captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> sreenivasan: and i'm hari sreenivasan. gwen ifill is away. >> woodruff: on the newshour tonight, at least one person is dead and more than 100 injured after a new jersey commuter train crashes into the hoboken station. >> sreenivasan: also ahead this thursday, how the candidates are taking advantage of early voting, with up to a third of americans casting their ballot before november 8. >> woodruff: and, a report from afghanistan, on the fight for womens' rights despite injustices embedded in the society even before there was a war. >> a lot of people don't realize that afghanistan is a country where it's been reported that over 85% of the women are victims of domestic violence. >> sreenivasan: plus, making sense of donald trump's taxes. what voters should know, and how the u.s. tax system often favors

the rich. >> for certain very wealthy people, our federal income tax system is a subsidy system that makes them richer. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future.

>> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> supported by the rockefeller foundation. promoting the well-being of humanity around the world by building resilience and inclusive economies. more at rockefellerfoundation.org >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and 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: investigators in northern new jersey have a big question to ponder tonight: why did a commuter train smash into a station in the midst of rush hour? for now, the answer is anything but clear. it was 8:45 this morning, when a new jersey transit train came barreling into hoboken, without slowing down. a passenger in the first car said there'd been no hint of anything wrong: >> there wasn't even a screeching like it was halting, it just kept going. maybe there was some kind of breaking involved. the lights went off and people started screaming. >> sreenivasan: the speeding rail cars crashed through a barrier and into the outer wall of the terminal waiting room, crushing the front of the train and collapsing the waiting room's ceiling. >> we have a train that's crashed into the train station at hoboken terminal.

we are going to need multiple e.m.s. for multiple injuries. >> sreenivasan: police and emergency workers rushed to the station, a commuter hub just outside new york that handles 50,000 passengers every day. bystanders jumped in to help people pinned under mangled steel and concrete. >> the second half of the first car was completely destroyed to the point they were crawling on their hands and knees and we were trying to get as many people out. >> sreenivasan: the lone fatality was a woman on the platform, killed by the falling debris. >> they were pulling people out. people were jumping out cuts and bruises, but i didn't realize when i ran, i stepped over a body. it was a dead woman. >> sreenivasan: dozens were sent to area hospitals. three were in critical condition, including the train's conductor. many more made it out with minor injuries. hours later, new jersey governor chris christie and new york governor andrew cuomo toured the scene. christie said it appeared to be

an accident, but key questions remain: >> we know the train came in at much too high a rate of speed, the question is, why? >> sreenivasan: the national transportation safety board has now opened an investigation, and, new jersey transit's terminal at hoboken is closed. other parts of the station have reopened. a short time ago, officials announced that the train's engineer has been released from the hospital, and they plan to interview him soon. we're joined now by brenda flanagan. she's with new jersey tv and part of our public broadcasting family. brenda, you have been there reporting all day. what's the scene like now? >> well, right now, you can see that the building is still surrounded by police vehicles and command centers. the national transportation safety board just held a briefing in which they told us that the train was equipped with outward facing cameras. obviously, they're going to be looking at those tapes. they're also going to be pulling the black box tonight. as the train station remains closed, they will be looking for issues like operator error, mechanical issues, signal

problems, track issues. now, they will not determine the cause of this accident today or on the scene. it's going to take seven to ten days before they're able to come up with possibly a reason for this catastrophe. hari. >> sreenivasan: it's almost surprising so few people were injured considering what a busy transit hub this is in the new york area and it happened during rush hour when trains are usually packed. >> absolutely. this was -- i know it's a cliche but it's like the perfect storm, when you had so many wrong things. you had all of these people jam packed. it was a standing-room-only type of commuter train coming in at 8:45 in the morning, everyone heading into downtown. the fact only one person was killed is amazing. the transportation safety board is going to be looking at this tonight, but positive train control is another issue that was raised.

governor christie was asked whether or not that might have slowed the train down. new jersey transit has no positive train control apparatus on any of its tracks or facilities. now, senators menendez and booker of new jersey held a news conference this afternoon. they said they are alarmed about the lack of security and the lack of safety and that they are going to be looking into this seriously, hari. >> sreenivasan: tell us a little about all the civilians that actually responded because of the structural threat right after the crash. >> that was amazing. in this area, yeah, we always have in the back of our minds, because of 9/11, this could be a terror attack, and as you well know, new jersey and new york has been the scene of bombings that have been throirchgd a possible terror threat just a week and a half ago. now, be that as it may, people who are in the terminal when

there was this huge boom, they said the building shifted, the lights flickered and several people ran toward the source of the boom. they got to the scene, helped remove some of the passengers from the area. looking up and seeing the ceiling might collapse, they said it's too dangerous, we have to help move these people out of the way. one man actually took the shirt off his back to fold it around some of the victims. he said they were shake because they were cold and scared and in pain. >> sreenivasan: all right, brenda flanagan joining us from the scene in hoboken, n.j. tv >> woodruff: in the day's other news, republican leaders in both houses of congress opened the door to changes in a new law allowing relatives of the 9/11 victims to sue the government of saudi arabia. this, just one day after lawmakers pushed the measure through to passage, and in so doing, managed the first override of a veto by president obama. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell faulted the white house for being too slow to point out problems.

>> i think it was an example of an issue we should have on a bipartisan basis talked about much earlier. because everybody was aware of who the potential beneficiaries were, but nobody had really focused on the potential downside in terms of our international relationships. and i think it was just a ball dropped. >> woodruff: house speaker paul ryan also suggested a fix might be needed. and, white house spokesman josh earnest took note of the shift. >> i think what we've seen in the united states congress is a pretty classic case of rapid onset buyer's remorse. >> if there are members of congress that have had a change of heart, are now prepared to take a principled position, we would welcome a conversation about that. we would welcome action to solve the problem that they've created. >> woodruff: president obama has warned the new law could lead to retaliation against americans abroad. >> sreenivasan: the united states is on the verge of ending

its syrian talks with russia, because of the assault on aleppo. that, from secretary of state john kerry today. at a washington event, he said diplomacy can't continue, in the face of an all-out russian- syrian offensive. >> it's irrational in the context of the kind of bombing taking place to be sitting there trying to take things seriously. there's no notion or indication of a seriousness of purpose with what is taking place right now. >> sreenivasan: earlier, russia brushed aside washington's warnings. but the defense minister suggested a possible 48-hour truce to let humanitarian aid into aleppo. >> woodruff: american olympic and paralympic athletes had their "white house" moment today. the president hailed their success at this summer's games in rio de janeiro, winning 46 olympic gold medals, and 40 paralympic golds.

>> it inspires us to do what we do much harder. we admire your athleticism but we also admire your character and your stick-to-itiveness. we know you don't do this for the money or the fame. (laughter) >> woodruff: mr. obama also hosted families of african- american olympians from the 1936 games. those athletes were left out of a white house welcome 80 years ago. >> sreenivasan: stocks fells sharply on wall street today, as drug companies and banks suffered big losses. the dow jones industrial average plunged nearly 196 points to close at 18,143. the nasdaq fell 49 points, and the s&p 500 lost 20 points. >> woodruff: and, congress hopes to help parents who need to change babies' diapers, in federal buildings. a bill sent to the president today requires changing stations be installed in men's and women's restrooms in all federal sites open to the public. that includes courthouses, post offices and some government-run museums. >> sreenivasan: still to come on the newshour, the candidates

start their sweep through swing states as early voting gets underway. the changing lives of afghan women after 15 years of war. making sense of donald trump's taxes, and much more. >> woodruff: election day is just 40 days away, but voting has already started in a number of states. lisa desjardins reports on the candidates ground game. >> i am so happy to be back here in iowa... >> reporter: as iowa started early voting, hillary clinton was in des moines with a turnout push. >> are you ready to go to the polls? (applause) well, luckily in iowa, you can start today... >> reporter: performance from the state's high-profile caucuses back in february, when she barely eked out a win over bernie sanders. she's now neck and neck with donald trump there.

the democratic nominee is also visiting another state kicking off early voting today, illinois, to host two fundraisers in chicago. meanwhile, donald trump returned to the site of his first 2016 win: new hampshire. he cleaned up in the state's primary but it's a general election toss-up. >> they said the biggest single problem they have up here is heroin. if i win, i get the nomination, and i win, we're gonna build that wall, and we're gonna stop that heroin from pouring in. >> reporter: away from the campaign trail, the republican's business investments took the spotlight... "newsweek" reported that trump's hotel and casino business spent $68,000 in cuba in the late 1990's, routing it through a third party, to try to gain a business foothold there. that apparently violated strict u.s. bans on doing business with the communist nation. his campaign manager, kellyanne conway, defended him on "the view," but seemed to admit there

was business conducted. >> it turns out his company decided not to invest there. >> so are you denying that his country spent any money in cuba? >> they paid money, as i understand, in 1998, and we're not supposed to talk about years ago when it comes to the clintons >> donald trump knew, and the best we can tell by the investigative reporting, he was deliberate. >> reporter: another set of headlines today, for libertarian gary johnson. one big win: he earned the endorsement of the "detroit news," which called trump "unstable and possibly dangerous". it was the first time in the paper's 143-year history that it hasn't endorsed republican. but johnson also faced some bad press, after he was asked on msnbc last night to name a foreign leader he respects:

>> i guess i'm having an aleppo moment in the former president of mexico. >> but i'm giving you the whole world. >> i know, i know, i know. >> but i'm giving you the whole world. anybody in the world you like. anybody. pick any leader. >> the former president of mexico. >> which one? >> i'm having a brain... i'm having a brain freeze. >> reporter: johnson is polling at seven percent nationwide, much higher in a few states, but it's not enough yet to make the stage for the second presidential debate in two weeks. for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: all told, more than a third of all votes will be cast early. and that math has changed the way campaigns organize. reporter sasha issenberg with bloomberg news has been digging in on the role of early voting in this election, and he joins us now. sasha issenberg, welcome. so this is really changing the way the candidates and the campaigns are organized. >> yeah, you know, within hillary clinton's campaign, we saw her today, she went to iowa to try to basically start get out the the vote activities five weeks before election day, but

within her headquarters in brooklyn they basically changed the internal chart. in past campaigns split the country by geography, put all the western states in one group, they put all the southern states in one group. this year she set up her pods, as they call them, separating out the early vote states, and that's because the sort of rhythm and strategy and tactics they use there is now so different. some of these states, you know, it's well over 50% of votes will be cast before election day and that changes who you're talking to and when. >when. >> woodruff: is there much more of that going on this year than in 2012? >> yeah, we see steady increases. obviously, we won't know till after election day what percentage of the vote is early, but this tends to go in one direction. you know, as people vote early, they develop a habit, much as with regular voting, so early voters tend to vote early, and lot of states, although obviously not all, have taken

strides to make it easier so that people who can request absentee ballots don't need excuses to do it. some states like ohio are now automatically sending out absentee ballots to most voters. so, you know, in a lot of places, voters are being pushed into this, so it could be as high as 40% this year of the total electorate that votes before election day. >> woodruff: let's talk about the difference in how the campaigns are positioned to take advantage of this. you mentioned clinton reorganized the way the whole campaign is organized. how about donald trump? >> yeah, trump's campaign has been pretty public about the fact they're leaving all sorts of field activities, get out the vote, to republican national committee and state parties, and this is a place where they may have different interests. you may have in, let's say iowa, where chuck grassley, the senator , is running for reelection, you could have vote horse decided early they are on board with grassley but are still undecided in the

presidential race, are considering a third-party candidate, and if trump is relying on the state party to turn those voters out, he could find that, you know, people aren't necessarily vote ago straight ticket when they get that reminder phone call to return their ballot. >> woodruff: you're saying really the targeted voters for the national candidates might be different from those of the state candidates. what about the clinton campaign? have they now perfected this? how would you describe how far along they are? >> you know, i think there's been a lot of focus on this as there was in 2012 from the obama campaign amongtimes who see it as an opportunity especially in largr more diverse states like north carolina, florida, that have early voting to use the extended period to mobilize some of the communities that are very important to the democratic coalition, especially minorities, who are often difficult to turn out, and, so, you know, we see north carolina as a very good example of where

democrats have worked hard to move up the african-american vote, taking advantage of the multi-week early vote window. those people are voting often in mid october, and as the campaign gets later, hillary clinton will be more likely to speaking to persuadable moderate white voters because she'll feel she's locked in many of the votes from her base. >> woodruff: what are a couple of other swing states in this election where early voting, you see, could make a difference? >> nevada is a state that's majority early vote now. they make it very easy to vote in nevada. there are registration forms in supermarkets there. they have weekend early voting. you can vote on saturdays in late october. colorado is sort of, you know, the extreme case in the battleground state. there is no in-person election day voting. everybody gets a mail ballot. you can drop it off until, i believe, 7:00 p.m. on election

day, but election day itself is an afterthought. it's just one more day to drop off the absentee ballot or put it in the mail. by the time we get to election day in colorado, most to have the votes will be banked and the campaigns will probably wake up on election day and think they know who's won. >> woodruff: well, we paid attention to it in 2012 but seems like much more a factor this year. sasha issenberg with bloomberg news, we thank you. >> thank you, judy. >> sreenivasan: 15 years since the united states went into afghanistan, the u.s. has spent an estimated $1.5 billion to develop women's rights in afghanistan; there's also a new $300 million, five-year program to continue to help women have a say in their society. but despite the money, the fact that only a quarter of

parliamentarians are now women, and laws protecting them from violence, afghan women still face significant challenges. special correspondent jennifer glasse reports from kabul. >> reporter: kobra dastgirzada is a successful afghan businesswoman. a u.s.-funded program called "promote" has sent these women to learn from her. she's sharing more than a decade's experience running companies in afghanistan. helped in part with us funds over the years, her enterprises include making jams, pickles, baskets and dried soup packs. she remembers life under the taliban and says things have improved since 2001. >> reporter: but even with

experience it's not easy. she can't manufacture on this day because there's no electricity, and this is kabul, the capital. she knows life is much harder for women in both business and other ways elsewhere in afghanistan. >> reporter: kobra says she can't worry about the taliban's recent military gains around the country, she wants to concentrate on her work. kobra has advantages many other afghan women don't. not just a supportive husband but her factory is in her back yard so she can work at home and her shop is just in front of her house. her small shop is just one outlet for her goods. she also

sends them to markets, for that she needs a man. afghan society would frown on women selling in the bazaar, that man makes three times the salary of her female afghan employees. kobra says that can't be helped, she needs him. even where women succeed, the culture of discrimination here finds its place. >> a lot of people don't realize that afghanistan is a country where it's been reported that over 85 percent of the women are victims of domestic violence. it's a country where i understand that 72% of women are uneducated. >> reporter: kim motley is a lawyer who takes on some of afghanistan's most desperate cases - like sahar gul who was tortured and abused by her husband's family. she testified against them and they were jailed - a rare victory here. motley's newest client is gul meena - attacked with an ax by her brother, uncle and husband and left for dead. >> this incident happened over three years ago and it is

deplorable that not one person in the afghan government has bothered to talk to her about what happened. i mean literally there are three ax murderers on the loose in afghanistan or pakistan. they don't know but no one has bothered to find out. >> reporter: gul meena says she is still afraid of her attackers but would like to see them punished and would be willing to testify. >> ( translated ): i'm worried that if i go to court, then the judge might put me in jail because i ran away. >> reporter: hundreds of women have been jailed for so-called moral crimes like leaving their husbands or even being alone with a man. president ghani released many. regardless of their cases, both gul meena and sahar gul want to leave afghanistan. they feel there's no future here for them. susan decamp is one of the stewards of the five-year, $300 million u.s.-funded promote program for women. she says she knows women's rights are tenuous here. >> it's a challenge and it's always been a challenge and it's going to continue to be a

challenge for quite a while. what we hope to do is get enough women out there working together in a positive way so that they can have their own voice. it's not so much about us deciding what they want and need, but about them being a position to influence what they need. >> reporter: on a farm on the outskirts of kabul, that's what sophia wilcox is doing - teaching women to stand on their own. she's taken a somewhat tough love approach with her farming training programs - anyone who wants to participate has to pay dues to be part of the collective. since she arrived in 2009 wilcox has avoided creating what she calls n.g.o. disease, dependency on international aid. >> i don't give them anything because we need to teach them to be independent and use what they have. become creative in the use of their own resources to build themselves up. >> reporter: and it's working. one of the gardeners has a daughter who's a hospital

worker, so they devised these drip feeding systems, women are motivated, with good reason. >> there's decisions that they're not allowed to make and if they're given a slight bit of income they can make those decisions. children going to school whether or not they go to school, if we buy medicine, if we don't buy medicine. those decisions are not given to women freely and if they have their own income they are able to make those decisions. >> reporter: the afghan women started managing this farm on their own last october. so far each of the 15 workers has made about $100 a month considering a taxi driver in kabul makes about $150 a month, it's good money, more than they've ever made in their life -a lump sum is expected at the end of the summer harvest. next year they expect to earn more. farm manager lailajan yousafzai needs no help with marketing - she knows her products inside out. she's proud to support 15 women farmers here, and give some

income to 25 more. they can't leave their homes, so they grow products in their own gardens. >> ( translated ): one woman sent her son to university - she can pay for his transport and she can pay for his books. we all use the money for our families. >> reporter: four years ago this was all dirt and weeds. but as often happens here, success brings problems. although this project paid for the local water pump and its repair, the man who has the key demands money to supply water. for sophia, it's a dilemma. >> i work for the u.s. taxpayer and we can't pay bribes, but bribes are common and so it's a frustration and it's everywhere. it's rampant. you can't get anything done really. >> reporter: a rival project nearby, funded by the afghan government is failing, its politically-connected manager is threatening to take the women's

land away. the women here say they will fight that to stay, that the money they're making is changing their lives. but like so many things here, as women, they ultimately may not have a choice. for the pbs newshour i'm jennifer glasse in kabul. >> woodruff: what we know about donald trump's taxes, what we don't know, and how his real estate business could be affecting his tax bill. that subject led to one of the more memorable exchanges of this week's presidential debate. our economics correspondent, paul solman, sat down with a pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist, david cay johnston, who's been reporting on trump since the late eighties. he's also the author of a best- selling book, "the making of donald trump." it's part of our weekly series, "making sense."

>> reporter: david cay johnston, welcome. >> thank you, paul. >> reporter: let's begin with secretary clinton's claim that mr. trump pays no federal income taxes, and in the debate his response. >> maybe he doesn't want the american people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax. >> that makes me smart. >> reporter: the media are making a big fuss about that offhand remark of mr. trump's, but isn't he right to say he's smart to pay no taxes? >> well, there are two issues here to separate. and one of them is, because he is a- the owner of a lot of real estate that he manages, he may well pay no income taxes. we know for a fact that he didn't pay any income taxes in

1978, 1979, 1984, 1992 and 1994. because of the reports of the new jersey casino control commission. we don't know about any year after that. >> reporter: but that's because he's depreciating the properties, right, while in fact they're increasing in value. but i depreciate the home office in my house. i work there, i don't have another office, it's just not much of a benefit for me, obviously. >> most americans cannot save more than $6,000 a year from depreciating real estate. that's all they can write off against their salary or business profits. >> reporter: well i don't come close to 6,000. >> but people like trump can take all the money that's made from a tv show, from selling neckties made in china, running golf courses, and wipe out that income for tax purposes with depreciation. only a narrow segment of people qualify for this. >> reporter: and how does he qualify? >> because he spends at least 15 hours a week managing real estate that he owns. that's the rule. if you're a

full-time manager of your own property, full-time according to congress is 15 hours a week, you can take unlimited depreciation and use it to offset your income from other areas and pay lower taxes. years ago, one of the biggest real estate tax lawyers in new york said to me, "if you're a major real estate family and you're paying income taxes, you should sue your tax lawyer for malpractice." >> reporter: well but then he's just doing what everybody else does. >> that's right. congress has all sorts of rules, paul, that certain people: hedge fund managers, private equity managers, executives, movie stars, fall into that allow them to escape or defer into the future not paying their taxes. and if you can defer your tax into the future, it's the best deal in the world, because you get to eat your cake, and if you invest the money, you get a bigger slice of cake at the end. you don't just get to eat your cake and have it too, you get to eat your cake and have a bigger cake. >> reporter: you mean you get to keep the money that you would otherwise have had to pay in taxes, or you will have to pay

you then invest that money and-- >> and in the future you pay taxes. i'll give you the example i've used with donald trump. if he really made $65 million a year from his television show, which nbc says is absurd, but let's assume he did. >> reporter: he says that. >> he says that. he would have paid about $23 million in federal income tax. if he's able to wipe that out by depreciating the various buildings that he owns, he would keep the $23 million. now the normal rules say he has 20 years, so let's assume he keeps it 20 years, and he earns a net of 10% a year, and after all, he's donald trump, who says he's a great investor. at the end of the 20 years, trump would give the government the $23 million, which is worth a lot less because of inflation, and he would pocket, after tax, $130 million. >> reporter: that's the 23 million at 10% a year. >> for all those years, that's the interest on it. i don't think most americans understand that for certain very wealthy people, not all of them,

our federal income tax system is a subsidy system that makes them richer, and the rest of us bear >> reporter: but you can't blame mr. trump for taking advantage of the system. >> i agree. i do not blame him one bit. but that's only part one of it. the second part is the 1984 tax trials, when he appealed the new york state and new york city audits, were about donald claiming zero revenue for his consulting business and taking over $600,000 of deductions for which he couldn't produce any documentation. no receipts, no checks, nothing. when shown a tax return that donald trump had been audited on, he appealed the audits, his tax guy said, "well, that's my signature, but i didn't prepare that." in fact, it was a photocopy; no one could find the original. now, those two elements, zero income and huge deductions, combined with his own tax guy testifying under oath, "that's my signature but i didn't prepare that tax return," those are very strong badges of fraud.

and seen in the context of trump having committed sales tax fraud in the past, which is indisputable, i think that it's reasonable for the american public to ask, "did you go beyond what's lawful," maybe scandalously lawful, but lawful, "and violate the law?" >> reporter: sales tax fraud? >> well, donald participated in something known as the empty box scam. he bought $65,000 worth of jewelry from bulgari, across the street from trump tower, and had the record show that it was mailed to him in an out-of-state address. now, if you're not a new york resident, you may not have to pay sales tax if the jewelry is mailed to you in another state. the problem is they were empty boxes. it was proven. >> reporter: was he convicted? >> no. instead, the attorney general of new york prosecuted the store manager and one of the italian owners of the store, and that led mayor ed koch to say, "the

customers who took part in this fraud, they should serve 15 days in jail. they're really the criminals here, not the store." >> reporter: but he didn't serve any time. >> no. he was not charged in the case either. >> reporter: well, so then why are you making a big deal of it? >> lots of people commit crimes and don't get arrested; that's not the measure. the measure is, did you engage in unlawful conduct. now, joe blow does this, we don't particularly care. but if you're going to be the president of the united states, we're reasonably going to put you under a microscope. and donald trump's tax behavior is absolutely important to understanding is he qualified, is he morally fit, is he capable, is he trustworthy, to have everything from the powers of federal law enforcement to nuclear codes. >> reporter: peter navarro, economic advisor to mr. trump, economist, university of california, irvine, says mr. trump should not release his income taxes and here's why. >> it gives the opposition too

much information. why would you do that? why would >> reporter: because every other presidential candidate ever has. >> ah, but here's the difference: he's self-funding his campaign and if you release your tax returns when you're self-funding your campaign, you reveal to the opposition how much you have to run that campaign. >> and i think the reasonable response to this is, what are you hiding? but let's take trump at his word, "i can't release the returns that are under audit." well let's have your returns from 1977 to 2008. the audits are closed on those. there's no excuse by your own standard not to release those returns. >> reporter: why do you care so much about this? >> because i want to make sure that the american public knows who this man is. i met donald trump in june of 1988 when i went to atlantic city to cover the casino

industry for the "philadelphia my standard here is, you should know these facts, and then if you know them and you still want to vote for someone, you should go and vote for them. but don't later say, "i had no idea." >> reporter: david cay johnston, thank you very much. >> thank you, paul. woodruff: the i.r.s. says nothing prevents trump from sharing his tax information even if he is being audited. for his part, trump told bill o'reilly on fox new channel last night that he did not admit at the debate that he doesn't pay federal taxes. but he also did not confirm that he does pay such taxes. >> sreenivasan: today the pew research center reported on how different racial groups see the police. only a third of all african americans view the police as doing an excellent job, compared to roughly three-quarters of all whites. working with the police is one

of the many responsibilities of newark new jersey mayor ras baraka. for over a year, newshour special correspondent charlayne hunter gault has explored solutions to the nation's racial tensions and sits down with him for the latest in our series. i do solemnly swear -- ras baraka election as mayor of newark new jersey -- out of nowhere, ras baraka has won over most of his critics and we sat down with him to find out how. what do you mean by radical? >> i mean going to the root of the problem. that's what it means to me. that's what radical is. >> but somehow, and i'll start with white people who doubted you, and yet, according to the "new york times" and other articles i've read, you've won them over. what did you do? >> we have -- you know, i as the mayor have been able to lead very well and bring people

together and negotiate and fight for what we think we need and compromise around the issues that we can gain ground on. so ultimately, i mean, the chair belongs to the people, it doesn't belong to me. >> how do you balance off creating opportunities and supporting business with the people who live in these poverty-stricken neighborhoods? >> these are not poor cities in terms of resources. the wealth is not staying in the hands of the people who are here and you have to create scenarios where more wealth eremains behind for the people in this town. >> in the two years you have been mayor, have you seen substantial change there? >> we have a municipal i.d. we didn't have before. we have 6,000, 7,000 more people who can involve themselves in the city, pull themselves out of the shadows and participate in city services that can put their money in specific banks that k you know, participate in the

economy of this city that could not prior when they had a record or if they were immigrants. we have begun to attack the unemployment rate in the city, it's spiraling downwards, but there is still a huge way to go and we're pushing for a jobs plan on a state and federal level. that's been extremely helpful. >> one of the things i was interested in that i read about was how you support the black lives matter movement as well as police. how do you reconcile those two things? >> i don't think they're mutually exclusive. i think that, you know, safety in the community, african-americans want to be safe in their community like any other nationality that lives in america. they don't want to be robbed, beaten, shot down in their neighborhoods, whether it's by police officers or people who live there. so to advocate for police in a

community, i don't think is a contradiction. i think it's necessary. but what i think we want as community policing, police officers who care about the community they live in, who think they're part of a community and not an occupying force in a community, and i think that is important for us to create, change the culture of the police department where they begin to see that they have to police our neighborhoods the same way other people's neighborhoods are policed in suburban communities, other areas. >> how are you doing that? we develop a civilian complaint review board. we change the makeup of the internal affairs. we provide training for new recruits that is not like the training that they normally get. they get sensitivity training, they get the kind of deescalation training. we begin to sensitize them to what's hatching in the neighborhoods they police. we try to advocate police officers live in the community

long than normal, those are things that have to happen. >> what result are you seeing? e've just begun. we can't give you empirical data. we have been at it two years, not 25, and this problem is decades-old. >> but you're getting feedback from both sides, are you not? >> i think that some of the concerns about a civilian complaint review board are based on knee-jerk reactions people have about police supervision that they've always had. but we live in a new time and place, and people have to begin to be ready for the kind of oversight that the public is demanding, and i don't see any of that as contradictory to supporting the black lives matter movement. people say all lives matter, and that's true, but it's just black people getting shot in the back running or choked to death for having cigarettes or playing their music too loud. so it's important for us to uphold all life, but we have to be honest and say that, you

know, african-americans are being disproportionately affected by, you know, the kind of misuse and abuse of power and, so, there needs to be, obviously, some light shed on that which is why black lives matter is important and there needs to be reconciliation and repair of what's going on. so all of the things from body cameras to review boards to training to people calling for independent investigators, all those things are important for us to get a handle on what's happening in ourdcities. >> you've just described a situation that exists in many cities across this nation. what kind of solutions would you propose and what kinds of things have you done that you could share with others to improve these circumstances? >> i think that, ultimately, the only thing that affects race relations is fair treatment. i mean, the problems that exist

are national problems, they're systemic problems that existed before i was even born, and they exist all over the country, which means that we need a systemic solution for these problems. so we don't know everything. we're experimenting and trying to do the best we can with the ideas that we have, creating opportunities for cooperatives, so we can get people to begin to own business and own what they have in their community to offer. >> cooperatives? where we have collective ownership, workers begin to own the businesses that they work in. >> based on everything i've read, you have a really good relationship with the business community, for the most part. so how do you see getting them invested in the things you've just talked about? >> prudential held a convention or conference for us here in newark about procurement and convening the folks in a

community, the business community to begin to help us invest more in this community. st. barnabas has invested in the capital project of our cooperative laundry, reentry laundry made mostly of folks who are 100% newark residents, predominantly black and brown fox ifolks in the city, folks wo were formally incarcerated who are now learning to run and operate a laundry business, and they're going to own and operate a cooperative laundry that does business with the local hospitals in this area. we haven't hit a home run yet, but, you know, i think we're up at the plate and we swing it. >> mr. mayor, thank you for joining us. >> no problem. >> woodruff: an acclaimed d.j.

has been traveling the globe documenting the changing landscape of music and digital culture. jeffrey brown has another edition to our "bookshelf" looking at the result of these travels: the new volume "uproot." so what i'll start off with, scratchy old 45 that i found, randomly dropping the needle on the record. ♪ >> brown: what does a deejay do? jace clayton takes musical pieces from around the world, adds his own sounds and mixes them together, creating something that will make you get up and dance or maybe listen in a brand-new way. ♪ >> activating music, you know, keeping music alive. >> brown: each part is alive on its own. >> each part is alive on its own but i love the way in which you bring these things into overlap

or superimposition, they talk to each other in new and surprising ways, and you can tell all sorts of stories with this. ♪ >> brown: the 41-year-old clayton graduated from harvard with a degree in english, but music has been his passion since middle school. in 2001, he put a mix called gold teeth thief on his web site and was stunned when hundreds of thousands of people around the globe started sharing it. he's traveled the world ever since, both making music and collecting it, and tells what he's found in a new book, "uproot: travels in 21st-century music and digital culture." these days, new york is home, and that's where we talked. >> all this disruption through technology, how all the digital changes are transforming how we think about analog, what music used to be and what it's becoming. >> brown: when you say travels in 21st century music and digital culture, what are you looking for? >> i'm looking for the

surprises, you know. >> brown: the surprises? exactly, the unexpected moments of technology, the unexpected moments of musical creation. every time i'm in a foreign place and a different city, i'm always asking around and saying, okay, what's special here in this particular place? what makes these people move here and why? i'm one of the people who listens to a song in a taxi and says, stop the car, what was that? let's go back. >> brown: literally, stop the car? >> stop the car. >> brown: because you heard it coming out of a storefront? >> exactly. >> brown: that approach has taken him to side streets off the beaten path in more than three different countries, mo rock o for instance, where he spent time with local musicians and spent time with his own group mixing sounds with traditional instruments and a singer. ♪ ♪ and mexico where, again, he

found in the age of globalization, where everyone has access to the same music, local culture continues to thrive and music is a way to understand it. clayton writes of the young people he encountered making north mexican teen rave music. ♪ ♪ >> they're saying, oh, we hear all this international tech know, really popular here. but they grew up in radio music and cowboy music from their parents and they go on youtube and they're seeing shakira videos. so they're thinking what is local to us right now? and, so, the idea that local now draws on all sorts of international, all sorts of layers of input and, yet, they're still making something which would only be made in monterrey, mexico, at this moment. this is urgent music, we need to discuss it. >> brown: a very general theory why in morocco there's

that and in north mexico there is this? >> there is no general these are. if i've learned anything, it's to be sensitive to how creative the act of listening is and how powerful the act o listening is. >> he makes his living playing at clubs and major festivals like here in chicago. ♪ ♪ in a world in which music travels as never before, when a young producer can bypass big record labels and so much music is consumed for free, i asked clayton how he sees his role. >> i do think of myself as a pacemaker, yeah, absolutely, and so much of what deejays like myself do is i'm very interested in -- i'm constantly looking for new music and digging, but then i am also thinking about how to

present it in a way that kind of makes sense to people who are less with their hands in it than i am. >> i wonder if you run into people, if you say, what about just the human voice, you know, what about just somebody playing a guitar? i love going to a cafe, somebody plays a guitar and that's beautiful. >> you know, i say, me, too. most of the summer here in new york city, i've just been going to hear coral music and churches, completely unamplified, the human voice, maybe an organ. >> maybe the guy writing about digital technology and music just goes to church and listens to a cho russ. >> yeah, i've got to look at the flip side of things. because in a way music is always a conversation, a conversation between the musician and their tools and technologies, it's a conversation between people and their community, you know, deejaying is a way of amplifying that conversation and putting that conversation on blast in

ways but at a very basic level it's records talking to records. >> brown: from new york city, jeffrey brown, pbs "newshour". ♪ ♪ >> sreenivasan: now to another in our brief but spectacular series. tonight we hear from artist io tillett wright, whose photography projects have a sparked a national dialogue on gender identification and sexuality. io's memoir, "darling days," was released this week by ecco. >> my earliest memory of wanting to be a boy was when i had my fifth birthday party and i had this lacy blue dress. the second i got home i was just like get this thing off of me and i ripped it off and i put on warrior paint and i went up to the roof and i like took a piss standing up, that was my like ownership of it.

these kids were like, "are you a boy or a girl?" and i was like, "why does that matter? i can play better than you." and they didn't let me play. and i went to my dad and i was like, "hey, i'm a boy now." and he was like, "okay." my mom's attitude was, "yeah as long as you can get acting roles as a boy, i don't care." my mom put me into child acting. i only played boys until i was 17. and then i played a couple girls, and that's was when people started to tell me i was too unique. i was like, "if one more person tells me i'm too unique, i'm outta here," and i did, i quit. i miss acting but do you cast me as a boy? do you cast me as a girl? do you cast me as a gay girl? do you cast me as the trans kid? >> you've got incredible range! >> i've got incredible range! for the last six years, i've done this project where i've been photographing 10,000 people who identify as anywhere on the l.g.b.t. spectrum in all 50 states. if you look into the eyes of a person that you discriminate

against or you think is so different than you that they deserve less rights than you, it becomes almost impossible to deny their humanity. the complicated part of that is i'm not trying to say we are all the same. what i'm trying to say is, we are all completely different and that's the beauty of it. i had set out to photograph gay people and trans people and what i had found was that people from older generations identified super strongly with labels because they'd had to fight for them. but younger people were more like, "well ya, like i loved a guy and now i love a girl and maybe i'm more boyish tomorrow." they're more fluid on a spectrum of things. i think the most dignified gift you can give them as a human, as part of their family or their family and friends, is the right to change. i'm io tillett wright and this is my brief but spectacular take on expanding one's circle of normalcy. >> sreenivasan: you can watch additional brief but spectacular episodes at pbs.org/newshour/brief.

and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm hari sreenivasan. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. 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: >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and 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. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> this is "bbc world news." 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, 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,