captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight... >> together we're going to start a new energy revolution. >> woodruff: ...president trump starts the rollback of obama-era clean energy policies in a move that he says will create jobs and energy independence. then, top democrats demand house intelligence chairman devin nunes recuse himself from the investigation into russian-trump ties after allegations of coordinating with the white house. and, syrian refugees fleeing war face new challenges in turkey where political and economic upheaval offer few a stable home. >> they have no real access to state services and are treated like second class citizens. they may be safe from war but

they and their children are exploited and are vulnerable. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> it's hard not to feel pride as a citizen of this country when we're in a place like this. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

>> woodruff: from the president today, the first salvo against his predecessor's climate agenda. instead, he's launched an aggressive campaign to help the coal, oil and gas industries. john yang begins our coverage. >> yang: with coal miners looking on at e.p.a. headquarters, president trump took action to undo most of president obama's climate change legacy. >> perhaps no single regulation threatens our miners energy workers and companies more than this crushing attack on american industry. >> yang: he signed an executive order targetting more than a half-dozen major regulations. the biggest target: the "clean power plan" to restrict greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants-- the centerpiece of obama's global warming policies.

>> the idea of setting standards and cutting carbon pollution is not new, its not radical. what is new is that starting today, washington is starting to catch up with the vision of the rest of the country. >> yang: it's been on hold while coal states and the energy industry challenged it in court as an unconstitutional power grab. today's order mandates a review of the "clean power plan." lifts a moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands, starts a review of reducing methane emissions in oil and natural gas production, and launches an assessment of rules governing hydraulic fracturing-- also called "frackikng"-- by oil and gas drillers. during the campaign, mr. trump slammed the obama administration for waging a "war on coal" and vowed to bring back mining jobs. >> today i'm taking bold action to follow through on that promise. my administration is putting an end to the war on coal.

we're gonna have clean coal. really clean coal. >> yang: but coal mines have been losing jobs for many years because of other factors, including automation and competition from cheap natural gas. environmentalists warned the president's action raises questions about whether the united states can meet the obligations of the 2015 paris climate agreement. in a statement today, the head of the sierra club said: "president trump's sweeping order is the single biggest attack on climate action in u.s. history, period." the group vowed an all-out fight. for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang. >> woodruff: we'll hear from voices pro and con on president trump's action today, after the news summary. in the day's other news, the u.s. commander in iraq now says there's a "fair chance" that a u.s. air strike played a role in killing scores of civilians in mosul. it happened on march 17.

but lieutenant general stephen townsend also voiced doubt that the weapons used could have collapsed an entire building. meanwhile, an iraqi general claimed the air strike actually hit a tanker truck loaded with explosives that isis fighters were driving toward iraqi troops. >> ( translated ): it is a new tactic being used by the members of this terrorist group, using big car bombs against the troops that impact the civilians to inflame the public and to convey a wrong message to the world that the joint forces and the international coalition are behind the killing and bombings. >> woodruff: aesty international warned today that coalition forces are not taking taken adequate precautions in the battle for mosul. from russia today, a warning. the defense ministry in moscow says u.s. naval patrols in the black sea are a potential threat to russian security. the black sea is bounded by romania, bulgaria and turkey, as well as ukraine and russia. u.s. american warships took part

in nato exercises there, last week. thousands of people in northeastern australia spent a long day, waiting out the fury of tropical cyclone "debbie." the storm pounded the coastal region for hours with heavy rain, towering seas and winds up to 160 miles an hour. it tore up trees, ripped up power lines and left nearly 50- thousand people in the dark. back in this country, a sex abuse scandal involving the usa gymnastics organization took center stage at a senate hearing. hundreds of women have come forward to say they were sexually assaulted or exploited by coaches, trainers and a team doctor, larry nassar. one of his alleged victims, olympic medalist jamie dantzscher, tearfully shared her personal story. >> many times the abuse took place in my own room, in my own bed.

worse, he abused me in my hotel room in sydney at the olympic games. when i first spoke out about my abuse at the hands of dr. nassar, i thought i was the only one. i was disbelieved and even criticized by some in the gymnastics community for bringing this disturbing issue to light. >> woodruff: the former head of usa gymnastics, steve penny, resigned under pressure earlier this month. a group of senators is now pushing a bill that says groups overseeing olympic sports must immediately report sexual abuse allegations to police. a federal judge in detroit approved a plan today to replace water lines at 18,000 homes in flint, michigan. it's part of a settlement over lead-contamination. the deal calls for work to be done by 2020. it could cost nearly $90 million, with the federal and state governments splitting the bill. and, on wall street today, stocks moved higher on a survey that showed consumer confidence

at its highest in more than 16 years. the dow jones industrial average gained 150 points to close at 20,701. the nasdaq rose 34 points, and the s&p 500 added nearly 17. still to come on the newshour: more on the president's decision to roll back environmental regulations. the house intelligence committee chair responds to calls for him to step aside from the russia investigation. life on the u.s.-mexican border under the watchful eye of border patrol, and much more. >> woodruff: one of the major promises of the president's campaign was his pledge to roll back much of his predecessor's plans for coping with climate change. today's executive order laid out a path for doing so. we invited the administrator of the e.p.a. on tonight, but he

declined our invitation. let's hear from a leading lawmaker who supports these moves. i spoke earlier to republican senator john barosso of wyoming, the country's number one coal- producing state, and the head of the energy and natural resources committee. i talked to him a short time ago i began by asking how these moves will change the american energy landscape. >> well, i think it was a bold and decisive action by donald trump, i this is going to be energy independence for america, energy security for our country certainly for jobs. that to me is the key driver. when i think of energy i'm from an energy state, wyoming. i think of energy security for our country, economic growth and environmental stewardship and that's how we have used over the 15 years that wyoming has been a state. >> woodruff: you mentioned jobs, as you know a number of skeptics are saying, well, many of those jobs just are not coming back. it's due to factors other than

what the epa did, environmental rules have been, how many jobs do you think will come back due to this? >> i think across the country and over the next number of years, i'm talking hundreds of thousands if not millions of jobs in the energy sector. energy is called the mastery source for a reason. it powers our country, it pours the economy our military. energy is a force multiplier, it's an instrument of power and we can get a lot more done, i believe, with a barrel of oil than you can with a barrel of -- energy can be geopolitical weapon we need it all. we need the renewable energy we need the nonrenewable energy. and can't kid ourselves to say that we're going to be able to power this country and this economy with just very panels and windmills jude you mention energy independence, i hear skeptics say the u.s. is already moving briskly in the direction of energy independence that's already happening? >> we want to do more of that.

you take a look how vladimir putin uses energy as a weapon, a geopolitical weapon, when we export energy, we export american influence overseas. as i travel around the world i nona there are people that want to buy energy from america, i've had that discussion in japan, in taiwan, i've had that discussion with our nato friends. they want what we have in abundance and we are a world energy super power and after today we're going to be able to act more like that. >> woodruff: senator, also let me ask you about the argument being made, people in the energy industry realize that fiscally responsible to have clean energy, that that is what the american people want and that by doing what the president is doing today, he's turning the clock back and that the american people, it's not something the american people really want. >> well the american people want affordable energy. and clean energy is a big part of that. if you take a look at what's

happened in the united states with emissions, our emissions have been dropping over the last 15 years. they are down significantly. we don't see that in china, don't see that in india but america has been leading the way in reduction of emission, new technology. we are, i believe, very good stewards of the land, of the environment, we do it in wyoming, we've done it for a long, long time we're going to continue to do it in the future because that's who people on the ground want to make those decisions, want to live in clean places and that's the way we do it at home. >> woodruff: but what you're saying is, emissions are improving, they are being reduced, but won't some of these changes the president is making today by doing away with a number of restrictions and regulation, move the energy in the opposite direction, away from clean energy? >> i would say just the opposite. it's the technology and innovation that we've had here at home that is resulted in these reductions and emissions. the president obama's clean

climate plan that's something that has been stayed in the courts. he's made promise, is that even the environmental folks who look at this from asciantive i can standpoint say the impacts of the paris accord would be over the next hundred years negligible. i think it's important to focus on our economy, on jobs, on getting america back to work as in wyoming just yesterday, last week, i was in a mini-mart store somebody came in the guy in front of me in line, how are things going, great, we're hiring again. those are good signs for our country that the economy is picking up, moving ahead. energy is a very big part of that. but we need it all, we need the renewable, we need the nuclear, we need it all, coal, oil, gas, uranium, we need it all. and we're going to use it all to power our economy as well as the country. >> woodruff: one final thing, senator. the point was made that these changes the president wants to make are not going to happen immediately, it's going to take

months even years to really largely or completely undo the clean energy move by the obama administration. how long do you think it will take for this to take effect? >> i think the impact in terms of the optimism that result of what the president did today is going to be immediate. because what we know is the regulations by the obama administration they have been very expensive, time consuming, burdensome, to know that that relief is coming those very expensive regulations have been lifted is going to be, i think, really a good thing, people are going to feel. that when you take a look at what's happened with this decision today, this giant step forward and will basically just try to get back into balance. we all want a clean environment. we want to make energy as clean as we can, as fast as we can in ways that don't raise cost for american families. president obama's approach has been to add to the expense, i believe that president trump's approach has been to add to our

economic freedom and opportunity. >> woodruff: senator john barosso of wyoming, we thank you very much. >> thanks, judy, thanks for having me. >> woodruff: now, let's hear from the prior administrator of the e.p.a., who essentially led much of president obama's efforts during his second term. gina mccarthy is now a fellow at the institute of politics at harvard's kennedy school of government. here's her reaction to president trump's orders. my reaction is that it's pretty disappointing a little bit embarrassing to sign that executive order. there's a lot of time in between here and actually doing the legacy of president obama on this, i want people to understand that reality in terms of where we're going it's going to be a difficult slog for this administration to undo the great work we did the prior eight years. >> woodruff: president trump is saying this is all about bolstering the energy industry, bringing jobs back. that he set up decimated by the

unnecessary rules and regulations and restrictions during the obama administration. >> judy, we've heard that tired story for a really long time. and i know that since epa has been around we've reduced air pollution 70% while we tripled gdp, nobody in this country is really willing to go back to a time when the air was polluted and the water was polluted. we don't have to for jobs, we certainly know that. particularly when it comes to clean energy. the reality is the clean energy is fiscally responsible today. it's being chosen by many states in utilities and already where the invest system heading, that's where jobs are. we know that the solar industry is growing 12 times faster than the overall economy. so if you really want to do something for the business communy and for jobs, why aren't you invest in clean energy and doubling down on what we proposed. >> woodruff: well, how does

that square square, though, gina, with what president trump is saying, he is saying what has happened with the so-called clean power plant that you and president obama helped to institute, is it jobs that have been lost and he's -- one point he said today, no single regulation has threatened miners more than that one. >> well, i think he has to look at the history of the coal mining industry and not try to produce a rate that gives them comfort. what they really need is support and transition that's already happening, with or without the clean power plant we know that the industry has been struggling for awhile. the simple fact is that it's not competitive now. that's why it's not significantful in the market. that's why you see companies, mining company going out of business. it's time to get real with those people and offer them support they need. but it's not simply say that climate change isn't happening. or that epa is taking 'away those jobs, i mean, let's look at the popularity of this

proposal when it goes out. i know that 70% of the people in this country understand that the climate is changed and they are looking forward to us regulating utilities to make sure they're not polluting. and that is certainly a significant number. in fact it's twice the popularity of this president. so, let's look at how people react to it. i think people know that it's all about the future, not about looking at the past where we have to go with jobs and none us want to leave any community behind. but you're not going to do it by sending signals that are simply a signature on a page. there's a huge amount of work between what we did to build our clean energy future and what it's going to take to actually meet the promises of this executive order. it's lots of hard work, many years, it's denying the science, it's developing facts that don't exist.

so i'm pretty confident that despite this signature, the obama legacy on clean energy will be strong at the end this and any administering because that's where this is going. that's where u.s. strengths should be. that's where we should be investing in innovating. >> woodruff: what about the many lawsuits, gina mccarthy, that have been filed by different states against the epa, against you, the president, when you and president obama were in office, the argument is made that that says that you just for all the good intention, is that you didn't fully appreciate the impact that these restrictions would have on real people, real lives, real jobs. >> i think the thing we need to point to again is what is reality here. i know that many of the states that epa is saying that these levels are unrealistic to achieve are already achieving the reductions that we were going to require in 2022 and they are achieving them today.

because we did a very good job of outreach in understanding and educating ourselves about the energy transition that was already happening. we knew that renewables were getting competitive in many states. we knew that energy efficiency was available and opportunities to reduce energy demand. we also knew that inexpensive natural gas was continuing to compete against coal and compete successfully. so, we never expected this to be the complete answer, judy. we never pushed it beyond where we thought the energy world was heading. and right now, as i said, you are seeing states achieving levels of 202, how bad could our rule have been. how unreasonable could anyone think that is. when we are already there and so many states. the simple fact is that many states sued us again as symbolic gesture, what you need to look at is where is the utility spend

knowledge the money. what is fiscally responsible now. what's available to them. what are they already doing. and if you look at it in reality you'll see that they're invest in a low carbon future already and what we really need to do is continue to provide opportunities for lower cost clean energy moving forward. we will meet our obligation to our future to address the challenge of climate change in a way that will keep our energy sector strong and reliable. >> woodruff: gina mccarthy who is the former administrator of the environmental protection agency. thank you very much. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: we return now to capitol hill where last week's collapse of the effort to repeal obamacare and ongoing drama over the investigation into russian connections with the trump

campaign have dealt a blow to the majority party. lisa desjardins reports. >> desjardins: in congress, another tumultuous day, with more questions for republicans than answers. in particular, for house intelligence chairman devin nunes. his democratic counterpart on the committee has now publicly called for him to recuse himself from the investigation into russia and possible ties to the trump campaign. nunes sidestepped the question today, implying he will stay. are you considering stepping down from the investigation? >> look guys, go ask-- i mean i no idea what they're even talking about. go talk to the other side. >> desjardins: so does that say you're not considering any change. not stepping down? >> what's the purpose of it? i mean, i don't understand your question. >> desjardins: this after nunes told the white house, before telling others in congress, that u.s. intelligence agencies inadvertently spied on people close to the president. then today in "the washington

post," allegations that the white house tried to block former acting attorney general sally yates from talking to nunes' committee about russia. the post pointed to a justice department letter late last week telling yates her testimony might be privileged and the white house should decide if she could testify. the white house insisted it never blocked her. >> we have no problem with her testifying. plain and simple. the report in the "washington post" is 100% false. >> desjardins: but yates has not testified yet because nunes cancelled the hearing saying he needs more information. asked today if nunes should stay house speaker paul ryan, was asked today if nunes should stay and if he knew nunes' intelligence source. >> no and no. >> desjardins: others were less sure. senate republican lindsay graham. >> if he is not willing to tell the democrats and republicans on the committee who he met with

and what he was told, then i think he lost his ability to lead. >> desjardins: this was also republicans' first day back since the dramatic failure to pass their healthcare bill and their decision to move on to other issues. that was friday. today a reverse, house republicans said health care reform is not dead. >> the message is we are going to revisit healthcare. >> when? >> i got the impression it was fairly immediate. >> desjardins: that, from those in the conservative freedom caucus who blocked the bill. >> well it's too early to tell. but i mean obviously everybody wants to find a way to get this passed and we're going to work real hard to do that. >> desjardins: and from other conservatives, outside the group. >> the american people want it done. the game didn't end on friday. took half time. >> desjardins: an abundance of intention, with an absence of specifics. speaker ryan said obamacare cannot stay as it is, but as for exactly how republicans do that... >> i'm not going to put a

timeline on it because this is too important to not get right and put an artificial timeline on it. >> desjardins: ryan acknowledged timing does matter in one way-- that insurers will have to make decisions soon. >> woodruff: and lisa joins us now. lisa, let's bore in a little on this change of heart about whether they're going to go back to health care or not. the president and others were saying friday, no. now it sound like as you reported they are saying we are going to move ahead, is everybody on board, all the republicans on board with this. >> reporter: extraordinary conference meeting today, judy, all sounding very unified. but the issue is, there aren't spes i have you can, there's not a plan and a side issue here some republicans insist that this future health care motion, whatever it becomes, should be republican only. others, hot rad, wants to work with democrats, want to have a compromised bill. we heard president trump and saw him tweet about reaching out to

democrats over the weekend, they have not figured out what they want to d. i think, judy, i can't stress enough where all the emotions for for republicans here on the hill today. that is a group that used to be the vote counting group. they used to operate intangibles now they're talking about intangibles like hope and promise and they don't have a plan. >> woodruff: quickly, what does the calendar look like, they can realistically do? >> reporter: they got to get right to the tax reform. they want to get that done before the august recess. that could be very complicated, even more complicated now given the dynamics after the health care lack of a vote. and judy, in just one month, we've got a major deadline that's for government funding. april 28th and talking to republicans today they admit they need democrats' help on that. >> woodruff: all right. lisa desjardins at the capitol.

>> woodruff: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: the supreme court weighs in on how schools educate students with disabilities. and turkey becoming more hostile to syrian refugees. but first, president trump today faced questions from both parties over who will pay for his promised wall on the u.s.- mexico border. he's also already pledged to hire thousands of new immigration agents, whose jurisdiction extends deep into the u.s. itself. for americans on the southern border, interactions with border patrol vary. some see an occasional inconvenience; others: a daily torment. william brangham has the story >> right now, it looks more like a war zone. >> brangham: carlotta wray's commute has changed a lot over the past few years. she lives in arivaca, a sleepy no-stoplight town 25 miles from the arizona-mexico border.

drive in any direction from here, you'll pass surveillance towers and border agents on patrol. checkpoints run by customs and border protection, c.b.p., stop traffic in either direction out of town. >> when the checkpoint was only temporary, i thought it was not a big deal until it got serious. they never left. >> brangham: welcome to life along the u.s-mexico border, where security has been ramped up significantly since 9/11. in response to drug trafficking and illegal immigration, as well as fears of terror, the federal government has hired more agents and installed more checkpoints. but border patrols infrastructure extends well into the u.s. itself. and it often sweeps up american citizens, regardless of whether they've crossed any international boundary. research has shown that four out of five drug arrests by border

patrol actually involve u.s. nationals. and it's not just drug arrests. residents like carlotta wray, who's an american citizen born in mexico, say they are frequently stopped and harassed, especially because of their skin color. >> you can see it. you can feel it. there is racial profiling, no doubt. >> brangham: c.b.p. doesn't release information about the number of checkpoint stops it makes. but wray's troubles go beyond the profiling, to what she says is the broader militarization of her whole community. >> i have seen border patrol agents in my backyard running after something with their pistols in their hands or guns and that's not what i want my property for. i want it for my grandkids to be safe there. all these years that i live in this town, i have never been afraid of anyone that walks through the desert and stopped

at my place because he needs help or he just needs water and food. but i've been afraid of the border patrol. >> brangham: america's border patrol agency was created in 1924, to be "responsible for securing u.s. borders between points of entry." but it's jurisdiction actually extends far into the country itself-- up to 100 miles from the border. within that zone, its agents can stop, detain and search any person if an agent suspects a crime is being committed. about two-thirds of americans live under border patrol's authority. but in practice, it's the people along the border who are impacted most directly. >> every major route of egress into the united states along the border is going to have one of those checkpoints. >> brangham: border patrol spokesman vicente paco grew up in a border town himself. he took us on a tour of the border near nogales, arizona. what would you say to people in these neighboring communities who appreciate what your mission is and the job you're tasked with but they still say that the impact on their community is too

much? >> i would like to say that i'm a community member myself. i grew up in a border town and i saw how illegal activity affects people that i went to high school with. people that i grew up with ended up in jail because they were recruited by transnational illicit organizations to bring illicit cargo across the border. >> the border check stations can be bothersome if you have to drive through them every day. they stop you, they hold you up for a little bit, but i think, overall, they're a necessary evil. >> brangham: scott raftery is a rancher and horse trainer near arivaca. he says he's recovered a half dozen dead bodies from the land he works. he once came home to an armed standoff between border agents and border crossers on his own property. >> there's people out there crossing our borders undetected, unstopped, and somewhere we have to hold the line on them. if it's not at the border, it's

somewhere close to border. because once they get north of here, they're gone. >> brangham: 300 miles away in yuma arizona, sheriff leon wilmot also supports stronger security. the former marine has spent 32 years in the sheriff's department, and today works closely with federal agencies like customs and border protection, immigration, drug enforcement, even the f.b.i., all to fight crime in his city he says the hassle of checkpoints and an increased police presence is a small price to pay, to protect his residents' safety. >> if you live on the border, you have to understand that you're going to have to deal with one issue or the other. which one makes more sense? public safety, to me, is the government's priority. to me, that's a no-brainer, or if it's going to prevent somebody from being the victim of a homicide. if we can do something to deter folks from dying and keep those illegal drugs out of our country, to me that makes sense.

>> brangham: and for those caught in the dragnet... >> if you're abiding by the law, then you have nothing to worry about. if you got a ticket, that's because you broke the law. >> brangham: but it's not so easy for esteban duarte. he lives in yuma with his kids and he's a substance abuse counselor. he says every time he goes through a checkpoint, he ends up in what's called "secondary" - where you're subject to being held and searched.. >> they do ask me for documents, they keep me sitting in a room for a while. and they just, sometimes they're really rude, very rude. they tell you to open your car, run you like a little dog:¡ either you sit, or i'm going to smack you.'" >> brangham: richard edgar, a defense attorney in yuma, sees it frequently. >> you talk to a federal agent 100% of the time when you want to leave yuma county. you're going to be talking to him, answering questions about your citizenship. you're going to be answering questions about where you're going. they have the authority at any point in time to put you into secondary, and in secondary that's where they really get into it.

>> brangham: edgar says 80% of his cases are drug-related offenses from the nearby highway checkpoints. a 2013 report by the center for investigative reporting found that border patrol around yuma had some of the highest rates of arrests, not for human trafficking or immigration violations, but for possession of small-amounts of marijuana. >> if you drive by those checkpoints as many times as somebody down here does, you're going to see cars on the side in secondary being ripped apart. now, if they find drugs in 10% of those is it worth it? >> brangham: esteban duarte isn't sure. he says he wants his community, and his kids, to be safe from crime. but he worries that the hand of border patrol comes down too hard. >> from a father's perspective, i don't want anything going on the streets that's going to harm my family. but on the other point of view, i could look at it as, why they label me for it?

>> brangham: americans on the border will likely experience even more scrutiny as the trump administration orders an additional 5,000 border patrol agents. for the pbs newshour i'm william brangham in yuma, arizona. >> woodruff: we have more from our trip to the border online. we visit a soup kitchen for recently deported migrants in mexico near nogales, arizona, where we talked to a husband and father who has tried to cross the border into the u.s. several times. >> woodruff: now, a supreme court ruling that could have a significant impact on special education in schools around the u.s. john yang is back with that story, for our weekly educaton segment, "making the grade." >> yang: amid all of the big news last week, this stunning ruling might have been overlooked. the court unanimously ruled that

schools must give students with disabilities the chance to make meaningful and "appropriately ambitious" progress. that could set the bar higher for more than six million students. lisa stark of our partner "education week" has been covering this and joins me now. thanks for being here. what was this case about? >> well, the heart of this case is really what educational benefit do schools need to provide to these students. a case out of colorado involved a boy named drew, he had autism. he's now 17. his parents pulled him out of the fourth grade in the douglas county public schools, that's right outside denver, because there were concerned his behavior was deteriorating, they also felt that he was not really getting any educational benefit as required by law. they put him in a private school for autistic kids then they sued the district. they said, look, if you're in the providing the appropriate education, you need to pay for this private school. while the lower courts all ruled

against the family and in fact the 10th circuit ruled, appeals court ruled that the school district only had to provide something that was merely more than des moines mu muss. a very trivial benefit to the child. the supreme court as you indicated totally rejected that it was a unanimous decision. the court ruled 8-0 in fact education programs must be appropriate ambitious, in light of each child's circumstance and must be challenged, the kids have have objectives j what does that mean for the classroom? >> depend on the student f. you're a student who is in a regular classroom maybe like adhd you have minor learning disability, with every other student. it means that you need the supports to be able to pass that classroom, that class, move on the with your fellow students. if you are more challenged student like drew who has autism, and might be in a special ed class, then that program is kay alreadied to what you can accomplish. but again is as you say must be

meaningful challenges. >> reporter: what are disability advocates saying about this ruling? >> they are applauding this. see it as a big win for these kids, these nearly seven million kids. they do think it's a game changer that it raises the bar. attorneys of the family, jack robinson, told me that for the first time there's a national standard that determines really what is the educational benefit these kids need. and drew's mom, jennifer, she told me that she hopes school districts will work more closely now with parents, will be more willing to do something that is right for their children. also we should say that these advocates think this is just going to empower parents. gives them more leverage to demand more. >> reporter: how are the districts reacting? >> they say this isn't a game changer. they believe that most districts are already providing a very good education for these students with disabilities. they say that they meet this higher standard. i did talk to sue, she is with the school superintendent's

association, she did tell me that this may hold district's feet to the fire a little bit more, that they're going to have to justify these plans they set out for all of these students, what is called an iep. she said that may give parents a little wherewithal to come in say, what's this program an how is it working. >> reporter: for parents of children like drew, with this ruling, what do they need to know? >> well, as i mentioned every district needs to set up what is called an iep, an individualized education program for each of these students. and parents have to sign off on this. in fact that's happening right now, this is sort of fortuitous timing, if you will, these are set up in the spring for the next school year. parents have always been told, pay careful attention, see what the district is going to, ask a lot of questions, find out what resources you're getting now they can also walk in with the supreme court decision say, hey, here are the standards that you need to meet for my child. >> reporter: lisa stark of education week, great to see you again. >> thank you.

>> woodruff: it was on a visit to the huge refugee camp at za'atari in jordan today, that u.n. secretary general antonio guterres called for more international support for syrian refugees and the countries hosting them. to the north of syria, turkey, now hosts 3.5 million syrian refugees. president erdogan says 70,000 people with special talents will be granted citizenship. but a turkish charity is urging the government to grant citizenship to all refugees to stop exploitation and to prevent violence erupting between turks and syrians. special correspondent malcolm brabant reports from western turkey >> reporter: the hajeeras from north eastern syria are creating a new shelter after being evicted from their tent by paramilitary police.

they live with the constant worry of being moved on again. aid workers say raids on unofficial refugee camps are part of the strategy to stop migrants reaching europe. in an attempt to avoid discovery, these people are staying out of sight in semi- derelict farm buildings this rough farmland was home to about 300 refugees for the winter. but the syrians were cleared out and told to find accommodation in hotels, houses or apartments. the farmer objected to us filming, called the police, and followed us for several miles as we looked for people willing to talk. >> mariam is my name. mariam. i'm 30 years old. mariam ibrahim. our life is awful. we have no source of income. nothing. only god is by our side. we have no money. we are on our knees. we're struggling to survive. we just work to live. >> reporter: the landowner is charging mariam $100 a month to

pitch her tent. she is alone with her five children and has little choice. >> ( translated ): they say living in houses is better for you than living in tents. so how we feel? i mean we are crammed on top of one another. i don't have the means or help or money to live in a house. >> reporter: despite barely earning enough to support her family, mariam is trying to send money to syria for her sick husband, left behind in an area where kurdish forces are fighting islamic state. there's irregular work in the fields around the town of torbali. here they're harvesting leeks. the syrians say adults might get $10 for a 12 to 14 hour day. that's about half the statutory turkish minimum wage. the children earn far less. >> ( translated ): in syria, they are all dead or living with death. >> ( translated ): we are better off in turkey compared to syria. there's no fighting. we are comfortable here.

>> ( translated ): i came to turkey to work in the orange orchards or flower fields. the daily pay is low, like 75 cents. >> ( translated ): now we are working and coming back from rock bottom. but i think of being in school and learning everything. >> reporter: refugee support groups say stories like this are replicated all along turkey's aegean coast, the gateway to the greek islands and europe. the three million syrians sheltering in turkey are caught in a precarious twilight world where they have no real access to state services and are treated like second class citizens. they may be safe from war but they and their children are exploited and are vulnerable. it's little wonder so many wish to cross this sea to europe for a better life. in september 2015, izmir was smuggling central. this mosque was full of people angling to buy a passage to europe. but after the e.u. signed a $3 billion deal with turkey to stem the migrant flow, the crowds have vanished from the courtyard, and also from this

cafe which was a rendezvous for traffickers and their clients. the syrians are doing what's necessary to survive on the wrong side of the tracks. many of their children work in leather or textile sweatshops. these young syrians were on a lunch break from a textile factory and would only confirm they've been working for years, despite being under age. under new turkish laws, syrian children with identity papers are allowed to attend state schools. but aid agencies estimate that only 5,000 out of 22,000 eligible children in the izmir area have taken up that right. the rest are believed to be working. mohammed sali ali founded a charity to help syrian refugees. >> ( translated ): when the parents fled syrian they had some money in their pockets. after a few months, they ran out of money they don't have any income, they don't have any work, or trade. so they had to choose between begging and sending the kids to work.

>> reporter: turkey is hosting more refugees than any other country. aid agencies warn of growing racial tension, and in the back streets of izmir there's clear resentment from turks about the impact refugees have on the labor market, at a time when there's 12% unemployment nationally, a seven-year high. >> ( translated ): the turks should first think about their own people, retired people are starving. i can't even find work with the minimum wage. we as turkish citizens can hardly make a living. do you understand? we are worse off than the syrians. >> ( translated ): at the moment because of the syrians employment went down a lot. they work on the cheap, and because they work for low wages, the situation for turkish workers is bad now. >> ( translated ): they are our guests here. why should we complain? one day when things are okay again in their own land they will go back. >> reporter: but zahir bhatah is planning to stay, along with his four year old autistic son, anver. he didn't dare take a rubber dingy to greece.

>> the sea is very dangerous. my son is very small. and he cannot swim. i have many friends who drowned in the sea so i was too scared to travel to europe so i decided to stay in izmir. >> reporter: bhatah used to be a heart surgeon in damascus. in izmir he worked as a baker for a while. he's applying for turkish citizenship under president erdogan's initiative. >> i think it's better for me to find a chance to work as a doctor in turkey. >> reporter: other refugees are taking turkish lessons to improve their chances of assimilation and employment. last year at ramadan the turkish president promised citizenship for all refugees from syria and iraq but had to retreat because of widespread opposition. now an aid group called bridging

people says turks should remember what happened to hundreds of thousands of their countrymen when they migrated to germany for work after the second world war. burcu senturk, a spokeswoman for bridging people argues that turkey should copy the germans and grant the syrians citizenship. >> when they come here, they are not refugees they are people with their families and hopes. and i think in due time they will be settling down in turkey with their unique stories and unique qualifications and that's why i think we need to embrace all of them. >> reporter: burcu claims that turks will benefit from such a proposal. >> i think this will protect many syrians and other nations' refugees in turkey if they become citizens and since the turkish workers and the other nationalities workers will be working under the same conditions it will also decrease the potential for racism and violence between the people. >> reporter: while the president may be sympathetic, campaigners say they need to convince lawmakers from the ruling party

that the alternative to citizenship is potential strife in the future from stateless, disenfranchised people. especially the young, like the eight year old who says he was clawed by a turkish teacher. children selling tissues. the under age fruit picker banned from playing soccer on a farmer's land. they face an uncertain future. but the heart surgeon is optimistic that his hosts will judge that his skills are worth harnessing and make him a turk. for the pbs newshour, i'm malcolm brabant in izmir. >> woodruff: now, a most unusual take on ghost stories, abraham lincoln, and the dead. jeffrey brown has this latest addition to the newshour bookshelf. >> brown: february 20th, 1862. 12-year old willie lincoln has just died of typhoid and been interred at oak hills cemetery

in washington, d.c. his grieving father, the president, visits at night. so far, all true. but in the new novel "lincoln in the bardo," it's the cemetery's ghostly inhabitants that tell us of the visit and its consequences. this is the first novel by george saunders, widely acclaimed as a short story writer including his most recent collection "10th of december" and welcome to you, nice to see you again. >> nice to be here, nice to be here. >> brown: so this is a ghost story. very human ghosts, right? they don't even think they're stuck, they don't even know they're stuck. they don't even know they're dead. >> they don't even know yet. yeah, they're stuck and they're stuck kind of in the condition they were in at the moment of death. so if they were worried about something or feeling short- changed or in love or in hate they suddenly are in this other place and desperately trying to stay there which they do by repeating their grievances. >> brown: which makes them very, very human. very alive. >> they're just neurotic and free-floating, yeah. >> brown: we should say the 'bardo' is a tibetan term for a transition, tell me. >> that's right, we're in one now. we're in the transition between

birth and death, but the one that people often know about is the transition between the moment of death and whatever comes next. so reincarnation or heaven or hell. >> brown: so this particular bardo is a cemetery, as i said a real one, not too far from here in washington, d.c., right? and you tell the story through voices, a chorus of voices. why that approach? >> the first thing i wanted to not do was tell it in a way that made death in this experience seem banal or manageable. so my approach to fiction is to kind of just to go in there moment by moment and try to always make some sparks. and in this case it meant kind of telling it from a strange angle that might even give the reader a little struggle in the first 10 to 15 pages, but i thought, you know, whatever happens after this life, it would be really strange if it was what we expected. so i wanted to kind of simulate that in the book, so the reader is a little destabilized, the ghosts are a little destabilized, and i found you could kind of do that through the form of the thing. >> brown: just to make it clear to our audience there's no one narrator it's all of these voices which you are assembling

including snippets from and quotations from real historians and some made up historians. >> when i first heard the story about lincoln, it was so beautiful to me and sorrowful and gorgeous that my mantra was kind of just make the ending, make the book so weird and beautiful that it would do some justice to that emotional core. so along the way that was a great mantra to kind of say, "does this decision lead to the direction of emotional power or not?" and, so the strange thing was, following those bread crumbs i looked up about a third of the way in and it had this crazy form. very fun and gratifying. >> brown: and it makes me wonder, did you feel you had to sort of play with the form of a novel? i never. i wanted to write a novel. this particular material, was so insistent and i really kept a

close eye on it, like don't be a novel unless you have to and at some point it really convinced me that it deserved the length. you know. >> brangham: you just couldn't write a straightforward narrative? >> i couldn't write a straightforward narrative and i couldn't write a brief narrative. but again i would have, i've been happy to do all of that but it's kind of strange my artistic approach is that you're supposed to be a little baffled as you're writing. >> brown: you, the writer? >> yes. the holiest state is to be a little confused about what you're doing and you're guiding by the energy that the story is actually giving you as you revise. that's kind of tricky because it means you have to abandon your ideas about organization or thematics and really submit to the story just as if it was a friend kind of trying to convince you of something. so if you do that, sometimes it takes you-- it asks you to do really crazy things. and for me that's the thrill of it is to say "okay, i'll try it." and then hope that it will result in some kind of new mode of beauty. >> brown: and at some point you're no longer confused by what you're doing? >> i'm still confused because hopefully the book is doing things that you didn't consciously plan.

>> brown: so, at the core of this is this figure, abraham lincoln. probably the most written of personage in american history, right? you come at him through angles, the voices of the ghosts observing him, his son, the historians. was that because you couldn't get a grasp of him? or you didn't want to? >> it scared me to try. and also i was a little bit afraid of coming with all that conventional wisdom about him. and at one point i thought, you know, actually i don't want to write a book about lincoln. i don't claim to know him, but i needed him because the father who's so grief- stricken he goes to see his dead son's body. >> brown: this is abraham lincoln at a moment of tremendous personal grief but also surrounded by the civil war and the grief of so many who will die. >> right, right. it was actually a wonderful chance to hang out with him for four years. you see a president who really made a virtue of things like sorrow, being defeated, because he had setback after setback, he has this great loss.

and somehow he was able to transform all that sorrow into a kind of expanding empathy for everybody, you know and it was kind of inspiring to see somebody whose response to fear or hardship was expansiveness instead of shrinkage. >> brown: the new novel is "lincoln in the bardo." george saunders, thank you very much. >> thank you so much. those responsible for war crimes to justice. dead reckoning follows war crimes are investigators and prosecutors pursue some of the most notorious war criminals from world war ii through the modern war on terrorism. and that and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we begin our series war on the brain-- three nights of reporting from soledad o'brien on the efforts to treat, diagnose and possibly find a cure to post traumatic stress disorder.

war on the brain: online and on air over the next three days. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> our tradition has been to take care of mother earth, because it's that that gives us water, gives us life. the land is here for everyone. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in educatn, 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

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