his wife his four year old son, and his two year old daughter. we flew them out to maryland, so that he could be closer to people that he knew, helped him find an apartment, furnished that home, helped him get a job bought him a car, and it's

snowballed from there. >> reporter: more than a year after arriving in the u.s., ajmal is now doing well and volunteers for no one left behind. zeller says he shouldn't have to do this work. he argues the u.s. government and relief agencies should be providing more of a safety net. interpreters we spoke with all said they are eager to work and provide for their families, but they wish they had a few more months of assistance to find work and get on their feet here. larry bartlett is director of refugee assistance programs at the state department. he acknowledges that it's a tough transition for afghans. >> it's a program that allows people to arrive, but then expects them to become self- sufficient, economically. >> reporter: and do so quickly. with the surge in processing of visas for afghans, and the greater numbers of refugees fleeing violence in the world resources are stretched. >> there's a bit of a tension because the federal funding for this program is limited, and the

needs of the population, as the needs of refugees who are recently resettled here, are perhaps greater than the federal funding can allow. >> reporter: bartlett says there is no talk of extending additional benefits to afghan interpreters. though, as hard as it is initially many afghans are succeeding in the u.s. such as shinwari, zeller's former interpreter. he struggled initially, but he says he happy with his life in america. >> i like it, nice place, and the important thing we, we are secure, we don't have to be living in fear like we did in afghanistan, we have fun because we help people from afghanistan and iraq. >> reporter: today, they are delivering furniture to a newly arrived family in riverdale maryland. this is where ajmal lives along with a number of other afghan families. he says it's not a good place to

live. >> reporter: so do you feel safe living here? >> no, we left afghanistan because we thought we were going to safe, and is a person comes to your apartment, and the drug dealers keep bothering you, is it safe? >> reporter: apartments have water leaks, roaches, mice, and mold, often in bedrooms that families share with their kids. ajmal and others say they weren't expecting luxury when the arrived, but they often left nicer homes in afghanistan. >> i have noticed about almost ten families they left back this country. >> reporter: they went back to afghanistan? >> yes, they went back to afghanistan, approximately ten families. >> reporter: ajmal says there was one man who left when the rent support ended and he hadn't found a job. he told ajmal he'd rather die in afghanistan rather than suffer here. at least the grave is paid for in afghanistan, he said.

still, despite the hardship that many afghans face here, there are thousands more seeking visas in hopes of a better life in america. for the pbs "newshour" in washington, d.c.,, i'm shawn carberry. for the pbs newshour in washington dc, i'm sean carberry. >> ifill: aminullah sayed, the afghan translator we profiled at the beginning of that story, found a job with a moving company. he makes more than the virginia minimum wage, but not enough to cover his family's rent. so he's looking for a second job, and a cheaper apartment. >> ifill: finally tonight, an art photographer returns to his roots, to capture how americans live today. jeff is back with the latest selection from our newshour bookshelf. >> brown: can a sense of "community" still be found in america today? photographer alec soth went looking for it. >> i was in cleveland. i was at this old supper club. i walked in there and it was like walking into the past.

look at the faces of all three of these people. i mean, those faces could be from 60 years ago. so i needed to make a picture of this couple having this date. >> brown: camera always ready, sloth spent two years crisscrossing the country from a bar in upstate new york, to a high school prom in ohio, to a motel parking lot in florida. 73 photos from that road trip are now featured in a collection call idea song boat" and have been shown in exhibitions in san francisco, new york and sloth's home town of minneapolis. sloth is known for both large-scale landscapes and intimate port rats. in 2004 in a documentary, he documented the life along the mississippi river. six years later in "broken manual," he focused on people who retreat from civilization. now he wanted to see if and

where americans still come together, inspired in part by the book "bowling alone." >> the sense of the death of community culture, that sort of civic organizations and community life is fading. >> brown: sloth, it turns out, isn't much on bowling, but he's a ping upon phonetic as i discovered in his st. paul studio. he started out near here as a photographer for a small local newspaper and says that with songbook he wanted to return to those roots. >> i had this idea, and i called up... it was actually on my birthday. i called up this friend of mine who worked as a reporter for years and said as a present will you go out with me and we'll do a news story a sort of pretend news story. >> brown: what were you after? >> a more sort of lyrical approach to the news and we were after this sense of

community life and what we found was that, you know, community life of course still exists in many different ways and i was actually reinvigorated about how diverse and crazy america is because there's this stereotype that everything has become strip malls and wal-mart, and, of course, that's true, you know to a large extent but you just drive off the freeway a couple miles, and there's you know, just so much richness there and so many stories. >> brown: for the book, sloth removed the reporter's notes and let viewers devise their own story. >> here's a picture of a key. >> brown: it's a wall of keys. >> i'm using the flash to illuminate this one key, which is almost a crucifix. >> brown: exactly. >> it has this e.t. quality, it's touching the light. that kind of business, you can't do that in straight news, so i

think that lends a mystery to it. so a viewer, not having all the information, just creates a story. >> brown: there is also in the book a sense of nostalgia, right? >> yes. >> brown: and some sense of loneliness. >> the book is called "songbook" which refers to the great american songbook. and i was also thinking the greatest generation. you know it's like all the great stuff happened in the past. >> brown: it's all done. >> that's of course romanticized to a large extent flu is definitely some truth to it, as well particularly with digital culture. we're all in our little devices in our rooms. >> reporter: in some of sloth's photographs the subject is turning away from 2 camera, like this one taking in a magician's shop in cologne, michigan. >> the owner took me in the back room to the cabinets where he keeps his trucks. there was a moment where he turned away. his palm was exposed. that makes me think of hiding a

trick up your sleeve but it is, you know, a completely mysterious picture. >> brown: but this one does evoke a sense of loneliness. >> absolutely. that's the lyrical nature of it is that i'm creating my own world. i'm creating my emotional tone to these pictures. >> brown: his own world and a portrait of the one we share. from st. paul, minnesota, i'm "newshour." >> ifill: on the newshour online, as republicans and democrats embrace and define the concept of "income inequality." we explain the origins of the term, and what it means now. and yes, there will be a quiz. at pbs.org/newshour. later tonight on p.b.s., "the trouble with chicken." frontline investigates the spread of dangerous pathogens in our meat, particularly poultry

and why the food-safety system isn't stopping the threat. and on charlie rose, a conversation with singer songwriter james taylor. and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, how doctors and i'm gwen ifill, we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ 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.

>> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.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. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

this is "nightly business " with tyler mathisen and sue herera. >> you've got deal. verizon buys the company that introduced america to the internet aol. but will it create a new power house for content and connection. >> sharp and swift. bond yields hit a six-month high so what should have an investor do. >> crash test tummies, the results of some tests that have some drivers concerns red. all of that for "nightly business rep on tuesday, may 12th. >> good evening. a surprise marriage on wall street. verizon is buying aol for more than $4 billion in cash. while the two