captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> sreenivasan: good evening, i'm hari sreenivasan. gwen ifill and judy woodruff are away. on the newshour tonight, california becomes a battleground for hillary clinton and bernie sanders, while donald trump gets hit hard with heightened scrutiny over trump university. also ahead, a new report shows music legend prince died from an opioid overdose. how his death highlights america's worsening opioid epidemic. plus, in the most expensive renters market in the nation, those tired of living in cramped san francisco are pushing for more housing at all levels. >> getting into the bay area is like getting into a country club. you either have to have a lot of money right off the bat or you've got to know someone. >> sreenivasan: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> 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: the obama administration called today for curbs on payday loans, used by an estimated 12 million americans each year. the consumer financial protection bureau says they turn into "debt traps" with triple- digit interest rates. proposed regulations would include: payment tests to ensure borrowers can repay loans without having to renew them, and limits on the number of times lenders can debit a borrower's account. trade groups warn the restrictions will kill the industry. in the presidential race, democrat hillary clinton

hammered republican donald trump on foreign policy, and trump answered with a major endorsement. in a san diego speech, clinton emphasized her own experience, and said trump's behavior, by contrast, shows he is temperamentally unfit to be commander-in-chief. >> this is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes, because it's not hard to imagine donald trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin. >> sreenivasan: even as clinton was speaking, trump won a critical endorsement, from house speaker paul ryan. up to now, the wisconsin republican had declined to take that step. today, he did, writing in the "janesville gazette": "it's no secret that he and i have our differences, but the reality is, on the issues that make up our agenda, we have more common ground than disagreement." president obama today urged graduates at the u.s. air force academy to engage with the world, not pull back. the commencement address in colorado springs was the last of

his presidency. he argued the u.s. has the strongest military in the world and must not shirk its role as a global leader. >> in these uncertain times, it's tempting sometimes to pull back. to try to wash our hands of conflicts that seem-- to let other countries fend for themselves. but history teaches from pearl harbor to 9/11 that oceans alone cannot protect us. hateful ideologies can spark terror from boston to san bernardino. >> sreenivasan: afterward, mr. obama saluted and shook hands with each of the 812 graduates. about one quarter of the class was female, 40 years since women were first admitted to the academy. the air force thunderbirds flew over the graduation, but a short time later, one of them crashed just south of colorado springs. the pilot ejected safely.

the navy's precision air team also suffered a crash. one of the blue angels' f/a-18 fighter jets went down near nashville, tennessee, as they practiced for an air show. a local tv station showed still images of a fireball after the crash. black plumes of smoke rose over the scene as the other members of the team flew overhead. the fate of the pilot was unclear. in texas, a new round of storms dumped even more rain today, and made record flooding even worse. a flash flood warning went up across central texas, with disasters now declared in 31 counties. swollen rivers threatened to force additional evacuations from low-lying areas. the flooding has reached levels not seen in more than 100 years. parts of europe are under water from some of the worst flooding in a century. rivers are out of their banks in france, germany and belgium, killing six people and forcing evacuations. the waters are rising so fast on the seine in paris that the famed louvre museum announced it will close tomorrow, so workers can move art works to upper floors. and in germany, floods are sweeping through towns in bavaria.

disaster relief crews have started clearing the wreckage but more storms are looming. german lawmakers declared today that mass killings of armenians, by ottoman turks, during world war i, was genocide. the vote came amid tensions with modern-day turkey, over migrants and political repression. alex thomson of independent television news has our report. >> reporter: armenians dancing in the streets outside, meanwhile... >> ( translated ): all those in favor? all those against? abstentions? >> reporter: at that point, applause and polite thank you signs from armenians in the public gallery of germany's parliament. turkey's reaction immediate, angry and not that polite. the prime minister accusing germany of an historic mistake

and saying turkey will never, ever accept it. >> ( translated ): in germany an important ally for turkey, the german parliament accepted a motion by the racist 3.5 million armenian lobby. there is no event in our past that would cause us to bow down our h in embarrassment. >> reporter: a million and a half armenians were killed by turkish ottoman forces during the first world war, and the event's widely recognized as the first genocide of the 20th century and officially so now by many countries. yet a century on, turkey remains enraged by the very idea. speaking on a visit to kenya, turkey's president said they'd recalled their ambassador from berlin and the vote could cause serious damage to relations between the two countries. major nato allies and countries who need each other perhaps as never before in the grip of europe's migrant crisis and a

>> sreenivasan: political leaders in armenia praised the german parliament's vote. opec failed again today to reach agreement on controlling output to push up prices. cartel ministers met in vienna, but saudi arabia and iran remained divided over freezing or curbing production. iran is pumping more oil, now that western sanctions have been lifted. wall street closed out the week with modest gains. the dow jones industrial average was up about 49 points to close at 17,838. the nasdaq rose 19 points, and the s&p 500 added nearly six. and, organizers of the summer olympics in brazil sought to play down a host of worries today. they said rio de janeiro will be ready, despite an economic crisis, the impeachment of brazil's president, construction delays, and the zika virus. but american cyclist tejay van garderen became the first athlete to withdraw from olympic consideration, citing zika. he said he won't chance catching the virus and passing it to his pregnant wife. still to come on the newshour: the tightening democratic primary in california. trump university's controversial business model.

amid confirmations of prince's overdose, a look at the country's growing opioid epidemic, and much more. >> sreenivasan: as the primary season reaches its final weeks of campaigning, all three candidates are stumping in california, the state with the largest delegate haul. john yang takes a closer look at the tightening race on the democratic side. >> yang: thanks hari. for weeks bernie sanders has campaigned all across california, gaining momentum ahead of next week's big primary. that's forced hillary clinton to spend more time and money in the golden state. for more on that i'm joined by scott shafer, senior editor for kqed's california politics and government desk. scott, thanks for being with us. i know you have been out on the campaign trail today. the polls in california have

been all the over the place, but i think they seem to be showing agreement that the race really has tightened. what happened? what's going on sneer. >> yeah -- what's going on here? we have four polls in the last week that show this is a dead heat. california is a diverse state, has about a quarter of the electorate are latino, 10% or so asian-american voters, african-american voters, and the conventional wisdom is those voters give hillary clinton the kind of fire wall that they were voters. bernie sanders has done a good job of doing outreach to the communities. ahead with asian-americans in one poll, roughly even with latinos and that's why we've seen the race tighten so much. they're scrapping for every single vote that's out there. >> reporter: what are the issues helping sanders make the inroads among those communities? >> well, i think, you know, income inequality has been a big

part of his message, and california is a very expensive state. i know you're going to be talking more about that later in the program, so it resonates with folks. there are a lot of students and former students who have college debt, student loans they haven't paid off. that's working to his advantage. i think a lot of it, too, is he's the hot ticket in town, so to speak. he's sort of like the golden state warriors of the san joseée sharks, they're now in the finals and even if you weren't following the teams in the regular season, now it's come down to the finals and you want to be part of it. i think he is generating that kind of excitement. hillary clinton is very familiar to californians, she's been on the ballot here. she beat barack obama here in 2008. her husband won twice in california. so he's a newer personality and he's generate ago lot overenthusiasm especially among younger voters. >> the polls are showing there are unusually wide differences among the core supporters for each candidate. what are the polls showing?

>> there is a huge generation dill vide. you have voters 65 and older two to one for clinton, you have voters 35 to 30 and younger five to one for bernie sanders. you have democrats skewing toward hillary clinton. then you have independent, nonpartisan voters, we call them no party preference voters in california, they're definitely leaning toward bernie sanders. so that's likely why turnout is so important because it really depends exactly on what the electorate looks like. because we vote by mail and have early voting, more than 2 million people cast their ballots. >> reporter: pollsters have been asking people if they've already voted, who they voted for. what are they finding? >> well, according to the field poll which came out today, there is definitely an advantage among people who have already voted for clinton. they prefer her. that's not too surprising. her voters tend to be older, reliable, regular voters, so it's not surprising that you'd see an advantage to her.

it's always great for a campaign to get those votes in the bank so you can focus on the voters who haven't yet cast their ballots. but if you look at the larger electorate, it's more closer. independent, non-partisan voters definitely support bernie sanders over clinton so his challenge will be getting those people to the polls and they have challenges to cast ballots and they have to overcome the challenges. >> talk about the challenges. it's a semi-closed primary. what does that mean and how easy is it for the no-party preference voters to get a democratic ballot. >> republicans only allowed registered republicans to vote in the primary but democrats have allowed the non-partisan, no preference party voters to vote in their primary. if you are one of those voters and don't ask for a democratic ballot with clinton and sanders on it, you will get a ballot where it's blank at the taupe so you would have had to by may 31 request a mail-in ballot for the

democrats. a lot of people haven't done that. a some of these are younger, newer voters, they may open their ballot before the election and say where is sanders and clinton? they may have to go to the polling place and exchange their ballot. maybe they planned to do that, maybe not. there was a lawsuit over this whole thing, sanders supporters sued a county and secretary of state in california, the judge threw it out but they wanted to extend the voter registration deadline up till the election on june 7. that's not going to happen but there is a fair amount of confusion. >> reporter: we have less than minute left. that's a challenge for the sanders voters but there has been a surge in new voter registration. are there signs that could help sanders? >> there are. who registers to vote in people turning 18, people who have moved to a place and want to register to vote. so it's not that surprising. nonetheless, those are the

voters he needs to turn out. they also skewed democrats. so that hems hillary clinton. so, again, that's why not only getting your -- getting a ballot into the hands of these folks and getting them to turn it in on time is so important and it is, like i said, a challenge that -- but they're very motivated, the upside for the sanders campaign is when you look at the polls, his supporters are much more excited and ennewsed to be voting than hillary clinton, so you have to think that's going to auger well for him on election day. >> a game of voter turnout, scott shafer from kqed, thanks for joining us. >> you bet. >> sreenivasan: as he campaigns for votes, donald trump is today also defending his business reputation. political director lisa desjardins reports on the allegations, and trump's defense of, his business venture, trump university. >> reporter: this is about the

trump brand, and the now defunct business called trump university that relied on the billionaire's donald trump's real estate brand, pledging that students would gain his knowledge. but now three lawsuits on behalf of those students charge it was all trump university was a scam. their voices are in this campaign ad from an anti-trump, conservative super pac. >> i spent about $30,000 in trump university and basically all it did was ruin my credit and ruin my life. they didn't really deliver on anything. got to remember, there's 5,000 victims in this. in the end, there's no there there. >> reporter: today, though, a defiant donald trump tweeted that he's instructed his execs to reopen trump university after the lawsuits end. new york attorney general eric schneiderman is behind one of those lawsuits, which could go to trial as early as this year. >> it's not a university. we have all sorts of rules and regulations to govern what's allowed to be called a university and what's not. there trump's role is really as pitchman. the president of trump university and trump himself both testified under oath that

he didn't meet the people who taught the seminar, so they weren't his hand-picked experts, in fact they weren't experts. >> reporter: two other suits >> reporter: two other suits are pending in california. we read the hundreds of pages of court documents were released this week in those actions, including the "playbooks" that trump university staffers used. they refer not to "students" but to "buyers" to whom employees they can sell more seminars, costing up to $35,000 a pop. maps, diagrams and detailed schedules direct sales people on how to corral and convince people, including those who can't afford it. at one point the document advises, "money is never a reason for not enrolling-- they will find the money." the documents also contain searing depositions from former employees, one saying he was reprimanded for not pushing a couple to mortgage their home. to all this, trump has responded that most students were satisfied, releasing his own ad of success stories. >> i wouldn't have been able to do those deals without learning donald trump's business

techniques and real estate strategies, and i learned them all from trump university. >> reporter: trump insists he is the victim of bias by federal judge gonzalo curiel, who oversees the class action suits in california and ordered the document released only to say, yesterday, that some should have been withheld. >> what happens is the judge, who happens to be mexican, which is great. i think that is fine. >> reporter: in fact, curiel is of mexican descent, but was american-born-- in indiana. in the middle of all this, hillary clinton, facing her own e-mail scandal, hopes to gain ground. >> he is trying to scam america, the way he scammed all those people at trump u. >> reporter: voters will likely decide on trump, and his political brand, before the courts rule on his business one. at least one court trial has been delayed, at trump's request, until after the election. for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins.

>> sreenivasan: we get more on the controversy surrounding trump university from tom hamburger of the washington post. so, tom, what are we to make of the involvement that donald trump had with this specific company? he's got his name on lots of companies all over the world. >> that's true. he's become the expert at branding. in this particular case, donald trump eventually owned 93% of trump university, and the documents that were released this week portray him as really the marketer in chief of this company. he's very active in the marketing of the program, less active in doing one of the things he promised choosing the instructors and going over the curriculum. >> reporter: how hand-picked were the instructors as part of the sell? >> exactly. one of the claims made in trump marketing material and by donald trump himself in a marketing video is that he, donald trump, handpicked the instructors who were going to teach basically his secrets and how to succeed

in real estate. the realty is that trump did not pick the instructors. even the marquee instructors' names he didn't know as revealed in depositions, though he claimed he was hand picking them, he was really hands off. >> sreenivasan: what do we know about the playbooks lisa referenced? they reference them as buyers not students. >> it's clear through the documents that trump university was primarily focused on selling courses to potential buyers, to students. it was all about marketing and profits. that is the clearly-stated priority. it comes through in these employee handbooks or guides known as playbooks that were released this week. it's sell, sell, sell, is what it's all about. >> sreenivasan: what are the

alumni of trump u., trump university as it's called in different states, how are they feeling? >> we're hearing from some of those who had paid money to trump university to get trained in the donald trump real estate techniques were dissatisfied and so dissatisfied that they filed a couple of class action lawsuits, two in california, and the attorney general in new york was impressed by their complaints and filed a $40 million laud in new york. eth important to add in the documents we saw this week there were student evaluations and individual students who praised the program. so it's not entirely unanimous, but the stories of complaints of people who feel they were defrauded or misled are legion and the complaints they make in the documents we've seen are quite strong. >> sreenivasan: donald trump says,ive a lot of satisfied customers, they filled out a survey saying they were satisfied and they got what they

felt like they paid for. >> exactly right. part of the document release this week included some of those surveys. survey after survey showed students rating the courses they took and their instructors at a five out of five, the highest possible rating. there are some who have criticized the sort of validity of the surveys, but they are there and it's part of the evidence and part of the documentary evidence released by the judge this week. >> sreenivasan: what does trump's defense team have to say and how do they plan to mount their legal defense in separate legal actions across the country? >> there are a couple of things going on. donald trump spoke out last friday in san diego against the judge who sits in the southern district of california and said -- described him as a biased guy. said he's a donald trump hater. also identified him at one point, as i think your segment noted, as a mexican.

he, in fact, is born in indiana and went to indiana university law school. so part of it is discrediting the judge. they suggest also, and donald trump has said this as has his spokesperson, they're confident they will win these cases. it's one of the reasons they say they don't want to settle. they want to go to trial. they have an abundance of satisfied graduates and the charges against them, if i can use the word, have been trumped up. >> sreenivasan: no coincidence he happens to be on a monitor right behind you in your news room. tom hamburger joining us from the "the washington post" right now. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: the push for more affordable housing in one of the nation's most expensive cities. a director's cut from our town hall. president obama talks gun control. new songs from american classic judy collins.

and teenagers explain why they're always on their phones. but first, the opioid epidemic and the problems of treatment. law enforcement officials told the associated press and the "minneapolis star-tribune" today that music legend prince died from an accidental opioid overdose in april. the superstar, according to reports, self-administered fentanyl, a synthetic opioid painkiller much stronger than morphine. it's also been reported that prince had an earlier overdose, and was then revived with a dose of a drug called narcan. that treatment, and prince's later attempt to get help from an addiction specialist, have cast a spotlight on the question of treatment for addiction. here to discuss this with us is dr. sharon stancliff, medical director of the harm reduction coalition, a national organization focusing on advocacy and the healthcare of those struggling with drug use. doctor, when you hear fentanyl, a fairly strong drug in all the classes of drugs, wads that make you think of what prince was going through?

>> well, i understand prince had a chronic pain problem and fient fall is eat -- fentanyl is either prescribed as a patch or dissolvable tablets in the mouth for pain, we don't know if he had a prescription but that's likely. there is illicitly manufactured fentanyl found in many parts to have the country either mixed in heroin or sold as heroin. so we're hearing about a lot of fentanyl overdoses. they could be from pain management or illicit preparations. >> sreenivasan: when you see and hear about these stories across the country, we're hearing more about people who get addicted while being treated for chronic pain. >> right. well, anyone who takes an opioid on a repeated basis daily will become dependent upon the opioid. many people will be able to, when the pain stops, taper off of the opioid and go on as though nothing happened. others find that it's really hard to taper off and, once

tapered off, they continue to have craving for an opioid for weeks, months, even years, and, so, that's why we have a variety of medications to treat opioid addiction or opioid use disorders. >> sreenivasan: one of the things people also wonder about is there are more first responders who have narcan in the ambulances and different facilities who have narcan. one of the concerns with the use of the drug is sometimes this almost gives someone an insurance policy and doesn't necessarily hit home how close to death they came with an overdose when they were seemingly miraculously pulled out from it. >> the other choice might be death in many cases, so we need that perspective. but getting gnar cane when you are opioid-dependent is an extremely unpleasant event. one person described it as slightly better than death. someone goes from completely

relaxed, unaware of surroundings, to being in mere to moderate, even severe withdrawal. so there are for have you that would use maloxon as a safety net. and when people are brought back by an overdose, whether the hospital or ambulance services which long carried it or fellow drug users or family members, they kind of miss the horrifying experience that the person who thought they were going to die that really had the intense experience, they just wake up feeling really awful. that being said, that moment or the next day is a good time to approach people and talk to them about what just happened and maybe see what kind of care or drug treatment that they can get. >> sreenivasan: we have in medicine established a set of protocols. say, if you have a heart attack, here's what we'll do, the regimen, the diet, exercise.

what do we do with drug overdoses. >> if someone has a opioid use disorder and are getting opioids outside of prescriptions, we need to treat them for opioid use disorder, and the best treatments for that actually are giving them medicine on a regular basis. we've had methadone and methadone clinics for many years, saved many lives, prevented many overdoses, and now we have a medication which has several trade names commonly known as soboxone. >> sreenivasan: even with the attention opioid abuse has gotten in the last several years, do you think we have an understanding of the scale of this problem in america right now? >> i think some parts of the country are very much aware of it. in erie county they're having so many deaths. in massachusetts, they're having so many deaths. but i don't think there is enough of an investment on the parts of the governments, both in funding and in educating the public about the importance of

medication as part of the treatment. we seem to still function under this mythology that most people can do fine if they simply go into a detox or a 28-day rehab and they will come out and be fine. that's true for some number of people but many people, once i've had a few relapses, it needs to become a medicalized treatment, maybe with counseling or maybe not. but i think we need both the funding and the impetus put into educating people about it. >> sreenivasan: dr. sharon stancliff of the harm reduction coalition, thanks for joining us. >> thank you very much for having me. >> sreenivasan: the fight to build more housing in an area where prices are through the roof. special correspondent duarte geraldino reports from the san francisco bay area.

it's part of our weekly "making sense" series, which airs every thursday on the newshour. >> whose house? >> our house! >> reporter: in the san francisco bay area it seems any small group of voices can derail a proposed housing development. >> ed lee, can't you see, we don't need no luxury! >> reporter: some urban liberals wage war on so-called luxury housing. around here the going price for a two-bedroom is over four grand a month. >> no one bay area! >> reporter: meanwhile, some suburban conservatives fight against subsidized housing. >> stand up for your property rights before they get taken away. they're gonna take away your decision of where you're gonna live and how you're gonna live. >> reporter: but there is a new and growing group protesting what it sees as the not in my backyard or nimby attitudes of both the left and the right. this group calls itself yimby: yes in my backyard. >> welcome everybody to the rally for housing. >> reporter: sonja traus,

hobbled by a broken foot, is hopping mad about the lack of new construction, which she says is inflating housing prices throughout the bay area. >> it's caused by zoning but it's also caused by super local control, that's really what it is. >> reporter: and you're trying to disrupt that? >> yeah. >> reporter: yimby groups are fighting to ease local development requirements, originally meant to maximize community input. but that today effectively delay new projects for years. meaning newcomers have to outbid existing residents for a place to live. >> it's one for one replacement. everybody that comes in, basically someone has to leave. >> reporter: and yet more people are coming in. >> exactly. there's more people that want to live here than we have space for. and step one is make more space. >> reporter: a good rule of thumb is that, on average, two new jobs are enough to justify a new housing unit. but that hasn't been the case in san francisco. in fact, since 2011 more than a half million jobs have been added to the bay area economy, but only 100,000 new housing

units built-- one for every five new jobs. >> getting into the bay area is like getting into a country club. you either have to have a lot of money right off the bat or you've got to know someone. >> reporter: now even governor jerry brown seems to be siding with the yimbys, against the nimbys. he's just introduced legislation to simplify the approval process for new projects that include at least some affordable housing. >> you're going to have to reduce some of the regulatory burdens. >> reporter: but the yimbys say the governor's proposal doesn't go far enough. they would fast-track new construction at all levels, even new luxury housing, betting more overall supply will reduce prices across the board. >> the goal ultimately is to have more housing. >> reporter: just more housing? >> just more, yeah. >> i'm a gentrifier. >> reporter: noah smith knows some people consider him part of the problem. >> the city shouldn't just be a theme park for young upper middle class people like me.

>> reporter: smith is an economist who writes for the financial media firm bloomberg. he is also part of the new creative class flocking to the bay area. >> and i am sure that there is someone who has it, just a little bit harder to find housing because i occupied this place that i am overpaying for. >> reporter: folks like smith have pushed median rent for a one-bedroom in san francisco above $3,600 a month, making this city, with all its charm and grit, the most expensive rental market in the nation. >> a studio in the tenderloin, which is filled with drug addicts and homeless people, will go for about $2200 to $2800. >> reporter: in 2013, jen passetti and her husband opened a mom-and-pop restaurant in the tenderloin district, an area that's since been transformed. >> it's insane. the way the rents are jumping, i'll have to leave, i can't afford to stay in san francisco at the prices that are present. >> reporter: so you're going to

run a local business but live way out, outside? >> i mean what choice do you have? >> a major inconvenience for passetti, who could soon have a much longer commute. but a true hardship for her kitchen staff and other blue collar workers. >> lower income people are involved in the service economy, they prepare food, they clean houses, they work on construction and things like that and these require you to be close to a lot of customers. >> reporter: so they're necessarily local. >> they're necessarily local, that's right. >> reporter: smith reasons, when lower income workers are forced further away from employment, travel costs eat away at their income, adding to inequality. >> i think it's important to have housing at all levels. >> reporter: yimby is supporting gary mccoy's run for a seat on the democratic council central committee. mccoy believes yimby's pro- growth strategy could reduce homelessness. >> i was homeless for somewhere around three or four years. i think the hardest thing for me still is very rainy days.

rainy wet days because it brings back you know trying to find where to go out of the elements and having wet socks. >> more people are fighting over fewer units. >> reporter: so yimby wants to change san francisco's political structure, but it's not stopping at the city's borders. >> the state spent a lot of money on highways, on the bart, and everywhere that's on transit, that has good access to jobs, really needs to be built up. >> reporter: trauss is talking about affluent nearby suburbs like lafayette, california, population 25,000; median home price $1.5 million. and just 20 minutes away from downtown san francisco on bart, the bay area rapid transit system. in december, trauss sued lafayette, after it took a parcel that had been set aside for 315 affordable apartments and rezoned it for 44 single- family homes. >> the parcel that sonia is

talking about is located a mile and a half from the bart station. so for those people who are least able to afford a car, this would be the worst place for them to live. but still sonia has filed that lawsuit. >> reporter: lafayette city manager steven falk points out that more than 500 apartments and townhouses are being built, many of them within half a mile, walking distance, from public transportation. >> i think it's an unfair criticism to say that lafayette is not doing its fair share. >> reporter: her belief is, by in any way restricting development so that more units are not thrown into the market, you are by default contributing to prices raising. you don't believe that's the case? >> coming out of that so called great recession, there were thousands of homes in my county, not hundreds, thousands of homes, that could not find a renter or a buyer. are we willing to despoil our natural and wild places for what we know is a temporary economic phenomenon?

i think the answer should be no. >> this will be a tract development, right up to the road. >> reporter: michael griffiths agrees with steven falk about not disturbing nature, but he is a little more extreme. that's why he and a group of lafeyette homeowners are also suing the city, to block the 44- home compromise development. >> best use is open space for all, recreational use, enjoy the view of the magical mount diablo. >> are you opposed to development? >> no. but we feel it's critical and fundamental that voters who pay taxes and live here have the right to vote on this important issue. >> reporter: but sonja trauss doesn't believe anyone should have the right to vote on and thereby stall development that could ease the housing shortage. >> we need housing everywhere and we can't allow cities to just turn down perfectly good apartment projects just because they want empty fields or single family homes. so we might do lawsuits anywhere in the us.

>> reporter: those lawsuits could put a new development a short walk away from your backyard. in san francisco, duarte geraldino, for the pbs newshour. >> sreenivasan: last night on the newshour, president obama joined gwen ifill for a wide ranging interview and town hall meeting in elkhart, indiana. after the broadcast the president continued to take questions from the audience. gun shop owner, doug rhude, challenged the president's record on gun control. >> knowing that we apply common sense to other issues in our society, specifically like holding irresponsible people accountable for their actions when they drink and drive and kill somebody, and we do that without we stricting control of cars and cells phones to the rest of us, the good guys, why then do you and hillary want to control and restrict and limit

gun manufacturers, gun owners and responsible use of guns and ammunition to the rest of us, the good guys, instead of holding the bad guys accountable for their actions? >> first of all, the notion that i or hillary or democrats or whoever you want to choose are hhell bent on taking away folks-guns is just not true, and i don't care how many times the n.r.a. says it, i'm about to leave office, there have been more guns sold since i have been president than just about any time in u.s. history. there are enough guns for every man, woman and child in this country, and at no point have i ever proposed confiscating guns from responsible gun owners.

so it's just not true. what i have said is precisely what you suggested which is why don't we treat this like every other thing that we use? i just came from a meeting today in the situation room in which i got people who we know have been on i.s.i.l web sites, living here in the united states, u.s. citizens, and were allowed to put them on the no-fly list when it comes to airlines, but because of the national rifle association, i cannot prohibit those people from buying a gun! this is somebody who is a known i.s.i.l sympathizer, and if he wants to walk in to a gun store or a gun show right now and buy

as much -- as many weapons and ammo as he can, nothing's prohibiting him from doing that, even though the f.b.i. knows who that person is. so, sir, i just have to say respectfully that there is a way for us to have common sense gun laws. there is a way for us to make sure that lawful, responsible gun owners like yourself are able to use them for sporting, hunting, protecting yourself, but the only way we're going to do that is if we don't have a situation in which anything that is proposed is viewed as some tyrannical destruction of the second amendment, and that's how the issue too often gets framed. >> sreenivasan: you can watch the entire town hall with the president plus more video excerpts on our web site at pbs.org/newshour.

>> sreenivasan: next, new songs from an american classic. jeffrey brown visited judy collins to hear a preview of her 51st album being released tomorrow, along with a tour with more than 100 dates. >> brown: judy collins has been making beautiful music since the early 1960s and, since 1967, writing her own songs. in her new york apartment recently, she played a new one for us. >> ♪ you will turn around and >> i really thought of myself not as a singer in the beginning. i really thought of myself as a storyteller. >> brown: really? meaning it was all about the story. >> it was. ♪ ♪ >> brown: many years later, at age 77, the stories and songs continue, and for her latest album, titled "silver skies

blue," collins has taken a new step: co-writing an entire record with another artist, 36- year-old ari hest. ♪ ♪ collins grew up in a musical family. her father, blind from age four, was a singer and radio host who inspired her with irish ballads, rodgers and hammerstein and much more. she studied classical piano, and then discovered, and became part of, a growing folk music scene that was infused with social activism. >> i learned to sing along the way. so the songs provided me with a living, with entertainment, education, singing lessons. and adventure throughout my whole life really. >> brown: one of the things that you of course became so well known for is bringing songs that other people wrote to the attention of a general audience. >> i was desperate to sing great songs. the kind of classic songs that

i'd been raised with. there was the burgeoning of the great folk music revival. and i was in the village. so i learned woody and i learned pete. >> brown: woody guthrie, pete seeger and on and on. >> i was sitting in the middle of this incredible burgeoning of beauty and art and fantasy and also politically and socially important songs. i would just walk around the village and tom paxton would come along and say, "oh hi, i just wrote this song, "bottle of wine, fruit on the vine" why don't you sing it? dylan was just starting here in '61 and i went to hear him at town hall and said i have to sing "masters of war" and i have to sing "the lonesome death of hattie carroll," one of the great songs to come out of the era. ♪ ♪ ♪ amazing grace. >> brown: over the years she'd

become renowned for her versions of classics such as "amazing grace," sung here at dromoland castle in ireland. ♪ amazing grace >> brown: and, at the metropolitan opera house, stephen sondheim's "send in the clowns." how do you think of what it is that you're doing when it's someone else's song? >> you have to apply the same criteria to the songs that you write as well as the songs that you sing of other people. they all have to somehow become "judy collins songs." >> brown: your song. >> yeah. you have to make them into that somehow. and that's magical and also which songs you choose is magical because you don't know what-- it's falling in love. if you're falling in love, you don't know why.

i mean sure he has blue eyes or sure he has green eyes, but you don't know what it is that really is the chemistry. it's the same thing with a song. >> brown: give me an example? >> in the early things so like "turn, turn, turn" of course, i heard that and immediately want to sing it ever since i heard it as a 15-year-old. ♪ to everything, turn, turn, turn ♪ there is a season, turn, turn turn ♪ and a time to every purpose under heaven ♪ >> brown: there's been great success, including four gold and two platinum albums. but over the years, collins has also faced well-documented challenges: depression, bulimia, the suicide of her son, a long fight with alcoholism. >> i'm a recovering alcoholic, in fact today is my anniversary. 38 years. when i have troubles, i have been able to go into my music--

and my writing-- to be able to find my way through those things. >> brown: but that, too, was threatened when she developed problems with her vocal cords that eventually required surgery. >> it was terrifying. i spent a number of years just horrified with what i was going to do if i couldn't perform. >> brown: i see you do a lot of speaking on the subject of healing, the healing power of art and music. >> i would say my own life has been very impacted by the fact that i'm a working musician. i'm involved with music, with writing it, playing it, practicing it, performing it. and it really does, that two hours when i'm on stage is a meditation in a way. you can't do a lot when you're singing except to be present. >> brown: still onstage, judy collins and her new musical partner ari hest are now in the midst of a national tour.

from new york, i'm jeffrey brown for the pbs newshour. >> sreenivasan: next, to another in our brief but spectacular series. this week, we asked a handful of 8th-graders from a public school in los angeles about technology, what they use, and whether they could survive without it. >> i know it as like parent social media kind of thing. >> my grandma, my aunt are on facebook. >> that was the first thing to come out, facebook. it's, like, after instagram and all that came out, we wanted to get the newer thing. ♪ >> i use my phone for

everything. >> instagram and snapchat. either go on snapchat or i'm on instagram. >> i use uber. 'm on snapchat and instagram. >> i use instagram to post pictures i feel pretty confident about. >> i used to get above 100 likes. >> 130. in the 200s. maybe like 74. when my friend doesn't like my photo, i say, just like my photo. >> sreenivasan: you tell them to like it. >> yeah. my mom wants me to get out and get fresh airs. >> they take away my chargers. they say i'm going to go crazy spending too much time. >> you're frying your brain. i'm working outside getting better on sports. >> i don't think i could imagine a world without technology. >> i've got to think about that. don't know what to do then. my parents are always like, yeah, when i was growing up, we had to play outside and we never had phones. >> but i think they were more close with their friends and

family. they didn't have, like, an excuse to be on their phone at the dinner table. there was no phones at the dinner table. >> what does worry me about technology is people are viber bullying. >> people are called names when they try to speak their mind. >> there is always going to be people who hate on you. you should concentrate on the people who like your stuff. >> do you know all the people liking your photo? >> i know probably 80 to 90% of the people who are liking my photos. >> before i have met somebody, i've seen their instagrams and see how they look and how they kind of act and how they perceive themselves, and so without that, i really just don't know how i would, like, i don't know, see people or goat know people. >> this was my brief but spectacular take. >> this is my "brief but spectacular." >> on technology. being a teenager. what the edgology means to me. >> sreenivasan: anything else you want to say?

>> follow me on instagram. that was pretty easy. >> >> sreenivasan: you can find more brief but spectacular videos online at pbs.org/newshour/brief. >> sreenivasan: and, finally tonight, our "newshour shares": something that caught our eye that might be of interest to you, too. the "earth harp" is a unique musical installation that can turn any architectural or natural space into an instrument. we recently spoke with its inventor, malibu-based william close, during a three week exhibition at the kennedy center here in washington, dc. >> my name is william close. i am an installation artist and an inventor. the earth harp i invented right around the turn of the millennium. i actually mounted a series of chambers to one side of a valley and i ran strings 1,000 feet across to the other side, creating a literal harp out of the earth.

the way the earth harp works is the strings are going from the chamber which rests on the stage, and they are going out and attaching to the architecture of the space that it inhabits. at the kennedy center, the strings are going up and tying into the build itself and turning the hall into the instrument. ♪ ♪ you could wear rosin covered gloves and run your hands along the strings and actually create what's called a compression wave. its very similar to running your finger on the edge of a wine glass. and the sound is very symphonic. here are the kennedy center it sounds like a cathedral when i play. it's really beautiful. ♪ ♪ when i play the earth harp, i'm actually standing inside the strings and so i'm surrounded by all that vibration and music and its really fantastic. i've had the earth harp in so many different environments.

i've strung it to a mountain peak. i've strung it to the top of sky scrapers. the earth harp has been at the coliseum in rome where it was strung out to the arch of constantine. ♪ ♪ from the very beginning when i developed the instrument, the earth harp has really captured people's imagination and also, it's really validated itself as a truly functional musical instrument. >> sreenivasan: on the newshour online right now, drug-resistant superbugs are already an enormous public health problem. but they're also a global economic problem. on our making sense site, we have a columnist takes a closer look at what it could cost us. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. tonight on charlie rose: retired general david petraeus on the challenges facing iraqi and american forces in the new offensive to drive isis out of the city of fallujah. and that's the newshour for

the navy confirmed the pilot of the blue angels jet that crashed in tennessee was killed and soldiers killed and missing after a truck and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm hari sreenivasan. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future.

>> the lemelson foundation. committed to improving lives through invention. in the u.s. and developing countries. on the web at lemelson.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. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

this is "nightly business report." with tyler mathisen and sue herera. quick cash. but it comes with big costs. today the government proposed new rules to change the payday loan industry as we know it. no decision. is opec losing its long-held power to control the price of oil? big risk, big reward. why home flippers are no longer going after foreclosures, but instead making bigger gambles on better homes. all this and more tonight on "nightly business report" for thursday, june 2nd. washington is now cracking down on a part of the financial services sector, payday loans. these loans are typically small and short-term buth