captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, august 2: president obama pushes for deeper cuts in planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions. but industries vow to sue to block new regulations. in our signature segment, sowing seeds of diversity in the tech industry, by training black and hispanic teens to code. >> i can now build something and bring it to the table and show this is what i've done. >> sreenivasan: and, taking on muslim stereotypes... through stand-up comedy. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by:

corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support is provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios in lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening and thanks for joining us. president obama is proposing the toughest regulations in u.s. history to combat climate change. in a video previewing tomorrow's announcement, the president says climate change is not an opinion, but a fact and a threat. he calls power plants the biggest domestic source of polluting emissions that contribute to global warming. the most significant rule would require existing power plants to cut emissions by 32% by the year 2030, compared to 2005 levels. other rules would limit construction of new coal-burning

plants and require more use of clean energy sources like wind and solar. >> we limit the amount of toxic chemicals-- like mercury and sulfur and arsenic-- in our air and water, and we're better off for it. but existing power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air we breathe. for the sake of our kids, for the health and safety of all americans, that's about to change. >> sreenivasan: every state would be required to give the %=9 agency its plan for curbing emissions. but the rules face opposition from congressional republicans and lawsuits from the energy industry and coal power states. to discuss obama's climate change plan, i'm joined by "new york times" reporter gardiner harris, who is covering the story in washington, d.c. so these have targets under this plan but they can set their own way to get to those targets right? >> that's right. and they can sort of take two different paths, even do a cap and trade pathway which is

actually the favored pathway by the obama administration which state's sort of get together in a regional way try hit their targets and if one state gets a lot more in terms of carbon reduction it can then sellñr tht carbon reduction to a neighboring state that didn't quite hit its target. the other way to do it is, that the states could simply regulate their way to the cut. and require reductions on a sort of a plant-by-plant basis. and hari this is obviously going to lead to a huge political battle. >> right and the opposition is lined up. certainly there are coal states such as west virginia that are going to push back. so how long could this take? >> so i lived in hazard, kentucky for many, many years obviously one of the important coal producing areas of the country and this is going to be very hard for those places and

it's likely going to lead to the shutdown of much of the coal producing capacity in the united states, at least in the appalachia region. but you're right, states have to come up with their plans with the goal for these reductions to begin biting in 2022. >> the opposition says this is going to raise prices for utility consumers, energy consumers. the white house says it will lower prices. how do we figure this out? >> what this rule will do is accelerate changes that are already going on in the market. i mean, the coal powered power plant is going away already. because comb is actually fairly expensive, compared to, right now, natural gas which is almost free because of the abundance of gas in fracking. there are some places that are clearly, this is going to be more expensive, some places out

west, some places in appalachia that depend heavily on coal fourth power plants. they are going to have to make some fairly wrenching transitions. >> all right, gardiner harris, thank you for being with us. >> happy to be with you hari. >> sreenivasan: major pharmaceutical companies are reportedly recruiting thousands of recreational drug users to test a new generation of medicines that deter addiction. the impact of the new meds could be significant. the u.s. food and drug administration calls prescription drug addiction a" national epidemic" and estimates that more than two- million americans abuse opioids. officials say roughly 45 people die of overdoses every day. financial times reporter david crow reported this story and joins me to explain exactly how these drug tests are being conducted. shocks people to say wait a minute, they were recruiting drug users, how do the trials

work? >> they recruit these drug users, they find them through marketing namely word of mouth. you have to be a be recreational drug user but not addicted. these trials last between three days and 30 days and you are asked to abuse the old opioid, the be drug that is easy to abuse, the abuse deterrent and then the deterrent. many for the pharmaceutical companies with developing these new medicines you want to get a lower score, lower the placebo than the actual product. >> one of the people took 21 pills in five minutes is that correct? >> that's correct, the clinic i spoark to said the vast majority of those were placebos. >> he wouldn't have known that. >> he wouldn't have known that and taking 21 pills in five

minutes is quite difficult. >> how big a market is it? >> it is a big market. there is an israeli company that is very big in this and privately held companies, purdue pharma is producing them. >> if somebody could take for pain but would be less addicted to? >> stop tampering the pill to make the experience more enjoyable. >> snort it grind it up? >> and insert it in a syringe. these pills have a very hard coatings, they have a gumming agent that makes them harder to dissolve. but they don't stofl problem of abusing these pills orally. you can still take more of them than you otherwise would have been meant to. >> is there a possibility

somebody abusing these opioids might come out worse? say they are taking 21 pills and it is the opioid and they are already abusing the drug? >> these people are experienced drug users. there is a test to make sure they're not addicted. they go through washout period. if their bodies show signs of addiction they are not allowed on the trial. there are experts who say this is not a foolproof system and the line between abuse and addiction can often be very blird so some of these people may not be addicted today but you don't know whether they won't get addicted further down the line. >> so david crow of the financial times thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. leading american >> sreenivasan: leading american technology companies, such as apple, google, facebook, twitter, and yahoo, concede a very low percentage of their

tech workers are black or hispanic, typically around three percent. only apple is above 10%. in tonight's "signature segment," we look at a program that is trying to change that reality, by creating opportunities for young people of color to learn how to code. newshour special correspondent karla murthy has the story. >> reporter: remember the classic arcade game "space invaders"? these high school kids are building their own version from scratch using python, a computer language they're learning at coding camp. these boys are in the middle of a six-week summer program run by all star code, a non-profit group in new york city that prepares young men of color to work in the tech industry. 17-year-old de andre king lives in queens. he did well in his 10th grade computer class, so his high school counselor encouraged him to apply. >> i didn't get in the first time. i did the application again, and when i got the email that morning, i was excited. >> reporter: how has it been so

far? >> it's been excellent. it's kind of, like, i'm doing something every day that i enjoy. it's kind of, like, i'm already having my job. >> reporter: a job, even a career, is precisely king's goal. >> if i already am well-versed in html, css, java, javascript, python, then i can now build something and bring it to the table. that gives me kind of the upper head over my... over, you know, other applicants. >> reporter: philanthropist christina lewis halpern launched all star code two years ago to address the tech industry's lack of diversity. she saw organizations dedicated to getting more girls interested in stem-- science, technology, and math-- but nothing comparable for boys of color. >> people kept on expecting me to come in and talking about girls. i had to do so much explaining of making the case that boys of color are underrepresented as well. >> reporter: halpern's inspiration for all star code

came from her father, reginal lewis. he grew up in the segregated south and made it to harvard law school, became a successful wall street financier, and the first black american to own a billion dollar company. after her father died in 1993, halpern discovered that a summer program for black students at harvard law had been instrumental in her father's path to success. >> if my father were a young man today, he would want to be in tech. and that's why we exist, i wanted a program that could help young men who were like my father, who are talented, who are driven, but didn't have access. >> reporter: halpern, who is on the board of her father's foundation, has donated $600,000 to all star code. this year, it received almost 240 applications for 40 spots. most students are black or latino and attend new york city public high schools. and 70 percent are from low- income families. bryan lozano is 16 and lives in the south bronx with his three

brothers and his parents, who are from ecuador. >> my mom is a stay-at-home mom. she really takes good care of us. and my dad's actually a cook down by 59th street. >> reporter: lozano says growing up, his parents couldn't afford to buy him the latest gadgets, but that hasn't stopped him from learning as much as he can about technology. >> i build small little, like, robots. and i've worked on large and small drones. and they come with pre-built-- microcontrollers that are coded by, you know, programmers. and, you know, i want to know exactly what's going in these chips. >> reporter: at camp, lozano and his classmates learn coding by working on projects like designing apps and video games, robotics and website design. lozano says he's used to figuring out computer problems on his own, but in class it's different. >> whenever i come up against any obstacle, i have to find a solution online, or test out different things. >> who's used a breadboard before? >> but here, you know, our teachers are here to guide us in the right direction.

>> the way this works, if you'll notice, is it's set in sort of like a grid. there are four sections broken up like that. >> reporter: in addition to the teacher, there are two camp graduates and two college students majoring in computer science to help out in class. >> i learned all this stuff over the course of at least a month. and they are doing all the fundamental stuff in two weeks. so it is a lot. >> i'm not going to lie, there's certain days where i don't understand because i don't... i'm learning, you know. it's like the process. nobody knows everything. >> reporter: on this day at camp, king was struggling to write the code for his space invaders game. after an hour, he thought he finally figured out how to get his spaceship to work. >> i started inputting the code, and i thought i got it. you know, i was excited. i was, like, "yes, this is gonna work, i'm finally gonna be able to move onto the next step." and when i press... when i pressed enter, it didn't work. >> reporter: that's when he announced to the class: "i have failed."

>> once you say that, everybody starts clapping. and you... it kind of blocks you from being discouraged. at first when i would fail, i wouldn't say anything. you know, i would try to tough it out. and one thing that comes with failure is, you know, embarrassment. here, there's none of that. there's no, "oh, you're stupid"" or anything like that. >> celebrating failure is intrinsic to our program. when you fail at something, when you struggle with it, that doesn't mean you're bad at it. that means you haven't done it enough. that's an opportunity to learn. >> reporter: marissa shorenstein is president of at&t new york, which contributed $100,000 to all star code. >> we're very excited about the organization and what they're doing. we're really excited about the talent pool that they're going to develop, and we support a lot of other programs around the country that are helping to invest in young talent. >> reporter: at&t has also given $1 million to the group "girls who code."

other companies are investing heavily in training, recruiting, and hiring initiatives to improve diversity. apple spent $50 million this year, google says it will invest $150 million, and intel announced it will invest $300 million. >> organizations have been trying to figure out how to do this better. they've been throwing resources at it. >> reporter: columbia business school professor katherine phillips studies the effects of a more diverse workforce. >> it's not going to be beneficial if you have a routine task. but if you have a situation where you need innovation, you need information and ideas to be exchanged, you need people to think broader and bigger about the problem that you're facing, you are going to get more out of a diverse group than you will out of a homogeneous one in those circumstances. that's what the research suggests. >> reporter: phillips says groups like all star code play an important role in preparing students to enter a diverse workforce. >> one of the things that we

know is that people tend to learn better when they're comfortable. and so, in fact, having a situation like that one where you can get support from and validation from other people who look like you is really important. >> reporter: another goal of all star code is to expose students to the industry. the kids go on field trips to companies like yelp and goldman sachs, and all classes and workshops take place inside the offices of companies like microsoft and google. >> nothing compares to our students coming in every day alongside active, working professionals. >> reporter: the class we visited was held at alley nyc, an office for tech start-ups. keenan williams runs a company here called yourdealclosed.com, which expedites commercial real estate mortgages. he happened to walk by the camp door one day and wanted to know what was going on. >> that nonprofit does things that i wish i had access to when i was 13, 14, 15, 16. that's what i like to hear-- ingenuity, innovation. who else? >> reporter: williams stops by the class every week.

today, the boys are pitching him ideas based on their coding projects. >> let's say there's a car robbery. and so you can essentially take picture of the model of the car that you know was stolen. you can use paint shop to generate the color you're looking for of the car, and you can look through images on google maps to find the colored car. so imagine your car gets stolen and you had a way to have an app that would change it to a bright green color so you would know if it was a stolen car. >> oh, i like that. i go in there literally just to help them broaden their horizon. think bigger. maybe two years from now, they'll remember the guy that came into to their program at a.s.c. think, "he told me x and i'm doing x." so legitimately, i'm definitely trying to be an example. >> reporter: so if you could work at any company right now, where would you want to work? >> i don't want to be cliché but

i guess i would have to say google. you know, there's nothing better than working at google. >> reporter: does it bother you that today in a lot of those places, in a lot of big tech companies like google, there aren't a lot of people who look like you who work there? >> it's not surprising to me that there's not people of color in the tech field. but if i can be that person to change it, you know, it's kind of like being the change that you want in the world. >> sreenivasan: at a recent comedy festival here in new york, comedians gathered to take on isis, terrorism, and perceptions of islam. the lineup featured only muslim comics-- all of whom were intent on showing that there's more to their religion and culture than a typical day's news coverage. the newshour's megan thompson reports. >> "just in case the word

'muslim' didn't tip anybody off," i said, "let me dress like this." >> reporter: at manhattan's comic strip, the goal was to showcase muslim talent. there were jokes about how muslims are perceived to how islam is often portrayed in the news... >> after a while, you keep hearing the word "muslim" and "terrorist" together, you're going to assume they're connected. >> reporter: festival organizers dean obeidallah and maysoon zayid have spent their careers challenging stereotypes. >> don't you watch "24"? everything was fake except for the mother killing the infidel. totally true. >> reporter: as professional comics, zayid and obeidallah started an arab comedy festival after the september 11th attacks. fourteen years later, they feel the constant bad news about terrorism has made things worse. and then, there's the islamic state, or isis. >> look at isis. first of all, they're horrific. second of all, they're idiots.

i had someone say to me, i'm not kidding, "so, dean, what do you think of beheadings?" what do you think i'm going to think? you don't go up to white people and ask them about the worst things that white people do, like, "hey, what's up with mortgage fraud?" >> reporter: there were plenty of jokes about their own religion, from the holiday of ramadan to being "haram," which means "sinful." >> i was allowed to celebrate halloween, but my costume had to be adjusted, so that it wouldn't be haram. halloween's only haram if you look haram. so, i had like a flapper costume with a turtleneck and leggings. >> how was your ramadan? did you fast? yeah, you did? did you skip a day? you skipped a week? oh yeah! girls can! that's the only time in muslim culture that i wished i was a woman. >> we thought what better way to show the world what the majority of muslims really are like,

instead of the extremists that we are exposed to on a daily basis on mainstream media. >> i get so saturated sometimes just hearing "muslim, muslim, muslim, muslim, muslim, muslim" on television. i feel like persians figured it out. during the iranian hostage crisis, people were like, "are you iranian?" and they were like, "oh no, i'm persian." >> reporter: these muslim comics make plenty of jokes about stereotypes. >> there's a lot of times when i meet people and i say my name, and i feel like they only hear what they're already expecting. because i'll meet someone, and i'm like, "hi, my name is gibran." and they're like, "nice to meet you, mohammad." and i'm like, that's amazing. how did they get my middle name? >> you know how the african- american community had a negative word, like, the n-word. like, don't even say the n word. you know what, as arabs and muslims, we do have a word. we have the word "terrorist," right? what if we led by example.

and took the t-word and turned it into something? this goes out to all my terrorists out there. >> if everybody had a muslim friend, we wouldn't have to do this. there's no other way. i want to do an adopt-a-muslim program, but nobody really wants that right now. >> reporter: obeidallah and zayid say they've received taunts and threats, mostly online. but they're not backing down. >> when you make people laugh, and you make fun of yourself, in a way, you're becoming likable. you're becoming a human, three- dimensional character to them. >> i say often my mic is my sword. comedy is all about making people relate, and if you can make someone relate to you, they're less likely to hate you. and as we do these jokes and they see how much of a common ground we have with them, i think that that helps to dissipate the hate that comes from not knowing.

>> this is pbs newshour weekend, sunday. >> sreenivasan: pbs marks the 50th anniversary of the voting rights act this week by premiering a new film: "jfk and lbj: a time for greatness." >> back in washington, lyndon johnson gathered all those who would fight for the bill in congress and they took their lead from lbj. don't accept amendments that will weaken the bill, stand the way all the way through. it will be jack kennedy's civil rights bill or no bill at all. tune in this tune in this tuesday at 9:00 pm. >> sreenivasan: the largest wildfire burning across drought- stricken california has doubled in size in the past 24 hours. the fire in lake county, north of san francisco, has burned 47,000 acres, destroyed 24 homes, and threatens 5,000 more. the fire is only five percent contained, with almost 2,000 firefighters still battling the

flames. italy's coast guard has rescued another 1,800 migrants from africa and syria crossing the mediterranean sea. rescue crews found five dead passengers on the over-crowded boats. italy has received 90,000 mediterranean migrants this year. in france last night, 200 migrants hoping to cross into the u.k. broke through security fences at the entrance of the eurotunnel. french police used chemical spray to force the group to retreat. perhaps an effort to encourage passage of the nuclear treaty by iran today. officials there said that if economic sanctions are lifted, the country plans to buy 400 new passenger planes from boeing and airbus. iran says it would spend $20 billion over five years to replace its decades-old fleet. longtime sanctions by the u.s. and europe would be eased by iran's agreement to halt its nuclear weapons program and allow regular inspections. the u.s. congress could reject the pact and block the plane purchases.

>> sreenivasan: coming up on the newshour tomorrow: as secretary of state kerry heads to the middle east, we get reaction from the region to the iran nuclear deal. >> and finally tonight a robot programmed to hitchhike across america has fallen victim to van dailies. hitch-bot, a three foot tall talking robot, hitched its first ride out of boston two weeks ago, to san francisco. but it was damaged beyond repair in canada,çó researchers, desigd to be test such, created, some things bad things happen to good robots. that's it for this edition of

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

announcer: explore new worlds and new ideas through programs like this, made available for everyone through contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. announcer: ladies and gentlemen, patti page! ♪ i was dancing with my darling ♪ ♪ to the tennessee waltz ♪ when an old friend i happened to see ♪ ♪ introduced her to my loved one ♪ ♪ and while they were dancing ♪ my friend stole my sweetheart from me ♪