captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> yang: good evening, i'm john yang. judy woodruff is away. on the newshour tonight, the north korea threat: after the north's most powerful nuclear test yet, the united states and the world struggles with how to deal with kim jong un. also ahead, as the damage from harvey becomes more evident and with cleanup efforts in the early stages, a look at how those still stuck in shelters are coping. then, it's politics monday: as congress returns, we discuss president trump's reported decision to end daca, and congress's first step to fund rebuilding after harvey. plus, in remembrance: we look back at american poet john ashbery, his influential work and what made the prolific writer unique. >> poetry comes to me out of

thin air or out of my unconscious mind. it's sort of the way dreams come to us. >> yang: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> 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. >> yang: north korea has again seized the world's attention with a new nuclear blast. the weekend test may move pyongyang a quantum leap forward

in its bid to become a nuclear power, capable of threatening the u.s. mainland. that, in turn, has set off a new diplomatic flurry. nick schifrin reports. >> enough is enough. >> reporter: for the second time in a week, the security council today held an emergency session on north korea. and u.s. ambassador to the u.n. nikki haley said north korean leader kim jong un had slapped the international community in the face. >> his abusive use of missiles and these nuclear threats show that he is begging for war. war is never something that the united states wants. we don't want it now. but our country's patience is not unlimited. >> reporter: and for the second time in a week, south korea today practiced an attack on north korea. the south korean military fired missiles it said could target north korea's nuclear test sites. today president trump agreed to help south korea increase the size of those missiles, sell south korea more weapons,

and south korea said the u.s. would soon deploy a carrier strike group and long-range bombers. those military moves provide the u.s. with options that secretary of defense james mattis mentioned yesterday. >> any threat to the united states or its territory, including guam or our allies, will be met with a massive military response. we are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely north korea. but as i said, we have many options to do so. >> reporter: but chinese ambassador to the u.n. liu jieyi said today, pressure won't produce peace. >> ( translated ): the parties concerned must strengthen their sense of urgency, make joint efforts together to ease the situation, and restart the dialogue and talks and prevent further deterioration. >> reporter: in the last few years, north korea's missile and nuclear programs have slowly evolved. but this weekend's test is more than another step. >> i think this is a definitely

significant leap in technology. a thermonuclear weapon is not just an evolutionary change. >> reporter: james acton is a physicist and co-director of carnegie's nuclear policy program. he says there's no verification yet of north korea's claim it exploded a hydrogen bomb, or thermonuclear weapon, but it seems that way. >> it was a very large explosion. about 100 kilotons. that is certainly consistent with a hydrogen bomb. secondly, the day before the test, they released photos of kim jong un standing next to a device that looked like a thermonuclear weapon. and we also know that they've been trying to develop the materials they would need to build a thermonuclear weapon. >> reporter: here's the difference. an atomic bomb splits a uranium or plutonium atom. that's fission. that split, creates more splits, and a chain reaction that creates a nuclear blast. that's the starting point for a thermonuclear bomb. the fission explosions create enough energy for hydrogen atoms to fuse together. that's fusion, and it makes a much more powerful bomb.

>> a thermonuclear weapon can produce yields that are 10, 100, even 1,000 times bigger than a simple atomic weapon. >> reporter: this was the size of the impact of the u.s. atomic bomb dropped on hiroshima. and this is the size of the impact from this weekend's north korean bomb. >> the hiroshima test leveled the center of a city, killed around about a couple of hundred thousand people. this bomb is five times bigger. that gives you some sense of the enormous sense of the scale of the weapon detonated. >> reporter: it's not clear if north korea can miniaturize that kind of bomb, so it can be delivered by a ballistic missile. but james acton says it's only a matter of time. >> if this was not a miniaturized thermonuclear weapon, unfortunately i have little doubt north korea will be able to miniaturize it, do so in fairly short order, and then stick it on the nose cone of a ballistic missile. >> reporter: a u.s. intelligence official told me today that it's too early to know exactly the bomb that north korea tested, but "we're highly confident that this was a test of an advanced

nuclear device, and what we've seen so far is not inconsistent with north korea's claims." for more on all of this we get two views. robert gallucci had an extensive career in nuclear arms control, including as the chief u.s. negotiator with north korea during the clinton administration. he is now a professor at georgetown university and chair of the u.s. korea institute at johns hopkins university. and balbina hwang served in the state department during the george w. bush administration. she is now a visiting professor at georgetown university. and welcome to you both. thank you very much. balbina, i'll turn to you first. are we at a point where we only have two options, either going to war or somehow accepting what seems to be an inevitable march toward a north korea with the ability to put a thermonuclear weapon on an icbm? >> no, we don't have only two options. there is, i think, still a

possibility -- i think secretary mattis said there is always a possibility negotiations might succeed. we might be able to roll back, even eliminate the north korean threat. it is possible that we will decide -- the united states will decide to live with this, to live with deterrents as we have with the soviet union, then russia and china. but at this point, there is an awful lot of language being used about how we are not going to tolerate this and not going to put up with it. if one wishes to do something about the capability, certainly there is a military option, the secretary's spoken to that, but there's also a possibility of negotiations. >> and balbina, do you think there is the possibility of negotiations? there have been negotiations in the past and we're at a point where north korea seems to have at least a very large bomb if not a thermonuclear weapon. >> i don't think it's necessarily mutually exclusiviter one or the other. i think it spends depends on

what we want to cheech with geetion negotiations. while we work on whether negotiations might work or not to establish our goals, are we trying to eliminate all north korea's nuclear weapon programs and future ambitions? that's a different story than trying to contain or slow town or even freeze or dismantle it's existing program. >> a follow-up question, the u.s. has talked about denuclearizing the peninsula for a long time, and that just doesn't seem like it's going to happen, though, right? >> well, it's certainly very difficult to because how do you negotiate with a party that first of all refused to negotiate because it won't put the nuclear weapons on the table and, secondly, that seems to be the die-hard ambition of this regime. >> bob, can you negotiate with a regime that has a die-hard ambition? >> i recollect doing so, a long time in another universe in 1994, we concluded a deal with

north korea that ended what we knew of as their nuclear weapons program, it was based on plutonium as the fissile material to drive that weapons program, and the fa statements that would produce the plutonium and separate it were shut down, closed down for eight years while the deal was in place and that was the nuclear weapons program. they, from our perspective, at least, cheated on the deal by having secret arrangements with the pakistanis to bring them another tech -- technology for another type of material. i'd submit to you a negotiation producing an outcome where north korea was without nuclear weapons when they could be with nuclear weapons. intelligence community in the early '90s said north korea could enter the 20th century with roughly 100 nuclear weapons if that deal hadn't been concluded. it ultimately fell apart. agreed. the question, is can you have

another deal that sticks and get the transparency renewed. i disagreed with me colleague about whether it is possible to get a deal that denuclearizes the peninsula. i don't think in one step. i think you would have a freeze, a cap. but i think if we don't have as a declared objective to have a denuclearized korean peninsula then we really undercut the status of our ally south korea. >> balbina. i completely agree. i think we should never take off denuclearization as the goal. it was the two koreas in 199 # that signed an screamed agreement that said they both wanted to denuclearize and that principal was in place that was the base of what you worked on and the six-party talks. >> bob, how can you negotiate today with the same notion of what you brought back in the '90s that north korea seems to have a thermonuclear weapon? >> this is not beyond the minds

of men and women to figure out. if north korea and united states will come to the table without pre-conditions there are ways to take apart andties mantel nuclear weapons programs. we did that in iiaq some time ago, had inspections system and took apart a pretty sophisticated nuclear weapons program. we can do it in north korea if the north koreans are persuaded they can achieve their security objectives without nuclear weapons. >> i want to ask questions about alliances. i want to read a tweet from president trump. he wrote "south korea is finding, as i have told them, that their talk of appeasement with north korea will not work. they only understand one thing." sorry. we put up the wrong thing up there -- that they only understand one thing an allies

program. >> only one thing that focus allies is when threats seam to be imminent. south korea and president moon is defining expectations. i'm surprised by how he's reacting to all this. president moon is showing he really wants to strengthen the alliance. >> bob, quickly, is president trump alienating a u.s. ally? >> it's hard to put clearly the amount of destructive impact character that the president has accomplished with just the simple characterization of negotiations as appeasement. he should want to preserve that option. his secretary of defense wants to preserve that option. it may not work. that may not be the solution to this problem but we don't want to dismiss it and we don't want to politicize it with a word like appeasement. >> balbina hwang and robert

gallucci, thank you very much. >> yang: thanks, nick. in the day's other news, texas officials raised the death toll from hurricane "harvey" to 60, and the recovery moved slowly forward, even as parts of houston remained underwater. torrents gushed from a swollen reservoir in a controlled release that forced 4,700 more homes to be evacuated. the top elected official in harris county, which includes houston, said the hard work is just beginning. >> storm's been dealt with, but if two weeks from now people still have debris, and they don't have a sense that it's going to be picked up, if they don't have a sense that they're gonna have housing, if they don't have sense that all levels of government are working together to bring them relief, then all these warm fuzzy feelings we have today are gonna be gone. >> yang: elsewhere, officials lifted an evacuation order around a wrecked chemical plant outside houston. and, leaders in the u.s. house of representatives set a vote for wednesday on a disaster aid bill totaling $7.9 billion.

meanwhile in the eastern caribbean, the governor of puerto rico declared a state of emergency ahead of hurricane "irma". satellite images today showed the storm's advance. it has sustained winds of 130 miles-an-hour, and is still growing. it's expected to pass close to the leeward islands tomorrow night before moving on to puerto rico and, possibly, florida by the weekend. rain and cooler temperatures are helping firefighters in los angeles battle the largest blaze in city history. the fire has been burning since friday and has swept through nearly 6,000 acres. but l.a.'s fire chief says damage to homes has been minimal. >> our people are tired. i talked to them at length yesterday and last night. they had a good rest period a large percentage of them last night and that's a good sign. as long as the weather continues to cooperate i'm very confident

and convinced we'll be fine. >> yang: to the north, crews are struggling with fires and high heat. at yosemite national park today, high winds pushed a fire into a grove of giant sequoia trees that are 2,700 years old. officials aren't sure of the extent of the damage. lawmakers and activists are bracing for president trump to stop shielding 800,000 young immigrants from deportation. the obama-era effort covers people who were brought into the united states illegally as children. it's widely reported mr. trump will announce tomorrow that he's ending the program in six months. that's to give congress time to address the issue. we'll have more later in our "politics monday' segment. violence against the rohingya muslims of myanmar drew growing condemnation across the muslim world today. in russian chechnya, tens of thousands of protesters rallied in the capital of grozny. they demanded an end to the violence.

in jakarta, indonesia, hundreds of muslim women protested in front of myanmar's embassy. the indonesian president urged myanmar's leader to act. >> ( translated ): we deplore the violence that occurred in rakhine state, myanmar. real action is needed, not just statements and condemnations. the government of indonesia is committed to continuing to help address the humanitarian crisis, in cooperation with civil society in indonesia and the international community. >> yang: almost 90,000 rohingya have crossed into bangladesh in just 10 days, fleeing a military crackdown. the government of the largely buddhist nation says rohingya insurgents provoked the trouble. and, the electoral commission in kenya has set october 17 to re- run the presidential election. president uhuru kenyatta was declared the winner, over opposition leader raila odinga, in the august 8th vote. last week, the country's supreme court nullified the results,

citing irregularities. still to come on the newshour: we head to houston where cleanup continues in the wake of hurricane harvey. our politics monday team digs into president trump's apparent plans for so-called "dreamers," and much more. >> yang: at the height of harvey's fury in houston, thousands of people sought refuge in the city's convention center. while the numbers have gone down, for those who are still there, the sense of desperation is still high. special correspondent marcia biggs has our report >> reporter: its been one of the symbols of the hurricane harvey disaster and the george r. brown convention center is still bustling today. at its highest point since harvey made landfall 10 days ago the center was catering to 10,000 people. today only around 1,400 remain

as full residents. but those who remain are seemingly some of the most vulnerable. >> i don't have any friends or family and if i do, they are just as flooded as i am so we >> reporter: cheryl conley has been here since last tuesday. she has congestive heart failure and epilepsy and hasn't been able to reach her landlord, even though she has heard that her apartment is flooded and mold infested. how desperate are you to get out of here? >> on a scale of one to a million, a million. >> reporter: for now she says she has nowhere to go. people like cheryl are turning to the legion of lawyers set up in the lobby. >> reporter: rita lucido is a private lawyer and activist coordinating the effort. she says the biggest issues today surround filing for benefits and knowing about

renters rights. >> talk to your landlord about getting your belongings out is anything's left. ask if it's safe to go in. and you can negotiate with your landlord to transfer your security deposit to another apartment. those are kind of practical, legal answers. >> in a precarious situation. >> reporter: but renters rights are way beyond the problems some people here are facing. donna morrissey is the red cross spokesperson. we have a wide array of people with special needs, people in wheelchairs, with special medical conditions and homeless. the point to remember is there are a lot of significant problems any city has prior to the storm making landfall and they will be here after the storm clears and we're trying to help rebuild. >> reporter: cheynna galvan, homeless for two years, had been living under a bridge. her local food pantry shut down during the storm and she came to the convention center.

>> i was very grateful to have this place to come to. >> reporter: how long will you stay? >> until i can get on my feet or they shut it down. and then after that i don't know where i'll go. >> reporter: in a way this storm gave you someplace to go? >> yes it did give me a place to go. >> reporter: john, as you can see behind me here today, people are coming and going and when i asked the red cross how long the shelter would be open, i was told no date has been set for closure. >> so no end in sight. it's now ten days since harvey made landfall. what sorts of people are there now? >> reporter: it's a real mix. you have people who have gone back to homes but are coming back for supplies, medical help and legal aid, but you have the residents still here who haven't been able to go home and for them the picture is bleak -- homeless, disabilities -- these are people who have been struggling since way before the storm and these are issues that

have been compounded. they have been trying to get back on their feet before and have been knocked back down. >> yang: federal officials in washington said people should not have feared to go to shelters, people who needed food, water, shelters should not have worried about an immigration roundup and said they'd not be asked immigration status. are people trusting that? >> there is a lot of fear. i spoke to a woman who lives in an apartment complex and she was getting supplies for people in that building. she said undocument workers had been evicted because they had been unable to pay rent and were not working during the storm. they were afraid to come for supplies and shelters and necessary legal aid. this is an issue on the minds of lawyers, of course they're trying to help members with cases pending, and if they can't receive a summons, they may be

penalized for failure to appear. >> yang: marsha biggs in houston. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> yang: about 80 miles east of houston, the nation's fourth- largest city, harvey also battered beaumont, texas, population 120,000. the city is among the hardest- hit in the state. for the latest on the situation on the ground, i'm joined by beaumont police chief james singletary. chief, thanks for joining us. ive got to ask first about the water situation. late last week, the water plant shut down because of being swamped by flood water and backup pumps went down. what's the situation now? >> the water situation now is that we're getting water slowly but surely back to most of our citizens. it would be a totally different interview to tell you how that happened. we had some private industries and working with our water folks and getting it restored. so that in itself is an amazing

story. so we're slowly but surely getting water restored. it's going to be a while before we lift the boil water notice now. >> so everyone in the city still has running water now, is that right? >> not everybody. but most of them do and is trickling right now in some places and some of them are, you know, better than others. >> has the water started to recede? >> yes, we have a very big river here next to beaumont, the natches river, and it's starting to recede. there are about 3,000 homes we're not able to get to to see the situation. we've tone flyovers with drones and helicopters and it's horrific. i've lived here my whole life and been a cop my whole adult life and i've never seen

anything like this. >> yang: have people been able to get back to their homes yet or is that still a little bit away. >> is this that's still a bit away. there are still areas we can't access and it will be a while before some citizens are able to get back to their homes. there are areas north and east and south of us that are in pretty bad shape also, but it's going to be a while. this thing has impacted this area for years to come, i'm afraid, so many different areas. >> chief, i've got to ask you, you and your force are not only working this disaster, you are living through it. i would imagine some of the homes that some of you are forced -- been affected by this, what's that been like for you for the men and women of your police department? >> that's another horrible thing that's happened the to our officers and our city workers. we've had over 130 of our both's first responders, the firefighters and police officers and emergency personnel that have been adversely affected or

actually significant damage to their home and -- this is what's amazing -- most of these officers are here working, and they have no idea how bad their homes are destroyed or how badly their homes are damaged, but they're here working, and, man, it makes you feel great, if you live here in beaumont, especially if you're the chief of police. >> yang: chief singletary of both. we hope things are getting better and we appreciate you and your department's work and our thoughts are with you. >> thank you very much. >> yang: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: taking stock of president trump's promises to help the american worker. and remembering a poet and a musician who left their marks on the arts in very different ways. but first, congress returns to work this week facing a growing

to-do list. among the new items: hurricane harvey relief and immigration. to talk about this on "politics monday," we're joined by stuart rothneberg, a long-time political analyst who is senior editor of "inside elections." and amy walter, national editor of the cook political report. stu, amy, thanks for coming in on this labor day. the president is ready to do something on this docket for childhood admissions. the reports are, some said in six months, to give congress time to do something about it. that's at stake in this? >> the president's supporters want to see action only immigration and undocumented immigrants, for the republican party who could easily be ripped apart by this discussion and most importantly for the 800,000 undocumented immigrants who think of the united states as their home. they haven't known any other

country or home, the stakes are highest for them. >> i think steve said it perfectly. the real question for congress is if there were an easy legislative solution, we would have already been there. this is something that has been going through congress both during democratic and republican administrations, the divide in the republican party is fierce and it even costs one member of the house leadership his seat. canter lost in 2014 after suggesting republicans should do more on immigration reform, deal with dreamers and illegal immigration, so this has the potential to be politically popular. you see the polling thing that the dreamers are a politically popular group of people but politically fraught at the same time. the question in my mind is what happens if congress if finally their feet are put to the fire, a lot like the affordable care act, where republicans had run for years and years and years saying this is a terrible thing,

need to get rid of it, now when forced to deal with it, it was more difficult because parts of the bill were popular. the same thing may happen with the dream act, been talking about it for years, need to do something about illegal immigration, put a hard line down, but it's also a pretty popular program. >> yang: and congress having trouble with the issue is how we got here in the first place, what congress couldn't do, president obama did it by executive action. >> right. >> yang: people like this program. is this going to be an easy or heavy lift? >> real heavy. public opinion seems to be on one side of the issue but the core supporters of the president seem to be on a different side. the president may say i'm not making a decision on the substance here, there are constitutional issues, the executives should bhaibility do this, i'm kicking this to

congress to make the decision which is reasonable and untrue if some respects and that's this, donald trump already has a history on immigration and pardon, sanctuary cities, muslim ban, charlottesville. the administration is already seen as not particularly tolerant and open to immigrants and undocumented immigrants. and, soarings i think for him to say, well, it's a constitutional argument, i don't think that's going to carry the day with many people. he's going to be responsible for the policy if congress cannot act. >> yang: adds to a list of things congress is facing. they have harvey relief, dealing with the first folks scheduled for wednesday. they have to raise the dead ceiling, they'd like to pass a budget and have to pass spending bills to fund the government and they've got a tax cut. >> so it's the proactive and the reactive part. the last time we talked before they went into recess, we

thought it was going to be a couple of things, debt ceiling and government funding, and then to be pro active to get a tax cut cone, that's their top priority, we have to get other things out of their way, but then harvey and immigrationon makes the tax reform thing more difficult. when you talk to republicans, the greatest fear coming into 2018 is that they end 2017 without substantive plane crashments and they have to go to voters in 2018 with a laundry list of they've passed some bills but nothing particularly substantive, nothing that's going to energize their base. so having to deal with a bunch of stuff they hadn't planned on doing on top of stuff already fraught, that's going to be a challenge. the one thing republicans want to do is look as if they are competent. get these little things out of the way that normally trip them up like the debt ceiling and -- i don't mean little, but the

things they should be able to do easily so that they can get on to the more substantive stuff, that was the number one thing. >> i agree with amy completely. i would add one thing. one thing we've learned about this president is to expect the unexpected. we are talking now as if in the next few months we know the precise number of issues and what the issues are. the president has a habit of tweeting and creating controversies and issues. so on top of all this, on top of funding of the government and the debt ceiling and daca and tax reform, there may be two or other things that develop because it hits the president's fans yand creates new problems. >> one of the reactive things is north korea. how is that likely to effect -- >> well, right, to stu's point, the tweet about it is something that the members of congress are going to have to react to and the issue in general. but i think this gets to the

issue of the president and how people view him temperamentally and whether his temperament can meet the time. the concern about north korea now is we don't really know what's happening. there is a whole bunch we learned about this weekend that is very troubling, and whether the president himself -- his personality is one that a whole bunch of folks question whether temperamentally he can do well by this issue. it's so dangerous and every tweet carries added significance. so i think, as we're watching where the public goes and congress goes, it is watching to see, again, if his temperament and tone fits the time that we're in. >> i think that, because of this, there is not the usual rally around the flag effect we normally see whens will a foreign policy crisis. it's not as if there are a bunch of americans rooting for north korea. that's not the case. americans are still rooting for the president, congress, for

this country, of course, but there isn't that natural sense that the president has the temperament, the experience, the competence, the forthrightness that we expect from presidents and that get our loyalty and our allegiance, and, so, the president still needs to earn american voters' trust, and that's a problem at this point in the presidency. >> yang: we have to leave it there. stuart rothenberg, amy walter, "politics monday," thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> yang: on this labor day, the national holiday that celebrates the contributions of america's working men and women, president trump said in a tweet: "we are building our future with american hands, american labor, american iron, aluminum and steel." our william brangham is here for

a look at how president trump is doing on his pledge to help workers. william? >> brangham: that's right john. the president was elected on a promise to revitalize jobs in america, especially manufacturing jobs, so for a look at how american labor has been doing in the trump era, i talked earlier today with steven greenhouse. he covered the labor movement for the "new york times" for many years and he's currently writing a book about its past and future, and i first asked him how the president, who's a billionaire real estate developer from manhattan, how he struck such a strong chord with blue collar workers in election. my sense is president trump is very smart in reading workers' concerns. he still has a lot of workers especially blue collar workers in the midwest are concerned about stagnant wages, jobs lost to trade, closed factories and he talked directly and viscerally to them saying i'm going to do something about it, hillary won't do anything about it. i'm going to bring back jobs and

get tough on mexico and china with trade and that really resonated with people. >> brangham: let's talk about his record. the president talks about his record, coal plants, renegotiating the trade deals. what has his record been on job creation and helping workers? >> it's unclear to me that he's done much concretely to bring back jobs except he's been reducing regulations. i think that has encouraged many company. we have seen over the past few months an increase in manufacturing jobs and economists are wondering why this big increase. you know, manufacturing jobs were increasing in obama's last year. they continue to increase. the dollar has dropped a good bit suns donald trump was elected, that encourages our exports, and i think trump excited a lot of executives and the so-called animal spirits are flowing and they're thinking let's invest, and he also has,

you know, in some of the "regulations" he's killed, he eliminate regulations that help business but hurt workers. he sought to delay and perhaps kill a regulation that would make overtime pay available to an additional 4 million workers. he's delayed regulations that would protect workers against very dangerous silica dust and bbarillium, he's helping wall street girls by delaying and canceling an obama relation that would require wall street advisors to act in the best of of workers and retirees when handling retirement accounts. he's canceled an obama administration regulation that deal with race and sex

discrimination laws. so i think business has been very policed he's eliminating regulations that might make them feel more ready to invest but, on the other hand, some of the moves have not helped workers. >> brangham: a lot of employers would point to regulations and say those are the things that hinder their ability to create jobs and grow the economy and labor pool. >> there is truth regulations also create disincentives to investment, but remembering president trump ran on being a big friend of workers, i'm going to help you out. in virtually every regulation he's acted on, he's acted for business and against workers, and he will say, and american business will say, this is good because it's helping to create jobs. on the other hand, you know -- and president trump is boasting that i've created over a million jobs, or a million jobs have been created since i came into

office, but president obama's fans, economists will say but actually the rate of job growth has been slightly slower under trump, about 170,000 a month in january than it was in obama's last six months. it's possible with all the regulations removed that job growth will increase in the next six months to a year but we'll see what happens. ther>> brangham: there is a rect poll by gal rum and other polls that indicates middle class workers feel they are doing better. they are comfortable about the jobs that are available, they don't think they will be outsourced, arguing they are doing better. do you think that optimism is real and should president trump get credit for that? >> i think president trump should get some credit, i think obama should get some credit. we had the worst economic recession since the great depression in 2007 to 2009, and the economy has really improved slowly and evenly since 2009

and, you know, the unemployment rate is down to its lowest point in 16 years, and donald trump gets some credit, obama gets a lot of credit for that, and it's understandable workers are feeling pretty good because with unemployment so low, finally they're thinking they have steady jobs, wages are finally starting to increase still way too slowly, wages increased just by .1 of 1%, up 2.5% a year, slightly more than the inflation rate and that's good but economists are wondering with the unemployment rate so low, you know, why aren't wages going up more when all these employers are saying i'm having a hard time finding people to fill jobs, why aren't they paying more and wages going up more? >> steven greenhouse, chronicler of the labor movement. thank you so much. >> nice to be here.

>> yang: next, we return to the story of the violence in myanmar against the ethnic minority group known as the rohingya, with a look at their plight and the challenges they face after they flee to bangladesh. as special correspondent tania rashid found earlier this year when this story originally aired, they are hardly more welcome in their new home. and a warning: parts of this story may disturb some viewers. >> reporter: the island is isolated, covered in bushes, and under water half of the year. it's called thenga charr, and it lies on the coast of bangladesh. it's a hard and long-day's boat ride from the nearest port this rough spot might be the new home for the rohingya-- a group of more than 300,000 people, the u.n. calls the most persecuted minority in the world. but on a camp on the mainland, hafez, a rohingya activist says that is no place they want to go. >> ( translated ): if we go to

tenga char, we will get sick. we can die. we are used to being here and we feel safe here. >> reporter: it's only a relative safety: close to half a million have fled murder and persecution by the army of myanmar to seek refuge in camps in southern bangladesh. the muslim rohingya have lived in mainly buddhist myanmar for centuries, but are viewed as illegal, ethnic bangladeshis by the myanmar government the de facto leader of myanmar, nobel peace lauretate aung san suu chee, has denied a u.n. charge of ethnic cleansing of the rohingya's. but in the last eight months the numbers of rohingyas fleeing for their lives have surged to more than 70,000. but now, their lives are more precarious than ever before. monsoon season and a punishing cyclone damaged many 35,000 so, the bangladeshi government plans to resolve the rohingya's continued displacement by moving 60,000 of the refugees to this remote island.

aid agencies like the u.n.h.c.r. and human rights watch have expressed alarm over the planned relocation. we began our journey on a sea truck from chittagong to sandwip island. we traveled first by sea truck, then by a private boat where a local fishermen agreed to take us to the island. it was a dangerous journey, as pirates are known to control these seas and take hostages for people ransom. but the island is not easy to access. the tides are too high on the bigger ship so we had to take a small boat to take us to the island. we just made it to the island. we managed to find a muddy bog to land near, and get across to the island. the government has already moved forward with the plan of making the island more habitable by planting trees. but this local official doesn't want the rohingyas moving into his district. he thinks it will create more problems for his community.

>> ( translated ): the past history the rohingya were related to the drug problem, they are linked to drugs, linked to smuggling. most of the people here, their main livelihood is fishing. the bad character and influence of the rohingya people will impact the locals here. >> reporter: but the bangladeshi government believe the rohingyas cross the border at will, with the help of smugglers and corrupt border guards. the government argues the relocation will guarantee their isolation from the rest of the population. but the island is formed by river sediment, making it unstable, and it could be eroded in five years time. dr. ainun nishat is a leading expert on climate change in bangladesh. >> the main history of the coastal belt of bangladesh is highly vulnerable to storm surges and cyclonic weather, due to impact of climate change we believe that the frequency of climate change may not be increasing but intensity of the storm surges are definitely going to increase. so they should be, accommodated

in good concrete structure, where at the time of emergency people should we can be moved to a height of 20 feet and above. >> reporter: today, about one million rohingyas live in apartheid like conditions in internment camps in rakhine state of myanmar, separated from the buddhist majority; they have no citizenship, and need permission to marry, or to travel outside of their own villages. on october 9 of last year, rohingya militants killed nine myanmar police officers. the myanmar military then led a wide and brutal counterinsurgency campaign in retaliation where they killed more than 1,000 rohingyas, torched and burnt homes and mosques to ashes. the myanmar government calls these accusations exaggerations and denies charges of ethnic cleansing. dil nawaz is one of 70,000 rohingya's who fled to bangladesh to save her life. she was gang raped by soldiers, and witnessed her husband's murder in front of her eyes. i'm looking at a photo of her

husband who was hacked to death about five months ago and this is a photograph she took shortly after she was murdered. >> ( translated ): they used a machete on my husband in front of me on the road. i saw it with my own eyes, they chopped him into pieces in front of me in a rice field. then the army came and took all the women out to the rice fields and took several women, five men took turns raping them. they took people's gold jewelry, rings and earrings, they killed some children, then they burned all the houses down, followed by the mosque. then the military went back to a buddhist area. this is why we fled to bangladesh. >> reporter: activist hafez says they have found refuge here. >> ( translated ): bangladesh is small, and overpopulated but they gave us a place to stand. this is a big thing. >> reporter: but like many other rohingya, he wants a sense of permanence.

>> ( translated ): instead of sending us to tenga chorr, if the myanmar government could-we request that, they grant us citizenship. >> reporter: 45-year old dilbar hopes for a last-ditch political solution. >> ( translated ): if the bangladesh government and the myanmar government negotiate a deal and send us back to burma then we will be happy. if this doesn't happen, then please bomb us. we came here, left our homes, rice, we came here to save our lives, if we have no peace, then it's better to die. our children died there, we sacrificed everything and came here for peace. if you take us to the island, it will be like killing us, slaughtering us. we are like ants, we are nothing. it won't take much to kill us. just bomb us. nobody will make a case against you because we have no ground under our feet. >> reporter: their hope: to find that safe ground one day. but for now, they remain in limbo-- not of this land, and not pushed from it.

for the pbs newshour, i'm tania rashid on thenga charr island, bangladesh. >> yang: finally tonight, let's take some time to remember a great writer and a noted musician. first, john ashbery, considered one of the country's most important and influential poets. he died yesterday in hudson new york. he won the pulitzer prize and the national book award, among many other prizes jeffrey brown profiled him back in 2007. here's an excerpt. >> brown: for much of his life, john ashbery has been a walker in the city. >> i used to have a little recording device i took around with me, so i could record those and other things that occurred to me while i was walking. >> brown: the words, phrases and sounds he collected often ended up in his poetry, a body of work that has led him to be

considered one of the nation's most important writers of the last half-century. ashbery was born in rochester, new york, in 1927. as a young man, he and friends like frank o'hara and kenneth koch formed what came to be called the new york school of poetry. his first book of poems, "some trees," was published in 1956. in 1975, "self-portrait in a convex mirror" cemented his reputation and earned ashbery a triple crown, the pulitzer prize, national book award, and the national book critics circle award. now, at age 80, he's just garnered a rather different and unusual honor, being named as mtv's first poet laureate. in all, he's published more than 30 volumes of poetry, criticism and essays, including, in recent months, a new book of verse, "a worldly country," and a collection of selected later poems called "notes from the air," which includes the poem"

this room." >> the room i entered was a dream of this room. surely all those feet on the sofa were mine. the oval portrait of a dog was me at an early age. something shimmers; something is hushed up. we had macaroni for lunch every day, except sunday, when a small quail was induced to be served to us. why do i tell you these things? you are not even here. >> brown: i talked with john ashbery recently at his new york apartment. "notes from the air," now, is that a good description of where words or phrases come from, from the air, in a sense? >> yes, i would say that it is. poetry comes to me out of thin air or out of my unconscious mind. it's sort of the way dreams come to us and the way that we get

knowledge from them, through television, old movies, which i watch a lot of. lines of dialogue suddenly seem to be part of a poem there. >> brown: those "notes from the air" that he turns into poems -- yes, he still drafts his poetry on an old typewriter -- have earned him a reputation for being hard to read. an ashbery poem often has no clear narrative and a bewildering, if humorous, wordplay. "we'll party when the millennium gets closer," he writes in the poem "tuesday evening." "meanwhile, i wanted to mention your feet." is it sort of a conversation with yourself going on? >> yes. very often not with -- maybe not me with myself, but of two personalities in my head who are arguing and sort of ignoring me

at the same time. >> brown: they're arguing and ignoring you? >> i sometimes feel that that's what happens. >> brown: so you have this reputation for being difficult. does that bother you? >> well, it kind of does, because i think that it precedes my poetry and may discourage people from picking it up and, "oh, he's so difficult. i'd have to read a book about him before i could appreciate anything that he wrote." >> brown: does a poem have to be understood in the way we normally think of understanding language? >> well, i never quite understood about understanding. listening to a piece of music and one feels deeply moved by it

and want to put this feeling into words, but it can't be put into words. the music has already supplied the meaning and the words will just be superfluous after that. it's a meaning that can't be verbalized that i try to get at in poetry. >> yang: there was another loss in the world of arts and letters. steely dan co-founder and guitarist walter becker died yesterday. becker was instrumental in producing the funky sounds and thoughtful lyrics that captivated an avid following for the band. becker formed steely dan in 1971 with his friend donald fagen whom he met at bard college. the band's first album produced a unique sound in rock with

memorable hits such as "do it again" and "reelin' in the years." becker's bass and guitar licks would become a signature of the band's jazz-infused sound. famously introspective, becker rarely sought the spotlight. steely dan only toured for two years after their debut in 1972, choosing to focus on putting out records. the band went on hiatus starting in 1981, returning in 1993. in a statement sunday fagen called becker "smart as a whip" "hysterically funny" and "cynical about human nature, including his own." the group was inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame in 2001. here's steely dan performing one of their hits, "peg" in a 2000 concert aired on pbs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> ♪ i've seen your picture your name in lights above it

♪ this is your big debut it's like a dream come true ♪ and when you smile for the camera ♪ i know they're love it ♪ ♪ i got your pin shot >> yang: walter becker was 67 years old. and that's the newshour for tonight. thanks for spending part of your labor day with us. i'm john yang. join us online and again here tomorrow evening when judy will be back. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> 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 >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

[ bells play tune ] [ theme music plays ] -♪ i think i'm home ♪ i think i'm home ♪ how nice to look at you again ♪ ♪ along the road ♪ along the road ♪ anytime you want me ♪ you can find me living right between your eyes, yeah ♪ ♪ oh, i think i'm home ♪ oh, i think i'm home -today on "cook's country," bridget and julia make the ultimate arroz con pollo. jack challenges bridget to a tasting of store-bought whipped topping.