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tv   PBS News Hour  PBS  September 18, 2015 6:00pm-7:01pm PDT

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captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> sreenivasan: good evening. i'm hari sreenivasan. judy woodruff is away. on the newshour tonight: three stories from the front lines of the migrant crisis. malcolm brabant is there as more refugees land in greece. and william brangham follows up with two families now in germany. one finding refuge, the other more uncertainty. >> reporter: it is here, in this social-hall-turned-refugee camp where they'll likely stay for months as they wait for their asylum applications to be approved. >> sreenivasan: also ahead: creating a new arts capital in the middle of the city of angels. jeffrey brown looks inside the new $140 million museum that is the centerpiece. >> brown: it features 30 galleries filled with big names in modern and contemporary art. andy warhol. keith haring. kara walker.
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jeff koons. and many others-- including jasper johns. >> sreenivasan: and it's friday. mark shields and david brooks are with us to analyze the week's news. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.
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♪ >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> sreenivasan: wall street worried away all of the week's gains today amid fears of slowing growth worldwide. the federal reserve had cited the state of the world economy yesterday, when it opted not to raise interest rates. the dow jones industrial average lost 290 points today, to close
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back near 16,380. the nasdaq fell 66 points and the s&p 500 slide 32. for the week, all three indexes lost a fraction of a percent. confusion reigned across southeastern europe today, as countries competed to move desperate migrants to each other's territory. croatia's government announced it could not cope, after 17,000 surged across its border with serbia in 48 hours. so, the croatians began moving migrants into hungary, which was working to expand its razor wire fence. jonathan miller of independent television news reports again from the scene. >> reporter: the dispossessed were dumped in no mans land between croatia and hungary at 2:00 p.m. local time, brought here in great convoys by buses, by the croatians, unwanted, unwelcome. but this is a highly provocative act. neighboring hungary has made it abundantly clear that it does not want these wayfairers
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either. as hungarian humvees and troop re-enforcements arrived hungary's foreign minister accused croatia of encouraging masses of people to commit criminal offense of illegally crossing its border. noor and her friends are from aleppo in syria. after all they've been through, being caught in the middle of a game of chicken between two e.u. countries doesn't phase her. >> reporter: the government of hungary has said if you cross it is illegal. >> it's illegal. what we do? just stay and wait. >> reporter: a group of asylum seekers, including a family, broke away from the croatian police. and made off through a field towards the frontier. police gave chase and rounded them up, but suddenly the atmosphere softened. for all the bad blood between these two fractious neighbors, a fleet of hungarian buses drove into no man's land. it took ages to load up and it wasn't exactly done in good
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grace, but the burly hungarian police oversaw the whole operation. the buses drove off. the unwanted have been taken to two registration centers close to the austrian border. austrian interior ministry said there had been no coordination between budapest and vienna. in tavernik, scene of yesterday's mayhem, they continued to pour in from serbia, right through night, despite seven of eight border crossings being closed by croatia. a train took 1,000 to zograb. but we found 3,000 people standing for hours in searing heat waiting for buses. they'd all spent the night in the open. the u.n. refugee agency says it can't do anything until they're asked to with specific requests for assistance, which they haven't had. this whole situation is actually quite manageable, a spokesman told me. it's just they have no clue how
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to do it. >> we know how to do the job, but the responsibility, the moral and legal responsibility here is on the countries in the european union. what's missing is a collective european union action. countries have been trying to do it on their own and then at some stage they say they can't. so they need to do it together. >> reporter: e.u. leaders won't meet until next wednesday. croatia has thrown down the gauntlet to brussels today. hungary's furious and so are the serbs. now everyone says they're swamped. >> sreenivasan: we'll also have first-hand reports on either end of this desperate journey -- greece and germany-- after the news summary. in pakistan, taliban gunmen killed 29 people when they stormed an air force base in the northwest. it was the militants' deadliest strike yet at the pakistani military. officials said 16 of those killed were worshipping at a mosque inside the compound. the assault triggered an hours- long gunfight before the attackers were killed. the death toll hit 182 in south
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sudan, a day after a fuel truck erupted into a fire ball. hundreds more were being treated for burns. the accident happened west of the capital juba, as people were siphoning gas from the truck. the united states and russia moved closer today to military- to-military discussions on syria. it came amid fresh reports of russian tanks and fighter jets arriving to support the assad regime. in london, secretary of state john kerry said president obama believes military talks are "an important next step". kerry met with the foreign minister from the united arab emirates. >> we're looking for ways in which to try to find a common ground. clearly if you're going ot have a political settlement, which we've always argued is the best and only way to resolve syria you need to have conversations with people and need to find common ground. >> sreenivasan: meanwhile, defense secretary ash carter spoke by phone with his russian counterpart-- a first step toward direct military talks. there's word the u.s. marines
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will ask to exclude women from some frontline combat jobs. the associated press reports the marines have made hat formal recommendations to the navy secretary. it is in sharp contrast to the army, navy and air force. they are expected to open all battlefield positions to women. republicans in the u.s. house voted today to block planned parenthood's federal funding for a year. party leaders hoped the votes would appease conservatives, and persuade them not to force a government shutdown over the issue. the debate was sparked by secretly recorded videos of planned parenthood officials discussing how they harvest fetal tissue for research. >> congressional investigations are underway. but there are more than enough lingering questions to stop the flow of money-- taxpayer dollars-- to this abortion giant until our work is complete. >> as a woman, mother, and breast cancer survivor, i refuse to take that threat lying down. republicans' own investigations turned up nothing. yet some of their members are
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willing to risk women's lives just to score political points. enough is enough! >> sreenivasan: senate democrats have vowed to block the bill in that chamber. a south carolina man is now accused of failing to sound the alarm before the church shootings in charleston and lying about it afterward. joey meek pleaded not guilty today to charges in a federal indictment. meek has said dylann roof told him he was about to "do something crazy," but knew no specifics. the f.b.i. now says that was a lie. nine people died in the church attack. the united states has handed over one of china's most wanted fugitives from corruption charges. he had been in this country since 2001. state television showed businessman yang jinjun arriving back in china today and being taken away in handcuffs to face bribery and embezzlement charges. chinese officials hailed the development. >> ( translated ): the successful repatriation of yang jinjun is the result of the
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close communication and co- operation between chinese and u.s. law enforcement authorities. this marks major progress in china-u.s. law enforcement co- operation in pursuit of corruption suspects. we appreciate the efforts and help that the u.s. government provided. >> sreenivasan: in the past, the u.s. has been reluctant to send fugitives back to china, given its history of human rights abuses. this new move comes just days before president xi jinping's first state visit to washington. president obama spoke with cuban president raul castro today, ahead of the pope's visit to both countries. the white house says they discussed efforts to restore ties during the phone call. it came on the same day that the u.s. eased its long-time embargo of cuba. new rules are designed to make it easier for tourism, telephone and internet firms to establish a presence in the island nation. the environmental protection agency is accusing volkswagen of deliberately violating clean air laws and ordering a halt. it means fixing nearly half a million v.w. and audi diesel
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cars made since 2008. they contain so-called "defeat devices" that activate emissions controls only during official testing. the systems are turned off during normal driving. v.w. could be fined more than $18 billion. and campaigning wrapped up today in greece ahead of sunday's general election with no clear winner in sight. leftist prime minister alexis tsipras resigned last month after members of his syriza party rebelled against new austerity measures. today, preparations were underway to set up polling stations. municipal workers were busy delivering voting booths, ballot boxes and other supplies. still to come on the newshour: two more takes on this great, desperate migration, malcolm brabant is there as more refugees come ashore in greece while william brangham reports from one of the endpoints of the journey-- germany. also, the analysis of mark shields and david brooks and much more.
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there are many way stations on the long and hard march from the killing fields of the middle east, north africa and afghanistan. many of those perilous journeys stop over on the greek islands off the turkish coast. tonight, special correspondent malcolm brabant reports from the greek isle of lesbos where tens of thousands of refugees and migrants have landed on their uncertain voyage toward europe. (whistling) >> reporter: just after dawn, and volunteers direct the day's first arrivals to make the five mile crossing from turkey the flimsy boat was spotted by englishman eric kempson, a lesbos resident, who's been up at dawn every day for months to shepherd the refugees to safety. kempson has inspired other europeans to help, at a time when the e.u. is bitterly divided over how to respond. >> now we're at 40, 45, the other day we had 50. 50 boats is 2,500 people.
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it's absolutely crazy. and the amount of accidents is unbelievable. boats sinking people in the water. we're rescuing every single day. we're civilized people here in europe and for these people to have suffered the way they've suffered. when you see them get off the boats they're all elated and everything else. and then you see them a few days later and they're different people, they don't know what the hell is going on here. >> reporter: today's sea was kind. it isn't always. how do you feel about being here? >> happy. >> reporter: only a handful of children were on the boat. most were men, whose first thought was to phone home. kempson's wife philippa has noticed a clear trend. >> the last weeks most of the syrian people are from damascus, and the stories we've been hearing.
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they've hung on and hung on and now the war is spreading to all the areas of damascus so. they're moving really quickly, these are people that were in damascus a week ago. so they're running really quickly. it's nothing to do with the numbers pulling them, because they know how bad the situation here is. they're very media savvy, they have their phones, they're in contact with people who've already come. they know how bad it is. but what's the alternative? they're not allowed to fly. they have to make this journey. the more fences we build, the more we force people to make journeys like this. >> reporter: it's estimated that 60% of those crossing to lesbos are from syria. >> life there is not good, it's not healthy. children, it's not safe. our home it's not safe.
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everything is not safe. >> reporter: the next biggest national group setting out for northern europe comes from afghanistan, where fears about of ongoing violence and security driven by the taliban and islamic state abound. >> the most important point is the insecurity. and the different bad situations that force us and others to leave our homeland and our home town. we want security, we want shelter to have a better life in the future. our education is left incomplete in our country. we are trying our best and it is the aim of our parents to pave the ground of education for us for our small brothers. >> reporter: the people behind me are waiting for a bus to take them to mytillini, which is lesbos's main town. that's an improvement on when i was here four months ago, when they had to march for two or three days to get the ferry to athens. but the european union's inability to construct a
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coherent policy to handle this crisis means the new arrivals face many more difficulties than those that have trodden this road before. getting to the fringes of greece, is painfully slow, but with every passing day, more obstacles are being placed in their way in the balkans and central europe. but their first impression of europe was one of kindness as they were greeted with food, fluids and genuine concern. for this child, the journey was quickly forgotten in a slightly surreal encounter on the beach. this young syrian recorded his landfall for posterity. he's making history. but the scenes he will capture in the coming days may not be so peaceful. for the pbs newshour, i'm malcolm brabant in lesbos. >> sreenivasan: for many of the people the newshour correspondents just met, their ultimate destination-- their promised land-- is germany. what was initially an open-door
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policy has seen modifications, as german authorities have re- instituted border controls and draft legislation would limit generous state benefits to only certain refugee populations. william brangham updates on the stories of two families he first met in hungary. tonight we meet them in germany where their lives have taken-- for now-- very different turns. >> reporter: while refugees and migrants have clashed violently with police on the hungarian border this week, their attempts to enter into europe are for many of them, just the beginning of a much longer journey. last week we followed two syrian families along the grueling and unpredictable migration from the middle east towards germany. both suffered sleepless nights, chaotic border crossings, and a maze of ever-changing rules and challenges. now, only a week later, so much had changed. >> ( translated ): it's a good feeling. after a long, hard effort and great risk, we arrived here. thank god that we made it here. it's a very strange feeling.
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>> reporter: hameed yakdi and his family from syria were lucky in many ways-- not only did they make it through hungary before this week's violence broke out and sealing of the border, but in austria, they met hameed's brother, mohammed, who immigrated to germany two years ago, and helped guide them the rest of the way. >> ( translated ): i felt safe the moment i reached germany. i have a family that welcomed and helped me. i have not had to struggle. when i ask, they answer right away. they have lived here a long time, and they make me feel at home. >> reporter: but many of the tens of thousands of refugees who've already arrived in germany are not quite as lucky. we last saw majdoleen diab exhausted, bedding down for the night with her husband and daughter in a warehouse on the austria-hungary border. at that point, they'd traveled thousands of miles-- by boat and train, car and foot. but now, a week later- they've finally arrived in germany. >> the journey, it's very hard you see. we need a month for rest.
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>> reporter: their two year-old daughter maral was sick with a cold from the road, but at least they now had time to sleep it off. soon after arriving in germany, the diabs were transferred north by german authorities to a small town on the czech border. majdoleen says they were afraid they were being deported. >> we are opening the g.p.s., "oh, oh, we are near the czech, we are near czech." we think he give them to czech, we are worried. but we arrived. it's a very wonderful village. >> reporter: it is here, in this social-hall-turned-refugee-camp where they'll likely stay for months as they wait for their asylum applications to be approved. this is now home to about 100 asylum seekers from various countries and backgrounds. all were given i.d. bracelets, and for now, instructions to stay put. juliane scheer is a german asylum lawyer. >> for the first three months,
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people have to live in certain refugee centers and from there, they are distributed. they have a special legal status. they cannot be deported, but they also have certain restrictions, for example, for the place where they can live. they cannot just look for a, for work or they cannot just look for an apartment. they have to stay in these refugee camps. >> it's hard. waiting, it's hard. because we haven't know what we are waiting now. we have breakfast, stay, about one hour. taking shower. and eating lunch, and stay. not important. >> reporter: back in munich, the yakdi family is now staying with extended family, and they may eventually have to go through the same process and move away. their cousin ruaa has been through it before. she came to germany 15 years ago, as a refugee from saddam hussein's iraq.
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>> they have to be patient. and they have to bear everything they will be facing. it's not hunger. it's not unsafety. it's everything is offered for them here. but the procedures, it will take time and some people give up so quickly. >> reporter: hameed's brother mohammed came from syria two years ago. in alternating english, arabic and german, he explained his reasons for immigrating. >> ( translated ): when my brother asked me the first time, he wanted to come to germany. i said, "come, but not for you, for the children. here your children can learn, study better, better than even in our country when we didn't have war. here it is better than our country." we have to say that. better learning, studying. better life. >> reporter: while she waits to begin a new life with her family, majdoleen diab has already started learning german.
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the german government says they'll grant asylum to virtually all syrian applicants, but the process could still take months. she says they're committed to starting a new life here-- she wants to go back to being a hair-dresser, and ahmad wants to return to work again in metal fabrication and most importantly, they want little maral to get to school. >> ( translated ): once i start working, i can build a new future here. at least my daughter gets education and finish her school. >> reporter: maral will go to a german school, read german books, have german friends. while they're grateful to be here, majdoleen says that in many ways, her daughter will grow up in a very different world than her parents did. >> it's very hard. because the person, he leaves his country and his parents, his friends, his memories, everything.
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in syria we had noise and many people and many cafes and many everything. and we had neighbors. we had friends. we had everything. but here, we feel lonely-- lonely here. >> we leave our country for her future, just. we need a future for my daughter. and our country now, we haven't future there. >> reporter: there are many challenges ahead for the thousands of refugees who have already arrived in germany and other european countries. but for most of them, the first challenge, is to wait. for the pbs newshour, i'm william brangham. >> sreenivasan: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: how our phones have become the new
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election battleground, a new modern arts center for the city of angels. plus, using humor to tackle issues of race. our "brief but spectacular chat" with baratunde thurston. but first, the second republican debate is in the books, what's next for the candidates? is donald trump reopening the discussion about where president obama was born? and pope francis is making a historic visit to u.s. with stops at the white house and capitol hill. to the analysis of shields and brooks. that's syndicated columnist mark shields and "new york times" columnist david brooks. david, i want to start with you. this debate has happened, now. who has won, who has lost, kind of happened last night. we have been talking about that for a while. but who capitalizes on this going forward? who is actually able to a use this to leverage more fundraisers? because that's going to become more important in the next couple of months. >> first i have been predicting
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37 straight weeks donald trump will fade. i could be wrong this time. so i'm confident, but may be wrong, that he's going to begin to fade in part because i think he's gotten a little boring and a little hapless. he can afford to look defenseless and distasteful. he can't afford to be boring and incompetent because that's the mast riof the basis for his campaign. we'll see. carly fiorina, if you're on stage with 11 people, one of the acts of genius you have to have is the ability to create a significant moment that can be broadcast and rebroadcast. she has that. she has the creativity to create the moments with the phraseology and also the passion. so she's clearly, i think, rising to the top tier. this is a party that i do not think at the end of the day, they do not want crazy, so i don't think they want trump. they also don't want milk toast. they don't want vanilla and jeb yeb is sort of stuck in
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pseudovanilla land. so i think fiorina is right up there and marco rubio would be the other one. bit overan outsider. genius for taking complicated situations and explaining them clearly without oversimplified. so you have fiorina and rubio who get the biggest boost. >> sreenivasan: besides the two, mark, who takes it to the bank and makes a convincing case to people with deep pockets? is it debate over? >> i'm not sure cnn was going to give up that audience. it kept going into extra innings. i don't disagree with david about carly fiorina. she was a consensus breakthrough winner. she did several things. she did have the signature moment, as david mentioned, but also fact specific. i worry about some of the facts and question some of the facts. but running against donald trump who is a substance-free
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candidate and avoids issues like a t-shirt, the reality is the advantage she had is she took that insult of trump's and turned it on him in an organic fashion. in other words, she didn't come in and -- this is grew out of the event itself, the debate, and she grabbed that moment where trump mentioned remembering jeb bush's comment on cutting women's health, and just as women -- just as mr. trump remembers jeb bush, women will remember what he said. so i think we're looking for something shiny, fresh and new in the press and voters are to some degree this year and i think she feels that. i think that john kasich, the governor of ohio, missed an opportunity. he drilled on his 18 years in congress which is not a
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credential people are looking for here. i think marco rubio was incredibly competent, spoke in complete sentences, complete paragraphs, his text was good. he's too senatorial and that's the problem. you look at his language and presentation, it comes across as too senatorial. again, voters are not looking for a senator and i just any --i just think jeb bush, it wasn't working for him. it wasn't natural. his confrontation or the insult by trump to his wife, he backed down, and i just didn't think he had a good -- scott walker, the governor of wisconsin had to reassure his donors afterwards. it hadn't gone well. the indication was he attacked the press, he attacked cnn, criticized them. >> so there was a recent moment where a voter asked trump a question and implicit in the question was the birthplace of
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president obama. we're going to play a clip of that and reaction from hillary clinton and we'll talk about other reactions. let's go to the tape. >> we have a problem in this country. it's called muslims. we know our current president is one. we know he's not even an american. but anyway, we have training camps where they want to kill us. >> we're going to be looking at a lot of different things. a lot of people are saying that. a lot of people are saying bad things are happening out there. we're going to be looking at that and plenty of other things. >> i would call on him and call on all of the candidates to stop the dissent into the kind of hateful, mean-spirited, divisive rhetoric we've seen too much of in the last months. >> the hillary reaction is almost predictable. but other republican candidates came out against us as well.
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>> chris christie criticized it. lindsey hilsum is more vocal on the mitchell interview today. to me barack obama is a christian who was born in hawaii. barack obama is a christian who was born in hawaii. right now, 43% of republicans, according to cnn's latest poll, believe barack obama is a muslim. 54% of trump supporters in the same survey believe he is. donald trump has stirred this, he's sustained it, he's exploited it. this is a real character check, and it's a character defect, if you don't stand up and say this is unacceptable, it shall not stand. if a republican cannot criticize donald trump on these grounds of not rejecting or rebutting something so outrageous and
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indefensible as this question, they just have to withdraw from public life. >> sreenivasan: david? you hope someone has a bigotry response when someone says something so bigoted that muslims are a problem in this country that you have a response and it's one of disgust, whether it's about muslims, blacks, latinos, whoever it is. and he didn't have the response. john mccain did have that response years ago, and that's a man of honor. one thing that's interesting to me about trump is 99% of business people are people of business and honor. they don't check their principals at the door when they do business deals. when you hear trump talk about business, oh, i bought that politician and droibtd them, the bottom line is revenue things. he evaluates politicians, policies and events by their
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polling data. and if you have gotten no qualitative, no moral calculus going on in your head and just looking at the numbers, you get this moral obtuseness and no reaction to what is clearly a bigoted statement. >> now to someone who has a clearly moral compass, paying a visit to the united states, the pope. really, in several ways, i think reintroducing the world to the idea that this position has transformative power in it, and that doesn't necessarily sit well with others. i was doing a par scope behind the scenes where someone says how do you feel about the pope rewriting the ten commandments? there are many people around the world who think his progressiveness is too much. >> pope francis is coming to washington, never been to washington tore the united states before. we're the center of the universe, somehow it escaped him his entire life.
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several things, he's the antithesis of big money politics. this is someone who spends his time -- he listens to the voiceless, he remembers the forgotten, he sees the immigrant, the refugee, the day worker, the sick, the handicapped, the lonely. i mean, he really does embody -- i fear -- i know he's going to make both parties very uncomfortable because his message is not trimmed for politics. he's going to make the republicans quite uncomfortable on the question of poverty and the obligation that we have to act collectively. he's very pro politics and believes in politics. he's very strong on environment and climate change. many republicans, including marco rubio, he's well and consistent about protecting the
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unborn and those in the late stages of life who face death. he is really -- it's going to be remarkable to watch joe biden and john boehner both catholics, the vice president and the speaker sitting behind him, and applauding different panels and pretending they didn't hear others. i hope it doesn't become political because this truly is a remarkable spiritual moment in a very secular city. >> sreenivasan: david some. i wanted to underline that last comment. i hope we don't overpoliticize this visit. first we'll see his countrymen, thousands looking by faith, hearts warmed by hearne and god's love. we'll see that in public by tens of millions of people and that will be a moment of seeing faith in a way we rarely see it in this country in public. secondly, we'll see the example as the man. the message as a person, the way he conducts himself. his love out -- love of the poor
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is not self-congratulatory. he is the embodiment of the christian virtues we all admire. seeing weakest, the poor, the lowest and lifting them up and seeing the brokenness in people and lifting them up with joy. so to me it will be a theater of spiritual -- a spiritual theater more than a political theater. i suspect tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people's lives will be changed in the way politics can never change them. from within, their lives will be transformed and they will be moved by something they've never felt or only felt weakly before. to me that's a seismic event, whatever happens to our political culture. >> sreenivasan: how does that translate when that spiritual theater is finished? does that translate into any sort of policy action or rethinking something.
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>> it will carry over in people's eyes in the private lives and private giving but also the public lives. marcus said this many times over the years, we have a political culture focused on the middle class, lost some of the contact with the poor, some of the contact with the needy and not only from high to low and frankly some of the passion conservatism and progressivism has been from high to low. but treating the poor as closest to god and worthy of respect more than maybe everybody else. and that's attention that has been absent from the political culture or short supply and may be in slightly bigger supply. >> i think david said it very, very well. wherever he goes, he brings the cameras with him, and an incredible number of cameras, as we know.
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as soon as he finishes congress and it's the hottest ticket in the history of capitol hill. i mean, former members and senators can't even get into the gallery to hear him. they've set up a jumbotron outside. he's going to have lunch with the poorest of the poor in the center city of washington of catholic charities. these are the addicted, people with alcohol problems, psychological problems, the homeless. he wouldn't allow us to look away. he forces us to examine those living on the outskirts of hope. >> sreenivasan: mark shields, david brooks, thanks so much for joining us. as you heard, presidential campaigns are ramping up their rhetoric-- along with ads and events. but one of the most intense fights underway is happening off camera. our political director lisa desjardins reports on the 2016 battle taking place on our computers and phones.
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(crowd chanting) >> reporter: with all the jentility of a marching band, you may think the 2016 presidential fight has yet to enter your life. do you think the cam pace are paying attention to you. >> no. almost zero. not really, no. >> reporter: last question, do you have a cell phone? >> of course. yes, i do. i do. yes, i have a cell phone. ah, got a cell phone. very big part of my life because i do a lot on my cell phone. >> reporter: if you have a smartphone and two-thirds of us do in america according to the pew research center, you are already on the radar for most 2016 campaigns because most campaigns are amassing more and more data about vote, and trying to influence you this time around using this.
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>> the ability for campaigns now to target individuals on their mobiles with customized, individualized advertising, it's remarkable. >> reporter: that's stephanie cutter, former spokeswoman for president obama. (crowd shouting) in 2012, she won a national campaign by expandingtata operation turning out voters by transforming millions of pieces of personal data into a targeted campaign. now everyone is on the digital game including super pacs. traditional onstage debates have given way to digital faceoffs on twitter -- >> yes, they broke the law, but it's not a felony. >> reporter: -- and instagram. two weeks ago, donald trump's instagram feed contained three anti-bush attack ads.
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how did he respond? bush put up a youtube video questioning trump's loyalty. but the bigger digital battle is quieter. places like precision strategies in warrant founded by some obama veterans, the firm is working for the clinton campaign and their next cyber land of opportunity is a cell phone. the number of americans with smartphones has leapt by an estimated 60 million people in just the three years since the 2012 election to roughly 200 million now. about as many americans are on facebook. of course that includes some kids not old enough to vote but it is still a voter data gold mine and campaigns are working to connect that facebook information to public information about how often you vote and to your cell phone, all that with the goal of targeting you at the right time with the right ad. this is one reason campaign
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web sites all request first thing for your email. >> if somebody signs up on your web site to get information to your campaign that's accessible to facebook, twitter and other platforms so your identity can be quickly known to the campaign and they can communicate through different touchpoints with your permission, of course. >> reporter: in this, facebook is critical. last month the company sponsored a republican debate and set up this lounge for reporters. recently the company made it easier to track some voter information, opening up its huge universe of data for campaigns to exploit. >> they're now 193 million people on the platform every month, more than there are registered voters in this country. a whole team of facebook work with not only campaigns but also elected officials, advocacy organizations to help them use the platform as they effectively possibly can to reach the people they are trying to reach. >> reporter: but facebook has competition. >> a lot of folks are talking about snapshot.
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>> reporter: nick runs the firm engage, talking about snap chat, changing cell phone use especially for young people. don't understand it. >> this is how snap chat works. quick videos that you personalize with text. >> reporter: then the videos and photos disappear either immediately or the next day. the idea has caught fire. now snap chat has launched a new division curating the best videos and photos from people around the country into one story that can get millions of views. take the republican debate in august. twice as many 18-24-year-olds watched that debate through snap chat and on tv. >> not only being able to connect with the younger generation but in using just a new medium that gives them some new advertising opportunities and new marketing opportunities and paid promotion opportunities to reach voters is going to be pretty powerful. >> campaigns are racing to harness that power. in the meantime, voters, watch
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your smartphones. lisa desjardins, pbs "newshour", washington. >> sreenivasan: los angeles's cultural scene is about to get a big new showcase for contemporary art. a new museum opens this weekend featuring the work of major artists from the past six decades. all from the private collection of a longtime arts patron. jeffrey brown takes us there for a preview. >> brown: billionaire art collector eli broad still remembers how he managed to acquire this early painting by modern master roy lichtenstein. >> a parisian collector wanted a lot of money and i wasn't going to pay that. so what i did was write a check for x-million dollars and said "you can take the check and send me the art or tear it up." and we ended up with the art! >> brown: not something that
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most of us can do, but eli broad can and has for more than four decades. the results can now be seen in the brand new $140 million broad museum in los angeles. designed by the firm of diller, scofidio and renfro, it features an outer 'honeycomb' veil that allows natural light to filter in, a floor for storage of art works that visitors can peer into and 30 galleries filled with big names in modern and contemporary art: andy warhol, keith haring, kara walker, jeff koons and many others-- including jasper johns. a number of these were in your home? >> yes. they were indeed. i decided i wanted a lot of these to be shown in public so
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we stripped them off our walls. i want it to be seen by the largest audience possible. >> brown: it's a long way from eli broad's modest childhood home in detroit where, he says, there was no art on the walls. the son of jewish lithuanian immigrants, broad graduated from michigan state university, married edye lawson and started a business building tract homes in the suburbs of detroit. it grew into "kb homes", one of the nation's largest homebuilders. he later created sun america, a large investment company. it all propelled broad onto the forbes list of wealthiest people in the world-- last year his net worth was estimated at over $7 billion. he is a major philanthropist in education and medicine as well as the arts-- one known for keeping a strong, even controlling hand in his various projects. >> we pledged to give 75% of our wealth away during our lifetime. >> brown: you're smiling as you say that. is it fun? is it fun to give it away? >> i see this as an investment rather than just charity.
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>> brown: investment in what? >> you want to see a return in education. you want to see scientific medical issues breakthroughs. and in art, you want to share it with the largest possible public to get more people interested in art. >> this is a work by l.a. artist robert therion. >> brown: the broads began collecting art in the 1970s, and for the last 26 years, have relied on the professional advice of curator joanne heyler, who will now serve as director of the new museum. she showed me one of the more whimsical pieces in the collection. "under the table," it's a child's eye view, an alice and wonderland experience. >> it's a child's eye view, an alice and wonderland experience. >> brown: over time the broads acquired 2,000 works of art, adding a new piece almost every week and the collection has long functioned as a kind of "lending library," with some 8,000 loans to more than 500 art
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institutions. heyler says it's been rapid-fire buying, but always with an eye toward a public mission. >> we're deep investors in an artist's work, so we really want to know what we're getting into when we buy. >> brown: investors, not as in buying it to make money. >> investors in the sense of art history. investors in the sense of trying to promote their work to the public. not in a financial sense. >> brown: you feel that's a big role. to be part of art history. it's that grand in a sense? >> well, you shoot for that. you aspire for that. and again, when you're in the realm of contemporary art, you can't be sure. and you have to like not being sure all the time. >> i like these staff lines. >> brown: one of the artists the broads have collected in depth is mark bradford, who we visited in his huge studio in an industrial part of south los angeles. his "scorched earth" painting, about the aftermath of the l.a. riots, is featured in the inaugural exhibit at the museum. as a young artist just out of grad school, bradford said, he'd
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heard of the broads, but... >> it was all just folklore to me. "the broads". "the broad collection" >> brown: you didn't know what that meant. >> i didn't know. the first time i probably said "the broad". >> brown: years later, he says this of the broads' influence. >> i think it's important when collectors collect in depth of an artist. because you don't feel like they're just doing baseball cards: you have one of this and one of this and one of this. you really feel like they're committed to your work over the long period. and for me that means something. because you can see your growth in the work. "oh that was good" or "oh, i'm a little better. >> brown: you can see it in one place. >> one place. >> brown: l.a. times art critic christopher knight applauds that kind of long-term commitment, but wishes the overall collection reached beyond so- called "blue-chip" art and deeper into what's been produced in los angeles. >> the primary limitation of the collection is that it's a market
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driven collection, which is a very narrow sliver of the very active art world of the last 30 years. i wish it had a greater representation of art that has been produced in los angeles. it's 2015. l.a.'s widely regarded as one of the most important centers for the production of new art in the world. and yet there is still today, even though there are five major museums in town, there is nowhere to go where one can see the evolution of the development of art in los angeles. there isn't and there should be. >> brown: broad, though, is obsessed with developing l.a. as a leading capital of the art world. the new building is part of an arts district he's helped create, stretching along grand avenue in downtown los angeles, and including disney concert hall and the museum of contemporary art. what's the idea? >> to create a vibrant center for a region of 14 million people. i consider this to be the regional cultural center for 14 million people. >> brown: which it didn't have
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before? >> which it didn't have before. >> brown: whether the new broad helps further that vision for downtown is one of the big question marks as it opens this weekend. from los angeles, i'm jeffrey brown for the pbs newshour. >> sreenivasan: now to our regular feature: brief but spectacular. tonight, author and comedian baratunde thurston on using humor to educate and skewer racism with satire. >> when you are the black friend in your circle of people -- that means you're the one black person these friends have -- you're kind of like a double agent and help prevent all-out thermonuclear war. >> i grew up in the columbia
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heights neighborhood of washington, d.c. before it was flooded by white people. i was raised by my mother alone. my father was killed when i was seven or eight years old and my mom worked for the government. no college degree, very self-taught, the most resourceful and intelligent person i've ever known. in college i started writing a satirical email newsletter and got frustrated my peers at harvard university didn't know anything about what was going on in the world. i'm going yeah, we're paying 38 gillion dollars a second to be here, you should know what's going on in sri lanka, so i educated my peers with hilarity. i was the black people at the onion. i played the part of a lot of other black people in the photoshop job. i was the mayor of detroit, the
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supremes, president obama's hand, and i wrote executive orders with that hand. the book is a memoir, peppered with satirical lessons i've learned, how to be the black employee, friend, the next black president. if the white person is holding a book called how to be black, it's like, do you think this will do it for you, and if it's held by a black, it's like do you need a refresher course? we have to come at it comedically to try to move forward politically. my name is baratunde, this is my brief but spectacular take on how to be black. >> sreenivasan: on the newshour online right now: an outdoor lab devoted to measuring the effects of sea level rise shows troubling results.
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the accelerated poisoning of freshwater wetlands that keep our water clean. read more about the "wild side of sea level rise" on our science page. and on our world page, we take you around the globe in five questions. test your news knowledge with our new weekly quiz. all that and more is on our website: pbs.org/newshour. and a reminder about some upcoming programs from our pbs colleagues. gwen ifill is preparing for "washington week," which airs later this evening. here's a preview: >> ifill: now, with two debates under their belts we take a look at where the republican candidates go from here. does donald trump still ride high? can carly fiorina capitalize on a strong night? can jeb bush and scott walker bounce back? that's tonight on washington week hari? >> sreenivasan: on pbs newshour weekend saturday we begin a six part series, "time for school," about the fight for education around the world.
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we begin with a story from kenya. >> reporter: joab onyando's family could never afford tuition for school until 2003, when kenya makes primary school free for the first time in nearly 30 years. >> good morning, school. >> good morning! >> reporter: more than a million new students flood the system. joab is ten and his brother gerald is seven when they begin first grade, walking to school each day through the sprawling nairobi slum they call home-- kibera. their class has 74 students and one teacher. >> sreenivasan: that's tomorrow night on pbs newshour weekend. and we'll be back, right here, on monday with a look at who is pope francis ahead of his first u.s. visit.
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that's the newshour for tonight. i'm hari sreenivasan. have a great weekend. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> 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
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captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
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♪ >> announcer: this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. what you see is what you get. the federal reserve says the economy won't grow much over the next few years. so what should you do with your money? dodging the rules? the epa accuses volkswagen of evading some regulations, and it could cost the automaker billions. corporate checkup. the next big challenge for stocks is fast approaching. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for friday september 18th. and good evening, everyone. a fed-fueled fall. stocks started the day low and ended even lower as investors from asia to europe and here in the u.s. focused on the health of the global economy. the concern was sparked by comments from the federal reserve