captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. w on the newshour tonight, we hear from two reporters on the ground in new york state, on the battle for that next presidential primary: we hear the latest on the replublican and the democratic races. are trump's and clinton's leadsn as solid as they look? then, new hope in paralysis research. a quadriplegic man is given some of his mobility back with the use of microelectrodes and muscle stimulation. and, training for the unthinkable. the people prepared to launch nuclear weapons, if given the order. >> it's hard to think about it because you don't know what ish going to happen in that situation. you just have to do your job, and whatever the outcome is, it is.

>> woodruff: 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. >> ♪ love me tender ♪ love me true we can like many, but we can

love only a precious few. because it is for those precious few that you have to be willing to do so very much. but you don't have to do it alone. lincoln financial helps you provide for and protect your financial future, because thisbe is what you do for people you love. lincoln financial-- you're in charge. >> fathom travel-- carnival corporation's small ship line.el offering seven-day cruises to three cities in cuba. exploring the culture, cuisine and historic sites through its people. more at fathom.org. >> genentech. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthurth foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peacefulto world. more information at macfound.org

>> 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. >> woodruff: nearly 40,000 verizon landline and cable workers walked off the job in nine eastern states today. they went on strike eight months after their contract expired, and with little progress in negotiations. workers in new york and philadelphia stood in picket lines, protesting what they said were verizon's attempts to freeze pensions, make layoffs easier and rely more on contract workers. >> the five people in charge of our company make $235 million. they want to take away from me.. i've got to work 70 hours a week to make ends meet. how is that right?ig i get paid a good salary. forget about the rest of the world that doesn't get paid as good as we do. ds

i don't know. where doe end? when does it end? >> woodruff: verizon said the real issues are health-care costs and contract provisions that are out of date. the company also said it's trained thousands of non-union workers to fill in, so customers won't be affected. confirmation came today that the zika virus, spread by mosquitos, does cause microcephaly-- abnormally small heads-- in babies. the u.s. centers for diseasedi control and prevention reported that exiting evidence also links zika to other severe brain defects. it repeated the standing advice to pregnant women to avoid traveling to areas where zika is spreading. in war-torn syria, the government held parliamentary elections today in the areas it controls. the voting took place as peace talks resumed in geneva. but the syrian foreign ministry ruled any talk of a government without president bashar al- assad.

meanwhile, a brawl broke out in iraq's parliament today, as ato political crisis deepened. lawmakers went at each other in a dispute over fighting corruption. some demanded the prime minister sack his current cabinet and bring in technocrats. repeatedly buzzed a u.s. navy destroyer in the baltic sea this week coming as close as 30 feet pain russian helicopter also made passes. video from the ship shows a jet sweeping past in what appeared to be a simulated attack. the white house today was critical. >> this incident, as you won't be surprised to hear, is entirely inconsistent with the professional norms of militaries operating in proximity to each other in international waters and international airspace.ac and we continue to be concerned about this behavior.

>> woodruff: the navy said the cook's crew tried to contact the russian planes by radio each day, but received no response. new trouble erupted between migrants and macedonian police, along the greek border. at least 50 migrants tried to pull down parts of razor wire fences at a closed crossing that's become a flashpoint. macedonian police fired tear ga again to drive the crowd back. about 11,000 people are stranded in a make-shift tent city on the greek side of the border. voters in south korea have dealt a surprise blow to their conservative leader. early results indicate president park geun-hye's ruling party lost their majority in parliament today. the election took place as south korea faces sagging growth asas well as north korean provocation. the results threaten park's plans for her last 20 months in office. a chinese court today threw out the country's first legal

challenge to laws against same- sex marriages. the case was brought by a gay couple who'd been denied a marriage license. hundreds of supporters gathered outside the court in changsha, and greeted the couple after tha court turned them down. their lawyer said the fight will go on. >> ( translated ): today is not the beginning and definitely not the end. the achievement of every rightev relies on the efforts of everyone and it is not achieved overnight. i believe as long as we try together, we will finally realize the rights of equality. >> woodruff: supporters say they're heartened that a chinese court even agreed to hear the case-- and that state controlled news media covered it. >> back this this country, a task forceis in chicago charged police in that city have abused minorities for decades with excessive force and a code of silence. the panel was established last year after an outcry over the shootings of black suspects. in a staithing report, the group

concluded that chicago police have "no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color." five of the nation's largest banks have flunked theirth attempts to come up with so- called "living wills." federal regulators said today their plans for surviving a bankruptcy without a taxpayer bailout are "not credible." j.p. morgan-chase, bank of america, wells fargo and others have until october first to revise the plans. the largest u.s. coal mining company filed for federal bankruptcy protection. peabody energy, based in st. louis, has seen its stock value cut in half in the past year. it's being pressed by cheap natural gas and tougher environmental regulations. several other major coal companies have also made bankruptcy filings in recents months. and wall street surged again as financial stocks rebounded some. the dow jones industrial average gained 187 points to close at

17,908. the nasdaq rose 75 points, and the s&p 500 added 20. still to come on the newshour: a tale of two new yorks-- courting the state's urban and rural voters; a major windfall m for cancer research courtesy of facebook's first president; how science helped a quadriplegic man move his fingers, and muchh more. >> woodruff: first, the latest from the presidential campaign. it is less than a week to go until voters in new york state have their say, and the candidates hit the hustings again today. a major east coast job action was a main focus. >> reporter: for the democratic hopefuls, it was a day to d

embrace labor, ahead of nextof week's new york primary. >> bernie! bernie! >> reporter: bernie sanders joined striking verizon workers in brooklyn. >> today, you are standing up, not just for justice for verizon workers, you are standing up for millions of americans who don't have a union! you're telling corporate america-- they cannot have it all! >> reporter: hillary clinton also slammed verizon-- saying in a statement:me "verizon wants to outsource mort and more jobs. verizon should do the right thing and return togh negotiations." clinton picked up the support of an electrical workers' union in new york, while sanders snagged the transit workers. >> thank you so much for your support! s >> reporter: the vermont senator also landed his first endorsement from a senate colleague. s oregon democrat jeff merkley announced his backing in a "new york times" op-ed, and on msnbc, he explained why he broke ranks

with 40 democratic senators who back clinton. >> this really is-- is all about the person who has the boldest, most fierce vision on the biggest issues facing america and the world. >> reporter: republican frontrunner donald trump is stumping tonight in pittsburgh.t but last night, the new york billionaire appeared in a cnn town hall, with wife melania joining in. >> melania, do you ever want to say to him, "put the mobile device down?" that, like, "it's 2:00 a.m., and you're still tweeting." >> anderson, if he would only listen. i did many times. and i just say, ok, do whatever you want. he's an adult.. he knows the consequences. >> reporter: trump also lashed out again at party rules that he says are robbing him of delegates. but republican party chairman reince priebus fired back on twitter, defending the process and saying: "it's the responsibility of the campaigns to understand it. complaints now? give us all a break." trump's rivals john kasich and ted cruz campaigned in maryland

and pennsylvania this afternoon. >> i am here today with a wordd of hope and encouragement all across pennsylvania, all across the this country. people are waking up and help is on the way. ( cheers and applause ) we're going to seed manufacturg jobs coming back to pennsylvania, the backbone of the middle class. > >> reporter: cruz has his own cnn town hall tonight. for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang. >> woodruff: let's turn now to the next primary on the calendar. on tuesday, voters in the state of new york will head to the polls. joining us to talk about the politics of the empire state, beth fouhy, a senior editor at msnbc.com, joins us from new york city; and from albany, karen dewitt, capital bureau chief for new york state publick radio. and we welcome both of you. so, let's start with the republicans. beth fouhy to you, first. break it down a little bit for us.

whichus voters are eligible to vote in the republican primary. how are delegates selected in i new york? >> well, the only people who can vote in the republican primary, judy, are republicans. this is a closed primary state, and that presents challenges and opportunities to both side. in terms of just the overall look at the republican field,an donald trump is just really dominating here. he's, of course, from new york. he's the big alpha dog of new york, and that-- that status basically is propelling him throughout the state. most of the polling that we've seen here, the public polling, shows him at or above 50%. he's beating senator cruz and john kasich by as much as 30 points in all this polling. so right now the big mystery is whether he can actually top 50%, trump, get all the statewide unpledged delegates and get 50% in those congressional districts where he could really sweep up a whole lot delegates. there's a possibility,te judy,ud heeblgd actually get every single one of the delegates in

the state. >> woodruff: and as you said would have to win over 50% of the vote in order to do that. karen dewitt, to you. do you agree with the way beth has laid it out? and is trump stronger in one part of the state or another?er >> well, yeah, trump doesn't really have a really good "get out the vote" effort or ground game, but he here is drawing people to the rallies. and they've been huge, to use his word. a lot of people have been coming to them. he's been all over the state. it's been very exierkt i think, for new york republicans, as well as democrats.ts i was talking to the new york state republican party chair, ed koch, and he today sade this is new york's new hampshire.ha you get to meet these people firsthand. it is really energizing everybody. i think trump is speaking to-- especially in upstate new york y there is a lot of discontent about the economy. the upstate economy has been doing terribly for decades.es the manufacturing jobs aren't here anymore. he's attracting mainly the white, middle-class voters who used to have good job, may not

have them, are worried about their children having to leave the state. and he does really seem to be resinating a lot more than kasich and cruz, although the way that the delegates are selected, kasich and cruz could win some delegates because it's congressional district byy congressional district the way the raceth goes. so they could pick up some delegates and that's what they're hoping to do. they probably know at this point they can't win. >> woodruff: so, beth, when karen says trump doesn't have much of a ground-level organization, does that mean organization doesn't matter in new york? >> well,o? he hasn't had murk of an organization anywhere.e. i mean this really is one of these candidacies in the places he's won has beenac primarily te force of his personality, the, force of his celebrity, this real power and connection that he has with certain types of voters in different states.te new york is even-- is all of that and more. i mean, new york is his home state. although, it has changed quite a lot since he was growing up here. for example, he grow up in queens, judy.

queens is now now the most ethnically diverse place in the united states. flushing, new york, more languages are spoken there than any other place in the united states and has more of an immigrant background than any other place. all of the talk of trump, pushing away illegal immigrants, concern about the borders, when he comes back those home boroughs of queens, he's seeing american diversity in all of the glory and that may be a little bit troubling to him because it's not quite the same plays placehe group in. still, he's very, very popular almost everywhere in work and can possibly break through and get that 50% in all the congressional district districtd sweep the delegates glag fascinating. quickly, karen what, appeal ispe there for a truz t-- ted cruz oh when trump seems to have the advantage? >> well, i think cruz did make a real mistake back in iowa when he discredited new york city values. people haven't forgotten that. new york republicans are not

that conservative. they're pretty moderate. so i think cruz has a real challenge here. john kasich seems to be going for more of the electeds. he met with the senate republicans trying to convince them to maybe tell their friends to vote for him. he's trying to go the more moderate route. he's held a lot of town hall meetings, which he seems to excel in. they are trying chip away at traditional congressional districts. >> woodruff: karen, staying with you, quickly, turning to the democrats. who can vote ints the democratic primary? and does organization matter for ther democrats? >> yeah, it absolutely does. f course, it is closed just to democrats. but you have hillary clinton, who has all the established elected officials from governor cuomo, all the way down to local county legislators to bernie sanders, who has want younger folks who are very motivated to vote, but the question is will they really come out on election day? did they register early enough.. some of them may have to be

absentee ballot. a the love them are millennials and you would have to use snail mail to do an absentee ballot, which they are not used to doing. so can sanders get as many voters out as hillary clinton likely can with her support from the major elected officials, particularly in new york city and particularly with her i support from the major party unions that are supporting her and will help with the "get out the vote "effort. >> woodruff: that's right, there is such a thing as snail mail, still. >> woodruff: beth, how do you look at the clinton-sanders competition? >> well, it's a little bit closer than the field on the republican side, judy, but so far, clinton is quite a ways ahead of bernie sanders, and for many, many reasons.ns let's not forget, she was a senator from new york for eight years. she was elected in 2000, re-elected in the 2006. she knows how to run in new york. she knows where to go. she knows the communities she needs to be speaking to, plus she was a pretty well-regarded senator. she paid as much attention to

the upstate issues as estate, and she was really responsive around 9/11 and the needs of the first respond thrers. also, upstate dairy farms and apple farms and those big cities up there that, as karen put thave been struggling, like the areas around syracuse, rochester, that kind of thing. so bernie sanders, even though he's got his thick brooklyn accent, hasn't lived in the state for a long time and is not super well known. he will get those college students out fthey're registered and can vote, eligible to vote here, as democrats.ra he's got a big really tonight in washington square park in manhattan, where tons and tons of young people are expected to attend. he's been going to a lot of college tens of thousands in new york, and there are plenty of them in this stase. so he will get that kind of enthusiasm that we've seen in other states. but he starts really well behind her because of her experience and her connections here in new york. >> woodruff: so, karen, there's no brooklyn advantage or no home state advantage for bernie sanders? >> well, i'll say one thing that sanders is trying to capital ides on is the so-called

fractivists, the anti-fracking activities who were successful in convincing governor cuomo to ban fracking. he's hoping those voters will come out. they supported cuomo's primary challenger back in 2014, and his challenger, who by the way, was a vermont transplant, actuallyy won a number of upstate counties. so, bernie sanders this week said he's for a nationwide ban on frac. he mentions it in his speeches here, and he's really trying to play that up, hoping he can get those progressives out, a small group, but very motivated voters. >> woodruff: well, it is a lot of delegates a at stake, and we know the candidates are working the state hard, and we thank both of you for giving thus insight. beth fouhy, and karen dewitt,t, thank you both. >> thanks, judy. >> thank you.

>> woodruff: now, a young tech magnate places a big bet on aet different approach to fighting cancer. sean parker made a name for himself as the co-founder of napster and the first president of facebook. the billionaire is still actively involved in the start- up world, but he's now dedicated a significant part of his fortune to medicine and fighting disease. today, he announced a major initiative-- a $250 million grant-- to help fund research and collaboration in immunotherapy, among six of the country's leading medical schools and cancer centers. it's the largest gift ever of its kind. and he joins me now from los angeles. sean parker, welcome. so where does this passion, the drive to do something about cancer come from? >> well, we've all had our own personal experience with cancer. virtually, no one is untouched by cancer, whether they've had the disease themselves, one of their loved ones has had it, one

of their friends. you know, half of all men and a third of all women will have cancer in their lifetime. and what's-- what is especially frustrating is despite all the advances in genomics and understanding of the drivers behind cancer, progress over the last twint years just hasn't been fast enough. and as somebody who has fent t spent his life as an entrepreneur, trying to pursue kind of rapid disruptive changes, i'm impatient. and i think-- i think that patients and their families and doctors are impatient as well. and as i begin to look at this problem more closely, it was clear that we needed both new technology platforms, like immunotherapy, but we also need to figure out hoto collaborate and cooperate better within the world of academic science in order to really solve the problem. >> woodruff: you're zeroing this moneyoo in on immunotherap. why? >> so, immunotherapy is an

incredibly promising technologyn it has a very long history going back 100 years.. in fact, it was believed at one point that cancer was caused by an insufficiency of the immune system. it turned out that wasn't entirely false. cancer is kept in check in the early stages by the immunee system. the immune system is also an incredibly powerful weapon.fu it's really good at recognizing cells that have mutations or cells that look different. and so, it makes perfect sense that we should be able to harness the power of the immune system, which works with your own body, in order to target cancer and destroy it. >> woodruff: you, also, in your presentation earlier todayy i was watching, you focus on the inefficiency of the current system of cancer research, competing centers, overlapping laboratories, competition for

money, an unwillingness to share information. this is something you're really baking in to giving this money, isn't it? >> this is incredibly important to the parker institute, and i think to the next generation of research. a field like immunotherapy is a great example. it's incredibly interdisciplinary. and that interdisciplinary nature means that folks from genomics, intomatics, immunology, and oncology all need to figure out how to work together and share data, and they also need to be able to share the breakthroughs they make without being encumburred by bureaucracy or issues around intellectual property. what we are able to do is create a sort of big sandbox that all

these scientists can play in together. they have access to the best technology and they have access tiewfl each other's breakthroughs so a breakthrough at one center is immediately usable at scientists in another center through the network. the hope is this is not just a model for how we can research cancer immunology but it's also potentially a model for how we can do scientific medical research in other fields. >> woodruff: you are 36 years old. as we said, you're part of this new generation of tech-- people who have been very successful in the tech industry. you have a much more hands-on approach to your philanthropy.hr how do you ward against being overconfident, of thinking more of come out of this than actually will? >> i think if anything we have the opposite attitude. we accept in our philanthropic endeavors we're going to fail, and we're going to have to be honest with ourselveses that not everything is going to work.

that's one of the problems of philanthropy in general. large filanthrow pea peas and applicants don't want to be told the gifts that they're making didn't achieve the results in the world they are looking for. whereas in the business community in particular as an entrepreneur building start-ups you have to be willing to accept failure. it's a part of life. not everything is going to succeed. and you've got to be honest with yourself about yg something didn't work. if you can't diagnose the reason why something failed, you're not going to be able to do a better job at it in the future. so this is a general principle that we're trying to apply, you know, from the world of start-up in business to the world of giving. >> woodruff: do you have a timeline in your d own mind, sen parker, in terms of when you expect to see results?? and just quickly, the role of the federal government in all this. >> the federal government can be a catalyst. i think cancer moonshot, the president and vice president's

cancer moonshot effort has come at an incredibly opportune time, at this point of convergence between the computer science world and the world of life sciences. and at an inflection point in the development of life sciences. so the-- that catalytic role, i think, is very helpful.ul >> woodruff: sean parker, announcing today the parker institute. we certainly do wish you well. thank you. >> thank you.u. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: the men and women with their fingers on the triggers of the u.s. nuclear arsenal; a kind of a.t.m. for clean drinking water; and a french chef explains why you should not always follow the recipe. but first, another sciencehe

story-- this one looking at promising new research in the treatment of spinal chord injuries and other causes of paralysis. jeffrey brown has that. >> brown: five years ago, as a college freshman, ian burkhart dove into a wave at a north carolina beach and broke his neck on the sandy ocean floor, leaving him paralyzed from theom chest down. now, in a medical first, he has regained some movement in his hands and fingers through technology-- including a tiny chip inserted in his brain and communicates his thoughts directly to his hand muscles. he's learned to perform simple tasks-- even play a guitar video game. >> it is so fluid. i just think about what i want to do, and now i can do it. >> brown: the work by researchers at ohio state university and battelle memorial institute is not a cure for

paralysis, and burkhart must be connected to computers in a lab in order to use his hands. but it's another big advance in the field of neural engineering. and science correspondent miles o'brien has been follow these developments, and joins me now. miles, this is essentially a new way of getting directly from the brain to the hand? >> reporter: exactly, jeff. think of it as a jumper cable. his brain is fine. his mysteries are still there. the are intact, except for where the injury is. and if you can create a way to bypass where that injury is in the spinal cord, you can do wonderful things upon at the core of this is significant development in recent years in understanding how our brains work, and reading the languageag of the brain, interpreting it, and in short order, turning that into action which can lead to movement of muscles. it's nothing short of remarkable.

>> brown: so we're talking about ian burkhart is moving his hands by, in a way, thinking about it. but that involves this computer chip and training it to interpret his brain, in a sense. >> reporter: it's not uplike training voice recognition. many of us are familiar with that. what they do is using advanced m.r.i. equipment, they have him think about moving what is missing, or in his case, what he's unable to move because it's paralyzed. and itd. lights up certain parts of the braip. you teach the computer tond those patterns, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, and terribly, it understands what the brain is telling it to do and will fire electrodes which will in turn move his muscles. >> woodruff: glb and through this electronic sleeve.e. explain a little bit more how it moves hour, it works. >> they've got the sensorsrs embedded in his brain. wires come out of his head,

through a computer, out of the computer, another set of wiress to the sleeve which is attached to his paralyzed hand. the sleevean has electrodes in t which engage the muscles themselves and fire the muscless they wanted to do it in a noninvasive way.y already they are putting this chip in his brain, and so they wanted to minimize the invasiveness of this as they performed this experiment. ultimately, as we look towards making this a practical solution for those who are paralyzed and giving them more movement, you would want to get into a situation where everything is embedded and through wireless control, potentially, embedded electrodes in the muscles themselves would control the movement. >> brown: because right now, it can only be done in aro lab, right, with him wider up? >> reporter: exactly. and what he's doing is pushing technology forward. he's a remarkable young man. and this is something that doesn't really affect his quality of life on a day-to-day basis, but it will affect others down the road. >> brown: so a big step.

how hard is it to get to that further goal, and how big a step would this be, do you think? >> not insignificant.ni a couple big things.s. first of all, there's a wandwidth issue. his brain is generating about a gigabyte of data every three minutes, so you've got a lot of data that you have to handle wirelessly, connecting it from the brain down to the limb that you want to see move. and the other thing is the body correctly identifies these implants as foreign objects and takes them. and so over time, what we've discovered in previous experiments with people who have had similar implants, they lose their efficacy because the body goes after them. >> brown: all right, miles, i want to switch gears, i want to ask you about another thing that broke this afternoon that you've been covering for us. it's zika, and as you know, late this afternoon, the c.d.c. concludes that zika causes microcephaly and other birth defects. what's the significance there? >> well, this is just kind of dotting the "i," crossing the

"t." what the c.d.c. did is they did a study of the studies that exist and concluded with some finality that there is this connection, causation, we liken, to call it in science, between zika and microcephaly. couple that with the fact that c.d.c. officials are now talking about possibly other birth defects linked to zika-- vision related, an ms-like disease, premature births. and then add to that the fact that the spread seem to be looming into perhaps as many as 30 u.s. states and, really, you don't see a lot of encouraging news anywhere on the zika front. and the administration, the c.d.c. is asking congress for some emergency funding to try to nip this thing in the bud and now wouldn't time to do that. >> brown: clearly some new urgency here, and, clearly, some attempts to get funding, which would do what exactly?? do you know? >> well, the more that they can get out there and get education

in the mix, more studies to draw these links, more efforts to combat it, and make people aware as much as anything that when a woman is pregnant, in particular, that being near these particular mosquitoes which is now spreading into our part of the world, can be a very dangerous thing. >> brown: allng right, science correspondent, miles o'brien,mi thanks very much. >> you're welcome, jeff. >> woodruff: over the past eight months we've aired three stories about america's aging nuclear arsenal. tonight we thought we'd share with you some of the moreof interesting things we learned along the way. john yang has that. >> reporter: our past stories looked at the debate over rebuilding america's nuclearle submarines, missiles and bombs, now that much of the current arsenal is reaching the end of its service life.

and tonight, to continue our unprecedented look behind the scenes, we meet some of the people charged with this great responsibility. veteran defense correspondent jamie mcintyre reported these stories for us, in partnership with the pulitzer center onr crisis reporting. >> all stations all stations, this is absentee, absentee. >> reporter: if the president ever gives the order to unleash nuclear weapons, the en and women whose fingers are on the triggers would hear something h like this. >> yankee, mike, stand by, uniform, tango, two, three. >> reporter: it's the sound of an emergency action message. it's only a drill, but in a real life situation, the highly-- encrypted message-- sent to bombers, submarines and missile crews-- would tell them which war plan to execute, and which targets to destroy. the coded message echoes because it's sent by many different radios around the world to

ensure that even if the nation were under nuclear attack, at least one of the messages would get through. >> left side clear, one, two three. >> reporter: the newshour was granted rare access to america's nuclear war fighters over the past six months. at minot air force base in north dakota, we spent the day with the airmen who load b-52 bombers and the crews that fly them. chief master sergeant lee robins is the wing weapons manager. how can you tell how old it is?i >> well it's pretty easy, so there is a tail number, if you look underneath the letters "a.f.", there is a "61," so that is when it rolled off the assembly line. >> reporter: that makes this aircraft 19 years older thann maj. luke dellenbach, a b-52 commander and instructor pilot. what are the differences between flying conventional and nuclear mission? >> for a nuclear mission for us, it's very controlled, it's very scripted, the president doesn't

want us doing anything that we want to do. there is not inventiveness. it's very much, you follow the rules and you follow the procedures and guidelines that we have fore a reason. for conventional, it's almost the opposite. we have a lot more flexibility. we can be more innovative, we can hit targets different ways. >> reporter: it's a sobering mission-- and the venerable b-52 has been updated with modernrn avionics to carry it out, even though, as the crew is quick to show us, some "non-mission critical" systems are an antiquated reminder of its cold war history. what do we have? >> over here we have the oven. it has two different settings. off and 400 degrees. >> reporter: 1960s technology? >> it still works today.to and up here we have a sextant port, where we can do sun navigation if everything else fails. >> reporter: you know how to use a sextant? >> no. we usually put a g.p.s. antenna out of it if we need it. >> reporter: while bombers crews typically fly at 50,000 feet above the ground, the

submariners we visited last summer lurk hundreds of feet below the surface-- in this case plying in the depths of the pacific ocean. >> dive dive dive. >> reporter: by far the stealthiest leg of the nuclear triad, the sub's unofficial motto is hide with pride. "u.s.s. pennsylvania's" crew spends three months at a time in the cramped confines of the windowless ballistic missile sub, breathing recycled air and never seeing the sun. that is, unless they are among the chosen few who get to go topside, while the sub takes on provisions-- an elaborate and highly choreographed ritual on the high seas in which canvas bags of food an supplies are transferred from boat to boat. while the subs patrol undersea, "missileers" serve underground, they take an elevator 50 to 60 feet underground each time they arrive at their jobs.

there are 45 launch facilities spread across the america's heartland, controlling thein i.c.b.m.s buried in silos in fixed, known locations. >> incoming emergency action message.er >> reporter: we got to watch two junior officers practiced running through the lengthy checklist to launch nuclearto missiles. to get the launch keys, they must each unlock a padlock. in this training scenario, using unfamiliar locks, a forgotten combination, prevents a mock launch. in case you're wondering, missileers can't just go rogue-- it takes four officers, in two separate launch facilities, to launch a missile after a authentication code is received. you can't help noticing how young america's nuclear warriors are. first lt. kathleen fosterling, who commands a two person p missile combat crew, is 27. she works a 24-hour shift, eigh times a month-- waiting for an order she hopes to never receive.

>> i wouldn't say it's lonely. yes, we technically only workal with one other person, but we have all the other guys top side. we talk to the other crews in the other capsules, constantly. but our free time, if we have any, not always, sometimes therm is a lot, but sometimes there is not, a lot of people do homework-- there is a lot of people in school. we read, we watch tv, we watch movies, hang out with each other. it's not so bad. >> reporter: do you ever wonder, we ask-- what it would be like if she had to turn the launch key for real? >> it's hard to think about it because you don't know what is going to happen in that situation. you just have to do your job. and whatever the outcome is, ito is. >> reporter: first lt. fosterling is not alone. a number of nuclear warriors told us it's very hard to think about what it would be like after the unthinkable happens.

for the pbs newshour, i'm jamie mcintyre.ne >> reporter: and jamie mcintyre joins me now.ie jamie, this was really a markable series. you showed us things that we rarely see on television.io i have to ask you what do you take away from this personally?n what was most memorable for you? >> well, you know, john one of the things we asked almost all the people we interviewed was, "have you ever thought about what would happen if you actually had to deploy these weapons?" it is the unthinkable scenario.e what we found was yes, most of them had thought about it but they don't dwell on it. these are military people trained to a mission and they think about their part of the mission and there's not a whole lot of angst of what would happen if they were involved in an all-out nuclear exchange. when we talked to the submarine commander we said, "how would you deal with the crew after you launched these missiles and you know maybe the end of the world is coming ?" he said, "well, it would be difficult." "mope hopefully," he said "there

will be some guidance." >> reporter: talk about that, because this really is-- they are handling the awesome power of nuclear weapons. but it's a job for them. it's their assignment. it's their day-to-day assignment. >> well, i mentioned this in the piece, one of the things that really struck me was how young everybody was, and how they're focused on their mission. the young first lieutenant that we met in the missile silo first lieutenant kathleen fosterling. she's very young and she's commanding this two-person crew, and she's in this tiny room underground in a windowless room every day. one and of the things that struck you is you see how they personalize their life. so, for instance, those locks--- and you saw the scwaens in the story where the the training scenario, they can't get the lock open because they're using a training lock. in real life, they all use their own personal padlocks and she had plastered hers with "hello kitty" stickers which seemed to be this juxtaposition of the factio that they're conducting

this awesome mission, but at the same time, it is ame job, and ty just need to have some sort of human interaction and think of it as something that they just do every day. >> just personalizing their workspace. jamie mcintyre, remarkable reporting, thank you very much.r >> thank you. >> woodruff: india has the world's largest number of people-- about 76 million-- without access to clean drinking water. that's according to a report the international charity water aida released last month. as special correspondent fred de sam lazaro reports, an innovative solution to that problem is popping up across the country. his report is part of our breakthrough series. >> reporter: the united nations estimates that women in india spend a collective 150 million work days every year just gathering water-- water that's increasingly scarce and polluted.

across the country, an experiment is underway-- it's called the water a.t.m. customers purchase credit on a prepaid card, scan it at the tap and out comes water that's drawn from the ground and purified right at the site, using a techology called reverse osmosis. amit mishra manages the delhi facilities for a social business called sarvajal, which hopes to use reinvest profits it makes to sustain them over the long term so this where the water gets purified and it goes into these large storage tanks? >> yes. but not before it is treated with u.v. light, to make sure there's no biological contaminators.or >> reporter: thanks to charitable grants for the $30,000 of equipment and land given by the local government, sarvajal can charge customers a fraction of the price of commercially bottled water, which most people here cannot afford. fetching water remains a mostly female chore. it's still self service with heavy lifting. but it's a massive improvement

over what most of delhi's poorer neighborhoods have. we filmed the ordeal six years ago. >> by 4:00. >> reporter: the long wait for a municipal tanker truck that has no fixed schedule, the mad dash when it finally arrives-- the city's middle class buys its way out of such chaos. jyoti sharma lives in an apartment that's hooked up to the city water supply-- betterpp off but hardly well off. >> we get water 45 minutes a day in the morning.or and that's it. >> reporter: from the city.m >> that's it. >> reporter: she described the elaborate jury-rigged system of pumps homeowners use to extract water from aging city pipes that >> the motors, they actuallyhe create a suction vacuum-- anyti crack in the pipeline will allow sewer and dirty water to get into the pipelines.

>> reporter: and things haven't hardly improved for most people since our 2010 visit. >> in india, every 21 seconds we lose a child. >> reporter: k.h. patil is a state legislator and self described water activist in the southern province of karnataka, >> because of contaminated water the health of our children is really badly affected. >> reporter: across india, it is contaminated by industrial and agricultural discharges and poor to non-existent sewage treatment. i've got two glasses from either end of the purification process. this one has clean water; this has the raw water that comes out of the ground. they're indistinguishable to the naked eye, but amit mishra here has a meter to measure the total dissolved solids and its here

that you really see the difference. so let's do the clean water first. >> so, the clean water says around 130, of total dissolved solids. >> reporter: which is within the world health organization range for drinkable water?te >> yes. >> reporter: okay, let's go to the contaminated water now. >> okay, when i do it: 1879. >> reporter: this is really like poison? >> this is really like poison. >> reporter: and it's what many people consume: so-called raw water drawn directly from the ground, sometimes bottled and sold by unscrupulous, unregulated operators. >> for the uneducated, there is no difference between the clean and the clear. >> reporter: but among those who have-- literally-- gotten a taste of clean water, there's growing awareness of the healtht benefits. in the tiny space that is i living, bedroom and kitchen, poonam echoed what we heard from several sarvajal customers, as

she prepared the family dinner-- carefully pouring the water that's just as precious as her staple rice. >> ( translated ): in the past we always suffered from upset stomachs, frequently running to latrine. we had to go a long distance to pick it up, so we would take delivery of bottled water, that was full of chemicals. this water is really good. >> people see what is happening and with all that now they are getting educated. >> reporter: and minister patil says governments are starting to respond to the drinking water crisis. the caratiica government, for example, has comiksed 7,000 kiosks or a.t.m.s, like this one in a semirural area, technology and private companies that run these facilities will have the incentive to improve the notoriously unreliable service.

for your incentive to keep the the thing running properly is very plain to see. you lose money if the system is down. >> yes. >> reporter: still, he says despite many satisfied customers, growth has been slower than sarvajal had planned. on complicated, hevapld, says, in the world's most populous democracy, even for life's most basic necessity. for the pbs now,s this fred de sam lazaro in new for the pbs newshour, this is fred de sam lazaro in new delhi. >> woodruff: fred's reporting is a partnership with the under- u told stories project at the university of st. thomas in minnesota. >> woodruff: now, a newshour essay. chef jacques pepin arrived in the united states from france in 1959. he is the author of the widely cited french culinary text book "la technique," and the star of several pbs cooking shows, including one with his friend and fellow cook, the late julia

child. tonight, pepin shares his idea on the essence of a recipe.e. >> for someone who writes recipes, there is a paradox between the written recipe and the creation of a taste. when writing a recipe, one records a moment in time which can never be duplicated exactly again. the paradox is that the recipe tells the reader, "this must be done this way," when in fact, to get the result you're looking for, the recipe has to be modified each time. the exact reproduction of a taste, which is what the making of a dish is, only works when the processes, timing, and ingredients are adjusted andd changed to fit each particular situation. there is a gap between the step- by-step procedure and the completed dish, just as an artist cannot equate the technical process of painting p with the finished work of art. several years ago, i wrote a

recipe for pears in caramel sauce. the idea was, you peel the pears, cut them in half, remove their seeds, sprinkle them with sugar, and place them in a very hot oven. exposed to the heat, the juice of the pear seeps out, combines with sugar and creates a caramel, by then the pears are cooked. add cream to the caramel, and the resulting sauce is poured around the pear in a serving dish. as the sauce cools and thickens, it is finished with pear brandy or cognac. when i first created this recipe, the pears were done in thirty minutes. that amount of time only reflects the unique set of circumstances i faced; theed ripeness of the pear, and the type of roasting pan i used. this is what happened on that particular day. the next time, i used pears that were more ripe and they were done in ten minutes. but the liquid hadn't yet turned to caramel. so i removed the pears and

reduced the liquid to a caramell and finished it with cream. the third time, i used bosc pears that were un-ripe. no juice came out of the pears and the sugar started burning. so i had to add water to the pan to create a caramel. the pears needed almost one hour of cooking even though my recipe said thirty minutes. yet, at the end, the three dishes looked and tasted the same. if the recipe had been followed to the letter, the finished dish would have been a disaster; but understanding the "idea"-- in the platonic sense-- behind the dish, enables the cook to adjuss and compensate ingredients, temperature, humidity, etc. so what is the point of at recipe? a recipe is a teaching tool, a guide, a point of departure. follow it exactly, the first time you make the dish. as you make it again and again,a you will change it, massage it to fit your own taste and aesthetic.

i have had dinner many times at the home of friends who cooked from one of my books and have often been amazed at how far away the dish has moved from the original recipe. it is not necessarily a negative experience; in fact, it is sometimes better than the original version. i end up getting credit and thanks for a dish that has nothing to do with me anymore. now for our "newshour shares," something that caught our eye that might be of interest to you. president obama hosted the sixth annual white house science fair today. there were more than 130 students from 30 states in attendance. among the projects presented by elementary, middle and high school students: a water-powered generator; a rprototype robot

that could help clean subway tracks; and even a student- designed, 3d-printed bubble wand. >> have you tested out the bubble wand? >> yes, sir. >> do they work? >> yes, sir. >> do you want to try one? >> do you want to try yourself, mr. president? >> what do you think we get some bubbles going on? >> you know what? clearly i am out of practice. ( laughs ) >> woodruff: okay, we won't comment on that. on the newshour online right now, more than 70,000 people have taken our "do you live in k bubble" quiz designed by conservative charles murray. our economics correspondent paul solman responds to some criticism of the quiz and takes a closer look at murray's personal evolution and the effect of income inequality in i america. all that and more is on our web site, www.pbs.org/newshour.or tonight on charlie rose, hugh

and that's the newshour. on thursday, a business professor who started the viral trend of writing financial advice on index cards. i'm judy woodruff. join us on-line, and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial futurel >> fathom travel-- carnival corporation's small ship line. offering seven-day cruises toel three cities in cuba.re exploring the culture, cuisine t and historic sites through its people. more at fathom.org. >> genentech. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems--on skollfoundation.org. >> supported by the rockefeller foundation. promoting the wellbeing of humanity around the world, by building resilience and

inclusive economies. more at www.rockefellerfoundation.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. 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 "bbc world news america." >> funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation, newman's own foundation, giving all profits from newman's own to charity and pursuing the common good, kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs, national geographic channel and aruba tourism authority. >> planning a vacation escape that is relaxing, inviting, and exciting is a lot easier than you think. you can find it here in aruba. families, couples, and friends can all find their escape on the island with warm sunny days,