captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, mexico's race against time-- rescuers scramble to find survivors after that powerful earthquake caused a school and dozens of other buildings to collapse. then, hurricane maria leaves parts of puerto rico completely devastated before regaining strength and turning its fury on the dominican republic. and, one on one with melinda gates-- i sit down with the former microsoft employee and now philanthropist to talk about the impact of tech on teens and the importance of foreign aid. >> you make these health investments you make these education investments they lead to the right things and frankly you buy less bullets. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

>> 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. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals.

>> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: grasping for a sliver of hope. a life-and-death drama played out today, two days after a 7.1 earthquake struck mexico city and the surrounding region. the death toll stood at 245, with more than 2,000 hurt. william brangham is there, and filed this report. >> brangham: from dusk to dawn, and all through the day, they dug, trying to reach what they thought was a young girl trapped in the ruins of a collapsed school. the tale of the girl called "frida sofia" has gripped the country since early yesterday, when rescuers first heard her voice coming out of the wreckage. >> ( translated ): yes she told

me her name. apart from just her name, she told us there were two other kids, and that there were other bodies. we don't know if the others are alive. >> brangham: then, at mid- afternoon, word from the mexican navy: there is no missing child at the school. >> ( translated ): we are sure it was not real, because, i repeat, we corroborated with public education, with the delegation and with the school, and all the totality of the children, regrettably some are deceased, others, i repeat, are at the hospital, and the rest are safe in their homes. >> brangham: at least 26 bodies have been recovered from the school, all but five of them, were children. but on the day of the quake, a girl and a boy were pulled alive from the rubble. a man had called to them to crawl through an opening in the side of the building, and they found their way out. those small victories gave the rescue crews and volunteers the hope and strength to keep going. the quake hit tuesday afternoon near the puebla state town of raboso, 76 miles southeast of mexico city. since then, officials say more

than 50 survivors have been freed in dramatic rescues across the area. last night in the devalle neighborhood of mexico city, rescuers were met with applause as they carried out a man who'd been trapped in a toppled apartment building. the scene was similar in the la condessa neighborhood. hundreds of rescuers searched to find four women believed to be trapped in this rubble, the remains of a seven-story apartment building. we spoke with a volunteer, who arrived just 30 minutes after the quake struck and hasn't left. have you been sleeping at all? >> just on the corner of the street, yeah. some people haven't left. it's just, we cannot leave, you know? we have to stay. >> brangham: throughout the night, the work went on, removing dirt by the bucketful to prevent further collapse. >> ( translated ): because i believe people need help and i would like to think there are still survivors. and honestly, i have always helped when there have been disasters. my family and i have always

helped in some way, either with provisions or by supporting them like right now with the debris. >> brangham: in the center of the city today, rescuers dug through the remains of this textile factory. it's estimated that about 100 workers, mostly japanese, were inside when the quake hit. no official word on casualties. it's estimated that 30 workers frantically searching because it's believed at least one survivor is still in the rubble who's been communicating asking for help. mexican president enrique pena nieto has declared three days of national mourning. in a televised statement last night, he offered his own condolences. >> ( translated ): to the the whole of mexican society is with you. we're with you in your pain. i reiterate to the residents of affected zones that you are not alone. working together, we are going to make it through. >> brangham: nieto also said aid is coming in from japan, the united states and other countries.

the help cannot come too soon. several buildings in mexico city are feared to be near collapse, and officials face the competing demands of trying to save lives, and beginning demolition work to ensure public safety. for now, every person we talked to is determined 100% to keep this solely a search and rescue mission. judy? >> woodruff: you have been to a couple of the collapsed sites. tell us what it's like. >> brangham: the overwhelming response is pretty incredible. there are hundreds of people from all over the country and from other countries as well volunteering their time. they are taking time off work, they're coming from all walks of life and the shop keepers, construction workers, i met a guy who runs a shop, everyone feels an incredible pull to come out here and try to do something, anything to help find anyone that might be left in this wreckage. >> how are these rescuers holding up themselves? this can be very emotional. >> it can be emotional.

there are enormous false starts that happen all the time. people get their hopes up, they hear a rumor, the crowd is suddenly silenced because they're told that there's a sound that's come out of one of the rubble piles. everyone gets silent immediately. it's an incredible site to see hundreds of people who have been working in chaotic circumstances get this upraised fist signal to be quiet and they all do. most of the places we have been to, they've only been false alarms. we haven't seen anyone come out of the wreckage alive in over a day. one of the great disappointments was the news the girl thought to be inside this collapsed school may have turned out to be just hope or a rumor or wishful thinking. there are recriminations now afterwards on social media, everyone is blaming one of the big television stations here for feeling thos story got hyped, so there is a lot of disappointment. but people where eager and hopeful they still might find

survivors somewhere in this country. >> woodruff: that's so tough. william, is it your sense that the teams who are doing the rescuing have the supplies they need? >> they absolutely do. in fact, characteristic of the response here in mexico city, volunteers have been overwhelmingly donating food, water, medical supplies, masks, goggles. we've heard from several people that they don't need any more of that. they are more than well taken care of here. >> woodruff: all right,. >> brangham: report -- all right, william brangham reporting for us from mexico city where they're still dealing with this terrible earthquake. thank you. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: now, to hurricane "maria." the confirmed death toll across the caribbean rose to 19 today, nearly all of them on the island of dominica. reports also began coming in of widespread damage on puerto rico, after it took an all-day

pounding on wednesday. john yang has that story. >> yang: across puerto rico today: more rain. in some spots, as much as three feet is forecast to fall by friday. flood warnings cover the entire island. parts of the capital, san juan, were several feet under water after the storm surge rushed in. residents emerged from an overnight curfew to face the first clear view of the devastation: clothes and belongings strewn about, trees and power lines downed, red tile roofs, splayed across streets. hardest hit: puerto rico's small, coastal towns, like guyamba, near where "maria" made landfall. it's lost all communications. in new york today, president trump used apocalyptic terms, saying the the u.s. territory has been obliterated.

>> puerto rico is in very, very, very tough shape. their electrical grid is destroyed. so we're starting the process now and we'll work with the governor and the people of puerto rico. >> yang: governor ricardo rossello met with fema officials, already spread thin by a series of powerful storms, to discuss a recovery plan. he warned it will take months to repair the island's long- neglected electrical grid, and restore power. to the east, word of even worse devastation on tiny dominica, where british aid and military teams landed today. officials say 95% of the buildings are damaged. >> first of all every village in dominica, every street, every cranny, every person in dominica was impacted by the hurricane. we have no running water now, we have no electricity, no power. >> yang: st. croix, in the u.s. virgin islands, also reported near-total communications and

power outages. 65% of the buildings suffered damage. today, "maria" lashed the dominican republic with heavy wind and rain. the storm will reach turks and caicos overnight, then pass the eastern bahamas by saturday morning. but a sharp turn to the north will take it toward the open atlantic by monday. as of now, maria is not expected to pose a direct threat to the u.s. mainland, having already ravaged u.s. territories in the caribbean. for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang. >> woodruff: from natural disasters to nuclear diplomacy: president trump ordered new sanctions today, aimed at crippling north korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs. the order allows for targeting individuals and companies that trade with north korea, including foreign banks. the president made the announcement during a lunch with south korea's president moon jae-in and japan's prime minister shinzo abe.

north korea has been allowed to use the international financial system to facilitate funding for its nuclear weapons and missile programs. tolerance for this disgraceful practice must end now. >> woodruff: we get more on today's move with david cohen, who served as undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the treasury department during the obama administration. david cohen, welcome back to the program. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: how significant is this move by the president? >> i think it's actually quite significant. these new sanctions the president issued today with an executive order creates a new real and meaningful authorities for the united states to impose sanctions both on businesses that are working with north korea and what is i think

quite significant financial institutions working with north korea. it is a combination really of what had been imposed on russia and what we had done with respect to iran that really ramp up the pressure there. >> woodruff: so there have been sanctions against north korea. how is this different from what had been done before? >> most significantly, this authority allows what are called secondary sanctions on foreign financial institutions which mostly are chinese banks. what it says is any chinese bank or foreign financial institution that is working with designated sanctioned north korean entities can be cut off from the united states. that puts real pressure on those banks, and the president today said they need to make a choice between working with north korean institutions or working with the united states. >> woodruff: so, meantime, david cohen, the chinese government announced today that it is ordering its banks to cease doing any business with north korea. so what does that tell you? >> that tells me that the chinese may have known this was

coming, and are taking steps to protect their financial system from the risk that one of their banks will get caught in the secondary sanctions. they're telling their banks back off from north korea, don't do business with north korea. that will protect them from the possibility that they will be sanctioned by the u.s. >> woodruff: and what does all this mean for north korea? i just read the quote, the comment today from kim jong un. what does it really mean for their country. >> well, you know, kim jong un is a master of "over the top" rhetoric. we should look at what they do, not what kim jong un says, because he is very practiced in that sort of rhetoric. what these sanctions, i think, means is it's a signal to the north koreans that the united states is trying to maximize pressure, but with that, and in all the statements from the white house today, came the hint that, if there was a potential

negotiation here about the nuclear program, the united states was open to hearing that out. so i think it's a possibility for a negotiation. >> woodruff: so potential pain for them not having this business but an opening is what you're saying? >> exactly, and real significant pain if the united states follows through on imposing sanctions on any of these new authorities. >> woodruff: all right, david cohen, thank you again. >> thank you. >> woodruff: appreciate it. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, president trump's one-time campaign manager paul manafort is acknowledging he offered private briefings to a russian billionaire tied to the kremlin. but a spokesman says the offer was innocuous, and no briefings ever occurred. "the washington post" reports it happened just before last summer's republican national convention. manafort left the campaign a month later. facebook says it will give congress the contents of some 3,000 ads bought by a russian agency last year. they appeared last year, during

the u.s. presidential campaign. congress has been pressing for details of the ads, as part of probes into possible russian meddling in the election. there's word that one-time pro football star aaron hernandez had severe signs of the brain disease c.t.e. boston university confirmed it today, based on a study of his brain tissue. hernandez played for the new england patriots before being convicted of murder. last april, he hanged himself in his prison cell. and, on wall street, the dow jones industrial average lost 53 points to close at 22,359. the nasdaq fell 33 points, and the s&p 500 slipped seven. still to come on the newshour: the chances president trump could renegotiate the iran nuclear deal. on the heels of hurricane harvey, why flood-prone communities are not insured. melinda gates on the role of u.s. aid abroad, and much more.

>> woodruff: president trump has made no secret of his disdain for the iran nuclear agreement, which was struck by the obama administration, five other world powers and iran. he's long said he wants to renegotiate the 2015 accord, and soon faces a key deadline on how to proceed. the president denounced the agreement again tuesday at the united nations. >> the iran deal was one of the worst and one-sided transactions the united states has ever entered into. >> woodruff: every three months the president must decide whether to re-certify that iran is in compliance with the nuclear agreement. mr. trump did so in april, and july, and must decide again by october 15th. yesterday, in new york, amid shouted questions from

reporters, he said he's made up his mind. >> i've made a decision.. you'll see. >> woodruff: international monitors say iran is holding to the letter of the deal. but the trump administration says iran's continued ballistic missile development and its destabilizing activities in syria, yemen and elsewhere violate the spirit of the agreement. secretary of state rex tillerson met with all parties to the deal last night, including iran's foreign minister, and aired another concern afterward: >> and that is the sunset clause where one can almost set the countdown clock to when iran can resume its nuclear weapons programs. >> woodruff: the trump white house is now pushing to re-open, and renegotiate the accord, known by the acronym j.c.p.o.a. that's a non-starter for the iranians. president hassan rouhani yesterday, in new york.

>> ( translated ): this agreement is not something that someone can touch. either the j.c.p.o.a. will remain as is, with, in its entirety, or it will no longer exist. >> woodruff: for its part, tehran says the u.s. is violating the deal by discouraging investment in iran. rouhani also said if the u.s. pulled out of the agreement, iran could restart its uranium enrichment for more on this i'm joined from new york by rob malley. as special assistant to president obama, he was the lead senior white house negotiator for the agreement. he is now a vice president of the international crisis group. and, by stephen rademaker was the head of the state department's bureau of international security and non proliferation during the george w. bush administration. and welcome, gentlemen, to both of you. rob malley, i'm going to start with you. so what do you make of the president's now suggestion once again that he may be ready not to recertify this deal? >> well, i thought the writing

was on the wall because the president could change his mind but i think all indications from him and members of his cabinet are that he's determined not to certify iran's compliance come mid october which is a decision that could be based on no evidence, since the atomic energy agency eight times certified iran is in compliance, the u.s. state department agreed iran is in compliance, secretary tillerson himself said technically speaking iran is in compliance and all the other signatories of the agreement say iran is in compliance. so that would be a political, not an evidentiary decision, which would have very negative consequences not just in terms of iran resuming its program at a more rapid pace but the credibility of the united states and the word it gives when it agrees to a deal would be seriously undermined. we just heard talk of

north korea and that's extraordinary that we would not only be creating a nuclear crisis when we don't need one, but that we would be sending a message to the north koreans, don't believe our diplomacy or any agreement we enter with you because we could rescind it the next month. >> woodruff: what do you think of the president not recertifying. >> not just nat iran is in compliance with the deal but that it continues to be in the national interest of the united states to remain within the deal, and that's a judgment that the president is supposed to make. and he's made clearly, in his opinion, it's not in the national interest to remain in the deal. >> woodruff: he's talking about what he says iran is violating the spirit of the agreement. do you agree with it? >> well, i think, if one wants to make a case, there are things to point to that i think actually go beyond the violations of the spirit, of the agreement. iran has been testing ballistic

missiles in violation of u.n. security council 2231 that calls on iran not to test ball listing missiles, a related agreement to the jpcoa, and there are other examples that could be pointed to by the president to conclude iran is not in compliance. that said, i think it's a risky road to go down. >> woodruff: in what sense? it sets in process a chain of events that probably leads to the reimposition of u.s. sanctions on iran, and it puts the united states in a position where we may be in conflict with some of our allies over how to proceed. >> woodruff: and i want to get to that. but rob malley, you on the basic point of whether iran is in compliance or not, you have a different view? >> it's not a matter of view. everyone has looked at it, i'm not just talking about foreign countries, the french, germans,

the brits, the european union that does the monitoring, the united states certified several times iran is in compliance and secretary tillerson said it himself. so i don't think it's a matter of debate. iran is in compliance and the deal put it far further from the risk of a nuclear armed iran than when the deal was first entered into so we are in a better position and iran is living up to the deal. on this question of the spirit and the technical deal, i think when it comes to a nuclear deal, we should 'do deal with technical facts not with spirits. i don't know what these spirits mean. the other issues, ballistic missiles, iran's support for terrorism, those are divorced from the jcpoa, they should be dealt with and can be dealt with sanctions and other means but have nothing to do with the jcpoa, that was clear to us and the iranians and not part of the negotiations.

>> woodruff: do you want to respond? >> we haven't seen the president's certification so we don't know what he'll say. part of the certification is it's in the u.s. national interest and that's not an international judgment that's to be made, it's not a state department judgment, it's a judgment by the president. so, i mean, that certainly would be one basis upon which he could withhold a certification. i think iran has engaged in a variety of activities since previous presidential certifications that the president could point to as more than violations of the spirit and could point to as violations of the letter. >> woodruff: stephen, i think you were getting at a moment ago, if this happened, what would it mean for the deal? would the whole deal collapse? other countries have signed on to this. what would happen? >> it's a little unclear. ambassador nikki haley gave a speech recently in which she outlined procedurally what would happen. what would happen if the president fails to certify is a process is triggered where

congress gets to vote whether to pass legislation to reimpose sanctions. we don't know whether congress will pass legislation or not. in the first sense, it puts congress on the hook to consider whether it wants to reimpose sanctions. >> woodruff: what would you think, rob malley? i know you don't want it to happen, but if the president says i'm not recertifying this, what happens to the deal? >> first, i think it is important. we do agree not certifying would be a mistake for all the regions as stephen just mentioned earlier. if the president doesn't certify and it is true then the ball is in congress' court. congress has 60 days then to pass expedited sanction legislation which would reimpose all the sanctions that have been lifted, that would be a clear-cut violation of the deal and really isolate the united states and let iran off the hook to do what it wants to do because the u.s. would have been in violation and breach of the deal. congress could also decide to pass other sanctions to try to pressure iran and change the

deal. who knows what they'll do. the problems would then be on a pathway where the world would believe as they already do for most of them that the u.s. is determined to scuttle the deal, that creates a crisis if our relations with europe and iran, iran again entitled to rush to its atomic -- it's nuclear program. >> woodruff: let me quickly ask you, stephen rademaker, under what scenario does the u.s. come out of this -- if the president decertifies with a better deal with iran in its nuclear program? >> eng that will be a real diplomatic challenge, but, you know, he's made clear that he has problems with the deal. i think a lot of people -- the majority of the u.s. congress disagreed with this deal, clear from the votes cast at the time. so i think the president is struggling with the question of how does he reopen the matter and try to get a better deal for the united states. he's got quite a difficult road ahead of him. congress perhaps can find a way to be helpful, if it considers legislation that imposes

additional sanctions that pressure -- it would be conceivable for the congress to adopt new sanctions consistent with the jcpoa but still pressure iran and that would provide leverage to bring about further agreements with iran that would address some of the u.s.'s concerns. >> woodruff: we'll see what happens. the president said he made a decision but is not disclosing what it is. we'll continue to follow it. steve inskeep, rob malley, we thank you both. >> thank you. >> woodruff: this hurricane season has seen one devastating storm after another-- harvey, irma and now maria have left communities in ruin in their wake. and put a spotlight on the problems plaguing the u.s.' national flood insurance program. that's the subject paul solman tackles on our weekly economics series, making sense. >> and in 1984, that's the roof

we were taken off of. >> reporter: you, you, you went up onto this roof? >> yes. >> reporter: leni shuchter lives in pequannock, new jersey, a little too close to the pompton river, a tributary of the passaic. >> we had, it was a 24-foot boat pulled up alongside the, the roof. >> reporter: how long were you up there? >> about four hours. >> reporter: the spring storms of 1984 were a "once-in-a- century" event. which is why shuchter had no flood insurance. >> it was not classified a flood zone in 1972 when i bought the house. >> reporter: so then, after '84, did you then get flood insurance? >> yes. we had to, because what we were eligible for is a loan that was put out by the small business administration, and part of that was you had to have flood insurance. >> reporter: as it turned out, the so-called 100-year floods moved up their schedule. >> we've had five occurrences since 1999. >> reporter: five?! >> five. four of them were, i guess what they would call, 25- year floods. you know, they're the ones that just went in our basement. >> reporter: so that's four 25 year floods in--

>> well, from '99 to '11. so, in 12 years. >> reporter: and three 100-year floods in 27 years. >> correct. >> reporter: she now had flood insurance. and has received more than $110,000 federal dollars over the years, most recently $72,000 in 2011, after hurricane irene. so how high did the water get here in the house? >> it came within an inch of the water lilies. you know!? >> reporter: too bad you didn't have the bridge! >> yep, let me tell you! the bridge would've been a savior, for sure. >> reporter: as claude monet himself would have known, his iconic pond at giverny was created by water diverted from local floods. but here in new jersey, the increasingly troubled waters have helped imperil the national flood insurance program itself, which started sinking back in 2005, when hurricanes katrina, rita and wilma forced it to borrow $17.5 billion from the u.s. treasury to pay claims. interest payments and later

storms have since submerged the program so that it's now nearly $25 billion underwater, and that's before hurricanes irma and harvey. the gulf states-- texas, louisiana-- top the list of repetitive loss claims, but the so-called garden state is no slouch, ranking third in homeowners who file again and again. >> and again, and again. >> reporter: on the banks of the passaic river in little falls, new jersey, flood expert john miller. >> this is one of the ground zeroes for flood, repetitive claims. in this area we had flooding in 2007, 2010, and 2011 twice. >> reporter: so how high did the river rise? >> the water's about one-foot right now. it came up another 13 feet. twice as high as i am tall. >> reporter: so the water came up, well it would be almost to the second story of houses like that right? >> yes, certainly well over the first floor of those homes. >> reporter: around houston,

only 15% of homeowners were insured against harvey's water damage, partly because the government's outdated flood maps didn't reflect the true risk. in the passaic watershed, though, which has been flooding famously since 1903, about a third of homes are covered. and if built before the government started publishing flood zone maps in the 1970s a¡' 80s, owners get a hefty discount. leni shuchter pays only $200 a month. for a risk that no private insurer would cover at anywhere near that price. >> the shed back here is 12' by 32'. in 2011, that became an ark. and it, it floated, it broke down the fence-- >> reporter: i don't mean to laugh-- >> ...and it ended up in the driveway. >> reporter: and this raises the question that prompted our trek to the garden state: in bailing out homeowners like leni shuchter, are we taxpayers encouraging them to buy, and stay put, in places so flood-

prone, it puts them, and taxpayers, at inordinate risk? >> back in the 1960s, when the national flood insurance program was created, the private market wsn't insuring, uh, flood-prone areas. >> reporter: because they were gonna lose money on it because. >> because they were going to lose money. flood risk is different than, um, auto? it's different than homeowners? fires? >> reporter: because if insurers pay out more in claims than they get in premiums, they go broke. but in places like pequannick or little falls. >> you're in a floodplain, right?! the people that are purchasing flood insurance are flood vulnerable. >> reporter: that is, the people who are most vulnerable are the ones buying the insurance! >> absolutely. >> reporter: and we're talking up to $350,000 per claim. but then, if you provide insurance, at below market rates, you're encouraging people to come live in a dangerous place? >> that's why the flood insurance program is not just an insurance product.

>> reporter: from the get-go, that ieral flood insurance included money for mitigation, measures to prop up" substantially damaged" homes, or tear them down. >> we bought out approximately 75 homes here on both sides of the highway. >> reporter: engineer joe golden, pequannock's point man for flood insurance. after irene, the town well," wised up," and secured funds to buy out the most flood-prone homes. so this is housing lot after housing lot reclaimed by nature. >> right. >> reporter: the other form of" mitigation": elevating homes, at one to $200,000 a pop. >> the larger holes up on the second story, that's where they put the steel beams through, and where they put the jacks to jack the home up. >> reporter: federal grants reimburse homeowners for the cost of raising their houses, and living expenses for several months while the work is being done. >> those openings that are near the ground, those are flood

vents that allow water to go in and out during flooding, and that prevents the block from collapsing. and that's why fema's giving us the money! they don't want to pay out $80,000, and then we have another flood, and they pay another $80,000, and we have another flood and they pay another! >> reporter: so pequannock now boasts a home with a roman aqueduct. >> this is particularly good for flood plain management, because of the openness. >> reporter: a french chateau. >> the whole bottom floor, they've made it look as if it's living space, whereas it really is just storage space! >> reporter: a country cottage. >> in my opinion, it's probably the nicest elevation in the community. >> reporter: a colonial on steroids. and how much is this house worth? >> this house recently sold, i'm told, for $490,000. >> reporter: $490,000!? >> yeah. $490,000. >> reporter: because it's supposedly-- >> in a flood plain! yeah. mmm, hmm. >> reporter: protected. >> but it is protected, their insurance is going to go way down. >> reporter: down to about $600 a year, vs. up to $9,000 for the unelevated, once federal subsidies are phased out. but that still begs the big question: the continued role of

government flood insurance, even in the face of rising tides. >> some do say that it encourages development in the floodplain. some would say that it's an affordability issue. floodplains are some of the affordable properties. >> reporter: well, but they're affordable because they're dangerous. >> that is right. >> reporter: leni shuchter wishes she'd been offered a buyout, but has applied for a grant to elevate instead. the grant is for $196,000-- more than her house is now worth. so if you didn't have flood insurance, would you just leave? >> probably not, because i wouldn't be able to sell it. >> here's our map that shows the areas that have been redefined as floodways. >> reporter: pardon the metaphor, but a lot more people are going to be in leni shuchter's boat once new government floodmaps take effect. >> we went from 250 feet floodway to now 3,000. >> reporter: wow. an additional 284 homes in tiny pequonnock, says engineer joe golden, hiked to the highest risk category of flooding just two weeks ago.

and in a hitherto dry part of town. >> this purple area was added into the flood plain. >> reporter: and hadn't been there before? >> hadn't been there in the history of pequannock. there's 229 houses in that area. any of these people go to sell their home, the buyer won't be able to get his mortgage unless he purchases flood insurance. that house just lost $100,000 in value, just from the, producing these maps. >> reporter: and none of these people know about this? >> not yet, no. >> reporter: joe golden believes the new maps go overboard, and has vowed to fight on behalf of affected homeowners. >> the maps are showing you sea level rise in the new york region. >> reporter: fact is, says climate scientist radley horton, even if pequannock wins, its victory will probably be pyrrhic. though it's away from the coast, where rising ocean levels would make it even more vulnerable, property values are at risk of plunging here; insurance, of shooting up to reflect the true

economic risk. is that fair, given all the uncertainty around the science of this? >> well, it's probably not fair to the individuals. but with rising seas, more moisture in the air, we do expect to see areas that aren't currently in the flood zone becoming vulnerable in the future. and in fact, we could see property values fall, not because water touches or doesn't touch some of these homes, but because of systemic risk, the inability of insurance to cover all these assets, or investors finally realizing that a lot of critical infrastructure isn't going to be fundable. >> reporter: and this prompted my last question: why doesn't someone like leni shuchter just move on, and out? >> where would i move to? >> reporter: so you're stuck. >> pretty much. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, this is economics correspondent paul solman, reporting from the floodplains of new jersey.

>> woodruff: as president trump addressed the united nations general assembly in new york, repeating his america-first approach to world affairs, bill and melinda gates were also in town, hosting a conference to unveil the results of a three- year gates foundation study assessing progress on some of the world's major health issues: i spoke with melinda gates yesterday, and began by asking whether her foundation's priorities were compatible with those of the trump administration. well, i think the messages you are hearing there are different than the messages we're giving. we're really trying to reinforce that 193 nations set out to do two years ago, they set the set of sustainable development goals and if we follow those goals like the previous goals they set the previous 15 years, we will see incredible progress around the world, but that takes

nations reaching out to one another. we know that progress is possible. we've seen it. childhood deaths have been cut in half, poverty cut in half. maternal fatality cut in half, but that's because of people working together and that's the message we're giving. we need to keep up this progress. this progress is not inevitable. >> as you say, you have seen progress. you've called on world leaders to step up their global giving, but you've also cited a loss of u.s. leadership in this field. you've talked about it contributing to confusion and chaos and, in particular, affecting those most vulnerable populations around the world. expand on that a little. what do you mean by that? >> well, if we want peace and security and stability around the world, we have to make investments in people around the world. bill and i traveled the globe all year long. we're in some of the most remote rural places in africa, india

and bangladesh. people don't want to get up on the high seas and get in a life-threatening dinghy to go to europe, if they have a prosperous society where they are. that means we have to keep up these investments in foreign aid. for the u.s., it's less than 1% of our american budget goes to foreign aid, but those investments are what means people have health and they have prosperity around the world. it also means if we make the right investments, we won't have things like ebola show up on our doorstep or zika. we have to make these investments and even the generals are talking about you make these health and education investments, they lead to the right things and, frankly, you buy less bullets. that's the thing that's right for the american people to do. >> woodruff: how worried are you though that the investments on the part of the united states may be cut significantly? >> well, this administration has proposed significant cuts to foreign aid, but what i am

optimistic about is congress. we've had very goodbye parents support for these issues for a very long time. president bush was the one who came up with the first emergency aids plan for relief. it's why we've had a substantial cut in h.i.v. deaths over the last many years. we've seen the last administration come forward and do a whole program around malaria. so we know on the hill there is really great bipartisan support for things like maternal and child health and we're counting on congress to keep up the funding and bill and i are having a lot of conversations with congress about that. >> woodruff: what do you say to those still out there criticizing some foreign aid saying much of it is not as effective as it should be. >> i would say i wish you could go where bill and i travel. if you saw the difference in tanzania today versus when i traveled there the first time 15 years ago or ethiopia or rwanda or india, these investments are what puts a country on a path of

prosperity. if you look at investments in south korea, they moved from a low to middle income country and now give aid to the rest of the world. we can put all countries on that trajectory but we have to make these investments up front. >> woodruff: melinda gates, a few other things i want to ask you about, one you've written about recently, the effective technology on children. you've written a column for "the washington post" in which you said despite the fact you've spent much of your life and career in tech and the tech world, you were not prepared for what it meant to try to parent children in this environment. what have you learned about that? what advice would you share for parents? >> yeah. so i'm a fundamental believer in technology. i think it does incredible things for society, but it means we have to be on top of it as parents, and we have to really think about what it means for our children. what really struck me to write that article was i have a daughter who is going to graduate from college in a year and i have a daughter who just

graduated from eighth grade, we just finished middle school, the difference in just that span of time from my oldest to my youngest daughter was profound in terms of technology. as parents, i think we have to be incredibly thoughtful about what our children are doing on that computer that's literally in their pockets. some parents are putting that computer into their pockets age 5, i think that's far too young, but even what rules we have and being on the same media they're on. it means we have to learn and keep up with them and be thoughtful about our rules and thoughtful about when they should not be on their phones so they have real conversations with people and can empathize with others and not just be online on their phones. >> woodruff: more broadly, some of the biggest companies in the tech world are increasingly being seen in a negative light. they're being seen, and this includes microsoft, being seen as taking on -- having more and more power, but not taking on and accepting responsibility

that goes with it, and that includes issues like privacy, fake news. you and your husband have obviously been deeply involved in that in the past. what's your take on it? >> well, my take is that the technology is moving really fast, and i think that a lot of these companies are trying to do the right thing. they're also keeping up with it. they're hearing, if i talk to people inside of microsoft or i talk to the leaders after microsoft, they're actually hearing their employees, the millennials saying to them, hey, there are things we want you to do as a company to do the right things for the world. so a lot of technology companies are trying to catch up themselves. i ultimately trust they will do the right thing but the tech is going so fast everybody is looking at this. >> woodruff: one other aspect of the technology field is women. there has been a lot of reporting in the last few years about how women are not as represented as they should be and not given a fair shake and even worse in the field of

technology. you worked in that field. how do you see that? >> sure. i'm a computer science graduate. i had a fantastic career at microsoft and i think what you're seeing is, the time i was in college, we were on the rise, 37% of graduates were women in computer science. we were on the uptick like law and medicine. those fields have gone up but computer science has gone down now. 18% of graduates in computer science are women. that means you have a problem. yet this is an industry that should be incredibly welcoming to women. tech is pervasive for us in society. it's going to be an industry that passes financial services is the biggest industry. so they need to look at things about what do we need to do to make industry more welcoming for women. why do women drop out all the way k-12 in college? how do we create pathways through computer science like that opening computer science course in college. some of the best places,

community colleges, universities, they're doing great things to welcome them in, giving real world problems, explaining to women you can be a computer scientist. so i think we have to lean into this and figure out what solutions are working and spread those across the field. and you're hearing more conversation about this, and you're hearing some of the things that are going on in the valley that aren't good. you're finally seeing the transparency come to light, and once something becomes more transparent, then you can start to really work on the solution. so i'm cautiously optimistic that things are actually going to get better. >> woodruff: melinda gates who did work in the field and now with her husband runs the bill and melinda gates foundation. thank you very much. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: now, we continue our look at the southern u.s. border with the "usa today" network. their series, "the wall,"

explores the complex world of those who live along the border and how president trump's proposed wall might affect them. tonight, a visit to some ranches in arizona, whose owners have seen the changes, physical and social, over a span of decades. >> well there's probably no better way to grow up than growing up on a ranch. by god there's a cow. but growing up on the border it was just interesting to never really see or hear think of anybody being out there in that remote ranch. and then as i was getting older i realized there's 2,300 people a night going through there.

>> backtracking to a time, say, 30 years ago, there was a steady flow of illegals coming through the ranch. they usually would ask if we could give them a couple of days' work. >> whether or not they were going to go further north or not but they'd come over and work for you. and there was nothing extraordinary about it. it wasn't a big deal to go across the line and one big deal for them to come over here. and then in the '80s it started changing. it was 300 a month. and every one of them wanted a drink of water and directions. and... >> and we always did we kept a can of spam and bread. and... >> then in the '90s it was 300 a day.

and they just stole stuff and broke stuff and truck stolen, car stolen, saddles, had two horses stolen. got one back. but what's happened since the mid-2000s is the cartels took over the human trade as well as the drug trade. that's what the whole border's about, now just money. that you know it isn't about immigration it's about smuggling. >> smugglers not people you want to run into in the middle of the ranch. we think on our ranch there were six murderers on the ranch itself. we have a tree that was previously called locally a rape tree. a high percentage of the women are raped in the process of

crossing the border. and their underwear is draped on trees to demonstrate how macho the mexican was that led them across the border. it takes a, it takes a bad mindset to do things like. >> yeah they cut both sides. down here a little bit. they were. well here it they just cut tall enough to get a truck through. instead of cutting all the way up, they do it here. wouldn't need a ladder. these are concrete but no rebar. so they'd score the edge of it and then put a tow strap, and break it. so i haven't had any positive effect from having a fence. we've got permanent cameras we got radar units we've got portable cameras. and none of that has worked because there isn't enough

border patrol to respond to the traffic that's coming through it. yo know this is this is a humanitarian deal anymore. you know this is securing the border. and you have to act like it's a military exercise. >> yeah there's definitely two sides to it. yeah there definitely is. two sides are you know what we did today, working outside with my hands and actually producing something every day. i don't know it's kind of living the dream i mean that's what i always wanted to do so that's what i do it doesn't it doesn't get a whole lot a whole lot better than that, so. the other side of that. you know there's criminals coming through here and smuggling drugs smuggling people. all criminal activity that goes along with it.

>> we're waiting with interest to see what happens with president trump. number of illegals coming through now is, there's been a big drop at the time of trump's election. >> this is the best it's been in 30 years. >> woodruff: you can find additional videos and stories at thewall.usatoday.com. now to another in our brief but spectacular series, where we ask passions. tonight, we hear from janet iwasa, an assistant professor of biochemistry at the university of utah, who is trying to increase the public's understanding of science at a molecular level using computer animation. >> i was in a lab that studied the actions inside a skeleton. so this is looking at the way cells crawl. and we were right next door to a lab that studied how proteins move along microtubules, so this

is considered kind of the highway of the cell. i never really got it until i saw this 3d animation that showed all of the detail. and so it made me think, why aren't we all doing this? we should all be animating the things that we study. the traditional way for a scientists to visualize a hypothesis is using something called a model figure. it's kind of like a stick drawing representation of cells and molecules where you have one protein that's a circle and then another protein that's a square and then you draw an arrow to show these things come together. i think animation can take a lot of that information and really convey it in a way that's more dynamic and true to what we actually understand. i had this incredible post doctoral, post doctoral fellowship from the national science foundation, i basically said, "i need to learn animation to do this." and so i wrote into the grant that i needed to go to hollywood for the summer and learn you know kind of the best animation software i could learn. the things that a lot of cell

biologists and molecular biologists study are basically smaller than the wavelength of light. the animation is a way to tell that story. i think the kind of depth of our understanding of h.i.v. and how h.i.v. works hasn't been communicated, partially because it's really hard to tell those kinds of stories. we have a vast amount of information about how h.i.v. works. almost every single part of the hiv life cycle has been very clearly defined, but i think the problem is that all of this information is locked away in the way that scientists normally share data, which is in publications. and the publications are hard to read, and they are also generally not that accessible my idea is to use to use animation to basically take all that data and to create this sort of visual hypothesis of how we think h.i.v. gets into cells and what it does inside cells and how it gets out. we just know so much and i want to be able to tell that story. historically, art and science were not two things that were separate. a lot of really famous

scientists, people who did early microscopy were actually artists, too. they had to be able to depict the things that they saw under the microscope or through a telescope on a piece of paper to actually do that communication and to show what they were seeing, and that we still do need to have these artistic skills and be able to convey our ideas visually and actually really do good science. my name is janet iwasa and this is my brief but spectacular take on molecular animation. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide.

>> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

this season of "martha stewawars cooking school" explores treasured recipes from an extraordinary part of the world -- the arabian gulf. join me in my kitchen as i celebrate its regional ingredients. we'll make rustic breads, mouthwatering desserts, and hearty stews with spices made famous by historic trade routes, learn new culinary techniques and creative tips for serving arabian gulf classics, from preparing small bites to showstopping dishes fit for any festive occasion. with its bold flavors and strong traditions, i've been inspired to get into the kitchen and add what i like to call a good thing to an already delicious cuisine. enjoy. "martha stewart's cooking school" is made possible by... ♪ announcer: al jazeera.