captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, july 30th: tensions continue to rise following the latest missile launch by north korea. in our signature segment, good business: companies committing to employees, environment and community. and, the impact of climate change on the northwest passage. next on "s newshour weekend." >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the j.b.p. foundation. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. the anderson family fund. rosalind p. walter, in memory of abby m. o'neill. barbara hope zuckerberg.

corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening and thanks for joining us. growing anxiety today on the korean peninsula following north korea's second, and more ambitious, test of an intercontinental ballistic missile on friday. the missile is thought to be capable of reaching deep inside the u.s. mainland. china condemned the launch and urged restraint, but president trump expressed frustration with beijing last night, criticizing chinese leaders over trade, and then saying:

in a visible show of force, the pentagon ordered two air force b-1 bombers to fly over the peninsula. they were accompanied by south korean and japanese fighter planes. at the same time, u.s. and south korean forces conducted joint live-fire exercises. ploy four more units of thell advanced u.s. "thaad" anti- missile system, in addition to the two already in place. the pentagon reported a successful test of the "thaad" system in alaska last night when it shot down a medium-range ballistic test missile launched over the pacific. north korea said today its missile program is a response to threats by what it called" american imperialist beasts." in a significant deterioration of diplomatic relations, russian president vladimir putin today confirmed that the u.s. must reduce its embassy staff in russia by 755 by september 1. that would reduce the total number employed by the u.s. there to 455, which is the same as their russian counterparts in the united states.

russia's foreign ministry had announced the measures on friday, but did not specify the number of staff to be reduced. this move is in response to the expanded economic sanctions approved by congress last week over u.s. election meddling. the white house has said security was tightened at airports across australia this evening, after federal police said they foiled a terrorist plot to bring down an airliner. prime minister malcolm turnbull said police raided locations in suburbs of sydney and said four suspects were arrested in what he called a major counter- terrorism operation. the police commissioner said the plot appeared to be, "islamic- inspired," and may have involved the use of an improvised explosive device. police say the investigation is ongoing. in venezuela, where the economy has collapsed, the opposition is boycotting today's controversial election of a powerful new assembly demanded by president nicolas maduro. more than 100 people have been killed in clashes with police in four months of anti-maduro protests, and nationwide protests are planned today. two new deaths have already been reported.

protest leaders charge the new maduro-controlled assembly will only pave the way for him to dissolve the opposition-run congress, delay elections, and re-write the constitution. the u.s. and other countries had vowed more economic sanctions against maduro if today's vote went ahead. the white house continued pressuring the senate today following last week's dramatic defeat of republican obamacare repeal efforts in the senate. majority leader mitch mcconnell has said its time, "to move on"" white house budget director mick mulvaney followed up on president trump's tweet yesterday, telling the senate not to vote on any other legislation without a health care repeal, and even suggested senators cancel their august recess. >> is this official white house >> well, i think yes. in the white house's view they can't move on in the senate. >> sreenivasan: white house counselor kellyanne conway said president trump will decide this week whether to end about $7- billion dollars a year in subsidies to insurance companies that help lower costs of healthcare for lower- income americans.

president trump suggested in a tweet yesterday that the "bailouts" would end if congress doesn't pass a new healthcare bill. house minority leader nancy pelosi said democrats could work with republicans on at least one proposal. >> i think there is a proposal in one of mcconnell's bills that he had the repeal and replace, he had a provision that we can all embrace and it was a provision to cover the cost sharing reductions extend the reinsurance which is very important >> sreenivasan: despite last week's setback, senate republicans are still working on yet another repeal bill that can win approval by 50 members. hear from transgender soldiers facing uncertainty following president trump's declaration that they can no longer serve. read more at pbs.org/newshour. on friday, hackers were able to penetrate a touch screen voting

machine in less than two hours. the machine was used in a 2014 virginia election, and the hack was part of a demonstration of election system security weaknesses at defcon in las vegas. the annual event is attended by hackers, but also by security and technology firms, government employees-- some undercover-- and of course reporters. defcon wraps up today, and joining me now from san francisco is robert mcmillan of the "wall street journal" who has been covering the conference. >> that headline, you know, someone hacking elections machine in two hours, that has everyone kind of interested. this is not a machine that is in use today but it was just a few years ago. >> reporter: yes and it was in use for years and definitely hackable for years. that was the thing that really caught my attention just sitting there next oa guy with a laptop who's connecting to a voting machine that is stating that it was used in fairfax county in 2014, connects to it wierm wirey

in front of me. >> sreenivasan: the dpasmedz det of homeland security and other agencies, what is the extent of the damage it could do? >> it could have altered the votes. it could have done anything to this one voting machine, you know, and it would have been undetectable after it happened. so there's definitely concern about this one particular machine. i think broader picture about what we need to worry about with voting machine security is only becoming clear right now. you know, i think for a while people really focused on the integrity of just this devices you know ten years ago we had audits of voting machines and there is away a lot of discussion of this. but what happened last year the whole scenario of what could be hacked and how it could be hacked and the concept of the network being attacked, people

are rethinking voting machine security right now. >> sreenivasan: what was intriguing was this voting machine was used in 2014 but the hearing looks like they had found ahole, microsoft had issued a patch for that years ago. >> this machine, called a win vote machine, widely considered tto be the worst voting machine ever. what happened to people who followed this is not surprising. we knew for years that these vote being machines were vulnerable, it is hard to get access but the act of seeing someone do it is pretty rare. >> sreenivasan: the strength and the weakness of our entire system is the fact that there isn't any uniformity in the kind of machines that exist in every jurisdiction all over the country and no central i.t. staff that says here is the central patch that's going to go out to everything at the same time, or that a hacker could get into that central system and

hack everything at the same time. >> the conventional which tom is that our systems would be so diverse that it would be difficult to compromise them in a widespread way. but i think what we're learning about the 2016 effort, the fact had a there were so many states affected. these weren't voting machines, these were the machines that keep track of the registered voters, but the fact that remotely, people were able to access county systems like this, ant you know, what might have -- what might have happened after that is still a question mark. so i think the whole network of voting machines and people are really reevaluating this question of how susceptible the united states is to sort of a centralized voting attack. >> sreenivasan: rosht mick minimally journeying us from san francisco, thank you for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> sreenivasan: many businesses

subscribe to the philosophy of doing well and doing good. some even give a fixed percentage of their revenue to charity. but by law, publicly-traded american corporations-- those that issue stock-- must maximize profits and shareholder value. however, in the past decade, a new model of corporate responsibility has gained a growing foothold in american business. they're called b-corps. in tonight's signature segment, "newshour weekend"'s christopher booker explains how they work. >> reporter: a tour through the new belgium brewing company in fort collins, colorado, passes through the bottling facility and brewhouse, before ending at the bar. new belgium is one the largest craft breweries in the country, distributing beer to all 50 states. when you buy its best known brand, fat tire belgian style ale, that "b" on the label doesn't stand for beer, it's stands for b corp, a designation given to businesses dedicated to more than profit. >> i think when you get together with people you realize you have a lot of the same values. >> reporter: katie wallace is new belgium's assistant director of sustainability. >> if you're running a business

that's not considering the impact that you have on the environment and society, or the impact that those things have upon your business, then you're not operating a business that's really going to be in existence in the future. >> reporter: new belgium is privately owned and profitable, selling nearly a million barrels of beer a year and generating $225 million a year in revenue. >> for a long time we felt that we kind of stumbled into this for values-based reasons but then found that economically it was a really powerful business model and has been a key ingredient of our success over time >> reporter: new belgium took its dedication up a notch in 2013, when it became a certified b corp, submitting to a rigorous audit of its community impact by the pennsylvania based b lab. b lab likens the certification to "fair trade" for coffee and the "leed" certification for buildings with environmental and energy-efficient design. beyond charitable giving, companies can score more points for making eco-friendly products, offering robust benefit packages, and being transparent in their corporate

governance. new belgium earned its certification in large part because of its environmental practices: generating 12% of its electricity from solar panels and biogas, a fuel they create by the wastewater produced when they make beer. after one year on the job, employees are given bikes to commute carbon free and given shares in the company, which is now employee owned. >> b corp has given us a way to measure things that aren't inherently quantitative, but we know are important to us. like providing 100% of our health care premiums for our co- workers or putting solar on site or biogas. it helps us to bring that into a measurement space where we can compare ourselves against other companies and see are we really being leaders in this area or is there a way we can improve? >> reporter: believing business can function as "a force for good," b lab has certified 22,000 companies worldwide since 2007. subjecting mostly small and medium-sized, privately held companies to a 200 point assessment.

the list includes ice cream makers ben & jerry's, eyewear manufacturer warby parker, and outdoor clothing giant patagonia. there are 99 b corps in colorado. that includes businesses that don't manufacture anything, like denver law firm moye white. attorney dominick sekich oversaw its b corps application. >> there are a lot of opportunities that, say, manufacturers have that, as a service organization, we don't have. reporter: moye white acheived b corp certification after it improved a number of employee benefits, expanding paid parental and family leave, increasing flex time, and starting an employee community service group that volunteers with organizations like habitat for humanity. sekich says each time an employee takes advantage of their three-month paid family leave benefit, it can cost the firm between $20,000 and $50,000, but the firm believes it's worth it. >> we've had some clients approach us asking us how we've committed to the environment, how we've committed to our

communities, and we're able to point to our certification as a b corporation as part of that effort. >> reporter: when moye white was working toward its b corp certification, it turned to b lab's kim coupanous for assistance. >> if you look at society in general and all of the good things that capitalism has brought to civilization and humanity over the last hundred plus years, there's been an equal number of really negative things. massive income divides, biotoxicity, greenhouse gases, you name your kind of social or environmental ill. capitalism has kind of created that. >> reporter: before joining b lab, coupanous ran an outdoor clothing company for 16 years. >> i agree with the profit motive and there's no bones about that. i also know that the power of business to transform society is huge. and we are going into this new century facing some pretty challenging problems that haven't been solved by the nonprofit sector or the government sector. and at the same time, there's

this kind of spirit of innovation and optimism, especially among millennials who say we can do better than this. >> reporter: economically, colorado is doing better than most states. its 2.3% unemployment rate is the lowest in the country. the denver skyline is filled with cranes constructing new apartment buildings for some of the 60,000 people who move to the state every year, most settling in the relatively affluent greater denver and boulder areas. will this be relegated to areas that are already populated by the upper middle class, the educated, the tech sector? i can think of many corners of america that they just want jobs. they're not even having the ability to think about how does this save water. >> certainly it really can't be relegated to the realm of upper middle class progressive city, because if we are trying to create shared and, or durable prosperity for all it means cities that are depressed. it means, you know, local

businesses, nail salons, and moving companies, and the local garage. >> reporter: the b corp movement is not without its skeptics. >> it is a band aid on a cancerous patient. >> reporter: boston college law professor kent greenfield applauds the intent of b-corps, but fears the b corps movement may mask the need for far greater changes to the way american companies conduct themselves. >> let's be honest-- the real bad actors in the corporate world are not those who are voluntarily opting in. >> reporter: greenfield argues that there must be changes in corporate governance to legally support companies working to be better citizens. >> as long as it's voluntary, then it's still gonna leave bad actors aside. so if you're a wall street hedge fund manager, are you going to prefer companies that are b corps? are you gonna prefer companies who are saying, "no, we don't think that being a b corp is conducive to the shareholder value?" so i think our efforts need to be aimed at a more fundamental adjustment in the way we think about corporate obligation and the way we govern corporations.

>> reporter: despite the lack of federal or state regulation compelling companies to function as better actors, there is a way for companies who pursue both profit and social good to be legally protected. with a push from b lab, colorado and 32 other states have passed legislation allowing companies to incorporate as a public benefit corporation, which enshrines their social mission into their articles of incorporation. this spring, food and beverage company danonewave became the largest public benefit corporation in the u.s., with 6,000 employees and $6 billion in annual revenue. a subsidiary of french multinational danone, danonewave makes organic products like horizon milk, silk almond milk, and wallaby yogurt. >> we encourage dietary practices that improve the health of people through food. >> reporter: deborah eschmeyer is the vice president of communications and community affairs. >> when folks go to the grocery store, they want to know that the products are actually doing right by the employees and by

the people and the planet. >> reporter: its production process is increasingly using natural ingredients and the company has spent money to reduce its waste and promote animal welfare. eschmeyer says danonewave believes the up front costs pay off in the long run. >> these are things that help the bottom line, because waste reduction, for example, is great for the bottom line. it's also great for the planet. we have this greater goal of showing that you can meet the financial shareholders' interests and do right by the people and the planet. >> reporter: danonewave is arguably providing a test case for scale. >> yes. >> reporter: how difficult is it to go through this process with such a large company? >> yeah, i mean, we're definitely proving the case. we want to make sure that large companies can do this, and we can do this at scale. and danonewave is now one of the top 15 food and beverage companies in the united states. and so when we do this, it's a challenge to other companies to step up as well. >> reporter: six more states are now considering benefit

corporation legislation. b lab says it will certify its 100th colorado company as a b- corp next week. >> sreenivasan: finding and traversing the fabled ice- clogged northwest sea passage linking the atlantic and pacific oceans across the canadian arctic was a dream of explorers for centuries. but it wasn't until 1906 that famed norwegian explorer roald amundsen completed the voyage for the first time. this weekend a finnish icebreaker completed the most recent transit, one that glaringly revealed the effects of climate change on the fragile arctic environment. the trip from vancouver canada to greenland's capital city nuuk took 24 days. onboard to document the voyage was a team of associated press reporters. joining us now via skype from nuuk, greenland is one of the a.p. reporters, frank jordans. >> so frank, the fact that it's

24 days, that's a new record. what does that tell us? >> well, what is new this year is that the finnish ice break in nordica, was able to go from vancouver to nca nuuk and arrive earliest ever recorded. >> sreenivasan: meaning it's a warmer temperature? >> yes, the ice coverage fluctuates year by year. sometimes it increases a little bit. sometimes it's less. what that meant for our trip was, we were able to enter the northwest passage earlier and found remarkably little ice. and the ice that we did find was quite thin. >> sreenivasan: what are the consequences if the ice is thinning earlier, and if this passage is opening? >> well, there's a lot of speculation in the last few

years ago about whether or not the northwest passage might become a new shipping highway. cargo ships, tourist ships, pleasure boats, those kinds of things. and if the northwest passage becomes completely ice friday or virtually ice free, sort of large parts of the summer, then that does become a distinct possibility. >> sreenivasan: there were several researchers on board this vessel. what were they studying? >> the impact of global warming on societies in the arctic, some were taking records of the marine animals that we were encountering. and some were looking at the northwesterly passage from an economic point of view. >> sreenivasan: i take it most of this is uninhabited area. for anyplace that you ran into any communities that were living off the ice, what is the consequence to them if this

passage keeps opening up sooner and sooner? >> well, the area is not entirely uninhabited but it is certainly very sparsely inhabited. there are sparse communities along the way, and sometimes there are hundreds of kilometers or miles from other communities. they actually depend on the ice for travel. those are their highways for much of the year. so when the northwest passage is frozen over, they can travel from one community to another. by sled for example. when the ice breaks up, then they can't do that anymore. the whole situation changes for them. so as the northwest passage changes, due to global warming, these communities will have to adapt. >> sreenivasan: all right, frank jordans of the associated press, joining us from nuuk,

green land, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> sreenivasan: we've all received spam phone calls from random numbers, but most of us don't do what "reply all" podcast host alex goldman did. i sat down with him earlier today. first e-first of all what did you do? >> i got someone on the phone who was trying to sell me tech support, had a my i-cloud had been compromised. my computer was being looked at my bank account was being looked at. i knew it wasn't true but i was curious how far this person would go in terms of admitting what their business model is and keeping them on the line. surprisingly he was very candid with me. i said oh, i got a call, saying call this 1-800-number back. this is the person is trying to steal money from me, that i'm

not comfortable for them knowing a number. what would happen if i tried to learn everything about them? and would it be possible? >> sreenivasan: they take or you authorize them to take a look and view your screen your computer screen. >> uh-huh. >> sreenivasan: what did you do with that process to turn the tables on them? >> well one of the things we did was, again tim howard my executive producer suggested you looked at their facebook profiles, you know a lot about them. why don't you put a picture of them on your background and see how they react? it caught them completely by surprise. i thought they would hang up but they put the boss on the phone. >> sreenivasan: all of a sudden he sees pictures of his co-workers on your background. wait a a second this is something off. >> there was a moment of silence. >> sreenivasan: that's just a cebook page.he rest on our. the next episode of "reply all,"

including what happens when alex goes to india to meet the man who tried to scam him, comes out this thursday. >> sreenivasan: finally, the baseball hall of fame inducted the class of 2017 today. joining the hall in cooperstown, new york are slugger jeff bagwell, base-stealer tim raines, and catcher ivan "pudg"" rodriguez. and adrian beltre of the texas rangers is sure to join them. he doubled today to become the 31st player in major league history to reach 3,000 hits. that's all for this edition of "pbs newshour weekend," i'm hari sreenivasan, have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made

possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the j.p.b. foundation. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. the anderson family fund. rosalind p. walter, in memory of abby m. o'neill. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. be more, pbs.

narrator: they are four of the most common plants we know. we've always thought that we controlled them. but what if, in fact, they have been shaping us? man: we don't give nearly enough credit to plants. they've been working on us, they've been using us, for their own purposes. narrator: four plants that have traveled the road to success, by satisfying human desires. man: the tulip, by gratifying our desire for a certain kind of beauty, has gotten us to take it from its origins in central asia and disperse it around the world. marijuana, by gratifying our desire to change consciousness, has gotten people to risk their lives, their freedom, in order to grow more of it and plant more of it.