captioning sponsored by newshour productionsllc >> sreenivasan: good evening, i'm hari sreenivasan. judy woodrf is away. on the newshour tonight... >> today i'm defending america's national security by placing tariffs on foreign imports of steel and aluminum. >> sreenivasan: ...president trump raises the stakes in a tential trade war amid warnings from his own party and threats of global retaliation. then, the politics of trade-- a key trade advisor to the trump white house underscores the threat of china and explains the president's push for tariffs. >> trade is good. ffs and the threat of tariffs are a negotiating tool tore countries like china to stop their unfair trade practices. that's theission. >> sreenivasan: and, revelations about the war in afghanistan and pakistan. a new book reports on missedix opportunities, priorities, and failed operations in what

has become america's longest war. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: n and by the alfred p. sl foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> carnegioration of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. carnegie.org.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individual >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pie station fromrs like you. thank you. >> sreenivasan: president trump has made good on his vow to impose steep t on two imported metals. the orders he signed today set a 25% levy on foreign steel d 10% on aluminum. he makes an exemption for canada and mexico, while negotiating changes to the north american free trade agreement. the tariffs are set to take effect in 15 days.

mr. trump signed the order, with industry workers looking on, after arguing the tariffs are vital. >> the american steel and aluminum industry has been ravaged by aggressive foreign trade prs, it's really an assault on our country. it's been an assault. the actions we are taking today are notter of choice, they are a matter of necessity for our security >> sreenivasan: house speaker paul ryan and other leading republicans oppose the tariffs. speaking in atlanta today, ryan argued for a focus on china. >> i'm just not a fan of broad- ross the board tariffs, because i think you'll have a lot of unintended consequences. you'll have a lot of collateral damage. not just consumers, but businesses >> sreenivasan: hours before the president's announcement, 11 nations including japan, canada and australia signfi an asian- patrade pact that slashes tariffs. president trump withdrew the u.s. from the proposed agreement last year.

in the day's other news, lawmakers in florida sent a newly adopted gun control bill to republican governor rick scott. he would not say if he'll sign it. the bill passed the stathouse on wednesday. it sets a minimum age of 21 to purchase rifles, and also creates a program for arming teachers who get training. the misssippi legislature today approved an abortion bill that would likely be the most restrictive in the nation. it outlaws the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy. a number of states now have limits of 20 weeks. mississippi's republican gove bill, but abortion rights groups have promised to sue. the notern u.s. has started digging out after the second big storm in a week. parts of new jersey, new york and massachusetts got two feet of s the last 24 hours, and dover, vermont got 2.5 feet. crews workedight to remove downed trees, plow highways and clear railway tracks. some 800,000 customers were in the dark, including some who lost power in the first storm.

in britain, a former russian spy and his daughter are still critically ill after being o isoned by a nerve agent. police ay 21 others needed treatment after sunday's attack, but most have red. the investigation is continuing, but officials are int directly blrussia, so far. dan rivers of independent tlevision news has our re >> it is a sign severity of the potential hazard that fire crews were bg equipped with protective suits and masks as they approached the bench where sergei skripal aia skripal were found. as senior officers watching onw as the cesecured a forensic tent over the scene. this afternoon the officers who was hospitalized after first attending the incident was named as detective sergeant nick bailie. ned consciousne but is in serious but stable condition. >> he's ll. he satp. he's not the nick i know, but he's proceeding under a high level of treatment.

he's in the safe hands of the medical professionals. >> reporter: the government has not confirmed which ner agent was used but entrenched in its condemnation of the culprits. >> the use of nerve agent is a brazen and reckless act this was attempted murder in the most cruel and public way. people areight to want to know who to hold to account. reporter: yulia skripal and s skerrirring are in critical condition. this cct of them leaving shows yulia holding a red handbag. this photohows her handbag discarded on the ground as a police officer not wearing any productive suit or mask gathers evidence. at sergei skripal's house, several tents ha been put up and the cordon around it has been extended it's not clear why the police activity at sergei skripal' house has increased so markedly

today but it's possible oaricers looking to see if there are any traces of the nerve agent inside the property. sergei skripal's wife and son both side inea recent and are buried in salisbury, a family consumed byepeated tragedy with some now wondering if their deaths were more thanbl just tere coincidences. >> sreenivasan: sergei skripal had once been a double agent for britain before being caught and later freed in a spy swap. fresh disclosures today about the investigation of possible russian links to the trump campaign. he washington post" reported there's new evidence that a e secret meeting, just befe inauguration, was aimed at creating a back channel with the kremlin. and,new york times" reported the president has asked two key witnesses about their conversations with investigators. meanwhile, former trump campaign chair paul manafeaded not guilty today to tax evasion and bank fraud, in federal court in virginia. turkeynced plans today for a joint operation with iraqi forces, against kurdish rebels in northern ir it could start after iraq's

elections on may 12th. the turks are already attacking u.s.-backed kurdish fighters i syria. the turks say they're allied with rebels inside turkey. secretary of state rex tillerson declared today the u.s. commitment to africa is clear. that's after president trump triggered outrage in january with a slur about n nations. today, in ethiopia, tillerson met with a top african union official, who said it's time to ve past the uproar. >> ( translated ): i believe that this incident is behind us. i believe that the visit today by the u.s. secretary of state tillerson is the proof of the res between africa and the united states. >> sreenivasanthis is llerson's first diplomatic trip to africa. he'll also stop in chad,ti djibethiopia, kenya and nigeria. this was international women's day, with marches and demonstrations across the world. in the philippines, hundreds of women clad in pink protested in manila accusing president ngdrigo duterte of violati women's rights. spanish women in madrid brought traffic to a standstill during a

full-day strike against the wage gap and gender violence. and in new delhi, hundredsmarchn parliament to highlight sexual attacks. some carried seading "don't rape" and other slogans. the u.s. forest service has named vicki chinstiansen to be rim chief. shformer firefighter, and she'll succeed tony tooke, who retired day after amplaints of sexual harassment within the agenc a pending on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average gained nearly 94 points to close at 24,895. the nasdaq rose 31 points, and the s&p 500 added 12. and, it turns out fake news travels six times faster than the real thing, at least on twitter. researchers at the massachusetts institute of technology reached that conclusion afr reviewing millions of tweets spanning 10 years. they say even accounting for the influence of bots, fake news s "farther, faster, deeper and more broadly" than the truth.

twitter funded the study. still to come on the newshr: the trump economic adviser behind the steel and aluminum tariffs. from the newshour bookshelf, america's secret wars in afghanistan and pakistan. a pulitzer prize winning cartoonist sketches the faces of homelessness, and much more. >> sreenivasan: the president's decision to impose stiff tariffs on aluminum and steel could lead to bigger trade battles in the months to come. this afternoon, president trump said his actions would lead to new plants and more jobs. he cited both economic security and natial security as the justification for doing so. mr. trump says those metals are crucial for building military weapons and aircraftthere must be enough u.s. facilities that can produce aluminum and steel domestically. but after pressure, the president has exempted canada

and mexico for now. and suggested flexibility ier other counas well. peter goodman covers globale economics for w york times and joins me from london via skype. so let's put this in perspective. mr. trump even on the campaign ail said this is about jobs and economic security, but now the reason includes national security asell. >> well, the national security claim is a direct nod to the world trade organization and the assumption that these tariffs are going to be challenged and there's going to be retaliation from a whole host of countries that are aggrieved, principally the european union. we thinke'll get a challenge at the world trade organization from the european union, a this national security claim is a bet that t world health organization, who is like the referee in the global trading ng tom, will not be willi question the sovereignty of a member country, and they will defer to the right of a sovereign country to determine their own national security.

but, you kno most economists, trade experts, they think -- i mean, i hearda terms yestey talking to economists talking patently abseward, that there's no legitimate claim that can be made on the basis of national security because, let's remember, something around 70% of the steel used in t states is produced in the united states. so whatever we want to discuss, you know, and there are issues to discuss in terms of the steel industry and the context of the global economy, there's a big glut of steel, a lot produced in china, these are real issues, there are people out ofork at steel plants in the united states, but, you know, a lot of that's automation,it doesn't even have to do with trade, and the notion that somehow americans king up imperilled by the fact that, you know, canadians are making steel and aluminum, that's a tough one to sell. >> sreenivasan: let's say nod to the world health organization, this adding of national security keeps us out of that parr ticuurt. couldn't other countries start to claim national security for their own trade tariffs a

barriers? >> well, precisely. in fact, a lot of people think that this t's up a kind of existential crisis for the world health organization because, whatever they do,to it's goin set an unpleasant precedent that could disrupt global trade going forward. ifhey do say, okay, washington, tronp administrayou do have the right to declare this a national security threat, then that does, indeed, open the door to just about any country that wants to prect a favored industry with domestic politics getting involved in global tdessues, and they can say, well -- you know, the french could say, boy, cheese is so vital to us that the idea that kraft could send us, you know, somethingike parmesan, we're going to call .at national security i'm obviously being facetious, but there are lots of examples. one ecomist told me this wou open the floodgates to some very d claims. on the other hand, if the world health organization overturns

this, if they say this is not legitimate security claim, then that could prompt the trump administration to either just ignore the ord,. i me this would be like the referee being inin order in an athletic match and the match goes on, it undermines the credy of the world health organization, or in the most extreme case, they could say other countries now have carte blanche to retaliate and we could have a full-blown trade war with potentially the trump administration pulling out of the world health organization. >> sreenivasan: let's explain, also, the exemption for canada , while mexico right n we are in active conversations, looking at nafta. >> well, we're not really clear on what just happened at the white ho, e. i me saw that the president signed these two orders, launching these tariffs, 25% on steel, 10% on aluminum, and he did say that for the time being, canada and mexico are going to be left out because we are currently renegotiating, the

united states renegotiating the north amican free trade reement, this giant trade bloc that encompasses canada, the unittes and mexico, and mr. trump has essentially combined that negotiation with this tariff proceeding, and a loerof trade e say that that could undermine the claim of national security, both in the court of public opinion around the world and at the , rld trade organization because, you kn this is a question of, boy, we better make sure we've t enough ste to make warships or weapons or whever in the event ofa real national security threat, then how can you treat it as a sort of trading chip in the context of a negotiation of a whole range of i with canada and mexico? but that seems to be where we're headed, with potential other exemptions may australia. mr. trump suggested he's going to look hther nations are behaving, whether they're paying the bians, pparent nod at

n.a.t.o. it sounds like there is going to be a complex p, a real negotiation of whoever's going to have to pay these tarfs and who will be exempted. >> sreenivasan: all right, peter goodman of the "new york times" joining us via skype in london. thank you. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: the ent's decision comes after months of debate within the white house, the government and among my businesses about how to handle trade and tariffs. one of the key figures in the white hous for these actions is the president's advisor, peter navarro. economics coespondent paul solman has spent some looking at the ideas and philosophy that drive navarro. he's back with an updated report ntfor our weekly installme "making sense." >> china. china. china. china. chin china. china. china. china all the time. cha. >> reporter: china and unfair trade: key trump themes for years. so this week's tariffs, as pushed by a favorite film of his: "death by china," should come as no surprise. >> china has stolethousands of our factories and millions of our jobs.

multinational corporation profits are soaring, and wnow owe over $3 trillion to the world's largest communist nation. >> reporter: the filmmaker, peter navarro, was also quite clear when we met during the campaign. >> we're going right down the toilet, and it's a made-in-china toilet. >> reporter:avarro, an economist then at the university of california, irvine, was the campaign's main trade advisor, is now the white house's right hand man on trade. so how'd y interested in and worried about china? >> i teach m.b.a.' and i noticed, starting a few years after china joined the world trade organization, that a lot of my students were no longer employed. tey were still coming to their m.b.a., but they'd lost their jobs. and i started to ask questions why. anthat point, all roads were leading to beijing. >> reporter: navarro has done plenty of technical work in economics, is a pioneer online learning. but he began focusing on china just a few years ago. >> the defining moment in american enomic history is when bill clinton lobbied to get china into the world trade

ortion. it was the worst political and economic mistake in american history in the last 100 years. >> reporter: in the last 100 years? >> in the last 100 yrs, yes. china went into the world trade organization and agreed to play by certain rules. instead, they are illegally subsidizing their ports, manipulating their currency, stealing all of our intellectuaw property, usintshops, using pollution havens. what happens is, our businesses and workers are playing that game with two hands tied behind their back. >> reporter: navarro said you could even see the effects in irvine, where chinese students pay top dollar and flood the university while their parents scoop up local real estate. >> generally all cash deals. >> reporter: so your argument is, unfair trade practices, they amass dollars, they bring the dollars back here, they buy up property, and they drive up real estate prices? >> that's right. and they drive up rents for younger people. they will drive up home prices for first-tie buyers. so it's not just that we're

losing jobs and factories. 're giving away our homes, our businesses, our companies, our technologies. >> repor heard the same alarm about japan in the 1980s, a false alarm. but china is different, says navarro: so much bigger. >> we are going to enforce all trade violations against any country that cheats. >> reporter: the new tariffs, however, don't much affect china directly. canada is the largest exporter of steel and aluminum to the u.s., and though for now canada and mexico arexempted, tariffs would hit seven other bigger metal-exporters than china. but navarro says because china floods the global market with cheap steel and aluminum, it's driving us firms. and killing >> when we're behind on every other countries have added production capacity that far ceeds demand and flooded the market with cheap metal that is

subsidized by foreign governments, creating jobs for their country and taking away jobs from our country. for example, it takes china one month to produce as much steel as they produce inhe united states in an entire year. >> reporter: the new tariffs are being widely attacked as protectionism. over 100 free trade republicans signed a letter opposing them. but when we talked to peter navarro 18 months agar he insistedfs weren't anything of the kind. >> wro word, wrong word. >> reporter: what's wrong? >> donald trump is not a protectionist. all he wants to do is defend ica against unfair trade practices. >> reporter: well, defend, protect.di >> vererent. trade is good. tariffs and the tharat of tariffa negotiating tool to require countries like china to stop their unfair trade practices. that's the mission. >> reporter: but what about

retaliation? european commission president jean-claude juncker has announced his own tariff targets: >> ( translated ): harley davidson, on blue jeans, levis, on bourbon. we can also dotupid. we also have to be this stupid. >> reporter: which prompted this london front page on tuesday. >> choosing a trade war is a wrong move. the outcome will only be harmful. chin proper and necessary response. >> reporter: such tough talk h left peter navarro unfazed. here he is last week. >> i don't believe any country in the world is going to retaliate for the simpleareason that wthe most lucrative and biggest market in the world. >> reporter: and the facthat tariffs will increase costs to u.s. firms and consumers, in this case, those using aminum and steel? here's navarro's re on fox news sunday. >> if you look at a 10% tariff on aluminum, a six-pack of beer or coke, that's a cent and a .a if you look at the other end of

the spectrum, boeing 777, it's one best airliners ever made, it's $330 million aircraft. t we aking but it increased in cost at the worst of $25,000. so, when ytalking about these massive costs or whatever is in fact, it's not. there are no downstreae effects on our industries that are significant. >> reporter: added up, however, the overall costs would be in the billions. to which navarro's answer back in 2016 still holds. >> any increase would be less than the paycheck that all these people would be getting, both in terms of actually having a job, plus wages rising again. the trump trade doctrine is this. america will trade with any country, so long as that deal meets these three criterion: you increase the g.d.p. growth rate, itu decrease the trade def and you strengthen the manufacturing base. >> reporter: but isn't technology responsible for the

elimination of american factory jobs? >> certainly technology has played a part, but the dramatic change from five-and-a-half decades of 3.5 percent rate of growth prior to china entering our markets with illegally subsidized goods and the 1.8% afterwards suggests strongly that china has played an enormous role in the decline and downfall of the american economy. and i can show on a blackboard exactly why. >> reporter: now, your typical economist d hardly agree. but, hy, says navarro, your typical economist stl believes in the old so-callnesian approach to reviving the economy. >> alright, paul, the growth of any nation is simply four things. >> reporter: more consumption, c., by consurs and more g, government spending. he and trump, however, will supposedly flip the ript, stimulating more i, investment,

by business, via taxuts for the wealthy and corporations, while boosting net exports through new trade deals. that's exports minus imports. >> that's right. >> reporter: and, of course, if that's a negative number, that is, you have more imports than exports. >> this is the big kahuna. this is what donald trump understands. this is the trade deficit. we run a trade deficit of close to $800 billion a year. and so this directly subtracts from this. this is why we're stuck in low- growth mode. >> reporter: actually, growth has picked up considerably since navarro and i talked; few economists think unbalanced trade was hampering it; and even fewer think the new tariffs will help. a typical critic is josh bolten, who runs the business roundtable. >> this will cause huge damage across brotors of the economy. you maybe will be able to give a little bit of help to the steel and aluminustries. you're going to cause damage across any number of downstream

industries and any number of industries that exporto countries that are likely to retaliate. >> reporter: well, i guess we'll see. the trump/navarro policy of tax ndcuts to boost investment tariffs to defend american producers will get a test run at last. for better... or worse. for the pbs newshour, this economics correspondent paul solman. >> sasan: for the record, we have repeatedly requested interviews on trade with members of the trump administration. our reques have not yet been granted. >> sreenivasan: the united states has been fighting in afghanistan for more than 16 years. it's a war fought mostly against the taliban, a ghat exists due in large part to the intelligence services of afghanistan's neighbor, pakistan. nick schifrin speaks now with the author of a new book who charts pakistan's shadow war,

and its tense relations with the united states. >> schifrin: afghanistan is the aveyard of empires. so goes the saying that describes why the u.s. has faced a seemingly impossible task since 2001, but the fact is the fate of the u.s.' longest war was never preordained. the u.s. has made many mistakes and haggled with afghanistan's neighbor pakistan and perhaps the definitive version of that story is in a new book, "directorate s: the c.i.a. and america's secret wars in afghanistan and pakistan," by ryeve coll, the dean and h luce professor of journalism at the columbia journalism school. steve coll, welcome to the program. >> thas for having me. >> schifrin: this is a book about 9/ in afghanistan and it is titled "directorate s." hiat is directorate s and why is it at the heart ofstory? >> so it's the covert action arm of theakistani intelligence service known as i.s.i. d it's the arm that has supported the taliban both before and after 9/11, that has worked at times

in collaboration with the c.i.a. during the 1980s war and then against american interests after 2001 to try to seek influence for pakistan in afghanistan through these islamist militia and it is at the heart of the war because the sanctuary the liban have enjoyed in pakistan and the support that they've been able to get covertly from i.s.i. has been one of the major reasons why the u.s. has n been able to stabilize afghanistan despite sending tens of thousands of combat troops to the country along with nato >> schifrin: now as you say pakistan has been doing this for a long time. but there was a moment in 2004, u write that it seems like pakistan could have once and for all kind of turned its back on the taliban and it d why not? >> well, it's interesting. th relative peace after the fall of the taliban government in december 2001. and by the timget to 2004 in afghanistan you have a successful preial election, parliamentary elections are on the way. a constitution has been restored.

many afghans have come home from exile, but pakistan is still trying to see what kind of neighborhood they are going to be in after the americans are gone. the united states goes off and fights in ir, quickly gets bogged down there and then i think another factor that motivated pakistan and i intelligence service was that the united states cut a strategic nuclear deal with india around this period essentially forgiving india for breaking out of the nuclear non- pration treaty and building atomic bombs. and it told pakistan at the same time you're not getting that deal and because you're not trustworthy. pakistani high command basically looked at this and said look we can't rely on the united states and they're not going to stay in afghanistan for very long. we have to prosecute our own interests, they feared an afghanistan that was consolidating its independence and might become an ally of india which for pakistan that's what it's all about. >> schifrin: you write about this extraordinary moment in 2014 which is a reflection of some of the tensions perhaps in pakistan and some of the u.s. fears in pakistan. how close did some disgruntled

pakistani navy people and al qaeda get to seizing a ship with nuclear weapons? >> well it's an underpublicized e and i hope we'll learn more about it over time, but i came across solly stunning material about these young pakistani naval officers who had lashed up with al-qa the tribal areas of pakistan and had decided to seize control of a pakistani missile ship, take it into the arabian sea and attack u.s. vessels there and they had a very-- thehad a sense of how the ship was organized, how they could store weapons abrd they stored weapons in advance of their plan and then they moved to seize the ship. they were defeated by commandos, later india's government circulated a report that this particular ship that they'd attacked contained nuclear weapons as part of pakistan's seaborne deterrent nuclear deterrent against india. now i don't know whether that report is fully accurate it

comes from india, it has to be taken with a grain of salt, but you know it's the first time we've had circulated reporting that terrorists attacked a facility where there were at least in this report some nuclear weons. and you know this has been the nightmare scenario all along, and it's one of the contradictions in the u.s. war. when we went into afghanistan the obama administration sat around in the situation room as scalated the war and it debated what are the really vital interests that we have that justify putting young american men and women in harm's way. they identified ne was al qaeda and its international terrorism menace but the other was th nuclear weapons.stan's the trouble is the more we escalated r the more we destabilized pakistan which leads to episodes like the one we just discusse >> schifrin: the obama administration pushed for talks with the taliban and you have details that certainly i've never come across. do you feel like the talks with the talibawere bound to fail because the relationship between

the ob hamid karzai, president afghanistan had deteriorated or did they fail for other reasons? >> well, the failure of the talks was partly relatedo the problem of the relationship with hamid karzai during the obam administration. as you say, karzai really blew up the talks at a moment when ooked like they might be fruitful but there were other complications. one was it wasn't really clear what the taliban wanted from these negotiations that was never tested before the talks blew up. secondly, the relationship with i.s.i. in pakistan was again complicated. the taliban secret representative, this man named ty bhaga, remarkable character, you know he kept saying to the americans in these safe houses where they were negotiating i don't want to be a client of pakistan. we're afghans, we want to negotiatpendently with you. you're in our country, we'd like to talk about how weet you out of our country slowly in a transition but i don'tant pakistan to speak for us. but the pakistanis told the amer negotiation without us.

ey started to essentiall act as agents for the taliban. at one point, they delivered messages to the americans in mullah omar's nice and the ams could never quite figure out what the relationship between i.s.i. and the taliban leadership was in these negotiations, it made it very difficult to succeed. >> schifrin: and one more thing about how u.s. soldiers fought this war you talk about how u.s. soldiers went blind into battle. to a certain extent, not understanding the kind of historic nate of the taliban's relationship with the people and also a level of hubris that came from how easy the first few weeks or months of thear was. did the u.s. ever really unde ground in afghanistan? >> well they fought a counterinsurgency war at the peak of u.s. militar there and there was kind of a fashioe bubble of doctrine around counterinsurgency theory that was applied to the afghan war after the perceived success in iraq in 2007, 2008.

and you know hamid karzai warned the american generals who were arriving to carry out this unterinsurgency campaign that he didn't think it would work. he didn't think it was the right strategy. and he worried that all of this patrolling in villages and kicking down doorsas going to alienate the afghan people. but he really wasn't in a caposition to stop the ame led juggernaut at that point. and ultimately the ground but settled into a stalemate and the taliban held theira.round. the c.sed to produce every s,six months maybe still d these classified maps with different colors indicating which district the talib controlled which, which district the government controlled, which were contested and they had different sort of unfurlings of them at the situation room. and esntially the colors didn't shift much despite 150,000 intenal combat troops in afghanistan fighting to roll the taliban ck. and even today the map doesn't look much different with u.s. troops down to 10 or 15,000, the afghan forces in the lead.

," schifrin: the book is "directoratehe author steve coll. steve, thank you very much for being here. >> thanks nick. appreciate it. >> sreenivasan: you can see nick's entire interview with steve coll on our home page, pbs.org,/newshour. >> sreenivasanlitzer-prize winning editorial cartoonist is using his drawings to highlight the growing problem of homelessness in southern california. sajeffrey brown traveled t diego to get a first-hand look at the leading newspaper's cartoon series, "street art." >> b: for a newspaper cartoonist like steve breen these days, there's one big subject. >> but if you study trump, you know there's things about his lips that are interesting, his hyeyes, his nice, heavy, b eyebrows are fun. and then just the, the behavior and his speech is a treasure trove.

>> brown: watched breen in action recently at his office at the "san diego union tribune," where he's been the editorial cartoonist since 200ce winning the pulitzer-prize for >> cartoonis are drawn to big egos, drawn to know-it-all's, we're drawn toumullies. and has elements of all those things. >> brown: but the 47-year-old spent much of st year on a very different kind of assignment, something closer to home: sketching men and women living on the streets of san diego. >> one of the jobs of an editorianist is to stick up for theittle guy. literally when you step out the door of this building, there are homeless people all over. and my editor and i got to talking one day, and we thought what can we do that's different? what can we do that's interesting? so we wanted to use my cartooning, my drawing, to cast

a light on the problem. >> brown: last year, homelessness surged in major cities up and downhe west coast , driven by a lack of affordable housing, especially for those most in need. in san diego, overall homelessness rose by 5%, and the not using shelters by 18%. the city now has the fourth largest homeless population in the nati >> when you sit and do a drawing you have to spend a li yle bit of tim have to look into their eyes, you know, u get a feel for them, in a different way. >> brown: breen wanted to fipe out who thesle were. he called the series, "street art." he found the homeless all around the streets of hce downtown ofuilding. >> i wanteto ask people why they think they're homeless. i wanted to heartories about their childhood. i wanted to find out, you kn, if they've tried the local shelter, and what they liked or didn't like about it. i wanted to find out where they want to be in a year. >> brown: was it hard? i mean did people want to talk to you?

>> it was easy. it was incredibly easy. and i chalk that up to the fact that these people are rarely treated like a human being, you know? rown: breen's sketches, and the animated videos that accompanied them, told their stories. jenny said she had nowhere to go and she blew through her she said she has serious mental illness as well as other health issues but takes medication >>hehis guy right here, jack claims that he was able to throw a 95 mile an hour fastball in high school. and i think that the chicago white sox lookedm, jack

says his goal is to get to south carolina before he dies to see his granddaughter natalia. name tattooed on his arm-- the same arm he used to throw thosfastballs. brown: on our walk with breen, we met jeff mourning, homeless for the last seven years. how hard is to live on the streetout here? >> it's actually really dangerous, people wait for people to go to sleep and then they try to rob them, especially >> brown: as it happens mourning is something of a cartoonist himself-- his signs help him get by and have also gained attention online. ou're on youtube on funny homeless signs? >> yeah, you see me on there with a sign that says "spread heese on this broke cracker." >> bro breen also highlighted what many considered to be the city's slow response to a deadly hepatitis a outbreak that struck san diego's homeless population especially hard. >> this is a handwashing station

that recently popped up near the corner of a and front street in downtown san diego. officials have installed 40 of these around tow combat a hepatitis a outbreak that has claimed at least 15 lives fected hundreds of people since it began in november of 2016 >> brown: so what do you hope people get from the series that you did? >> i hope that people try to resist the thinking that homelessness is caused by lazine, or some kind of weakness, or a flaw in character. that's really not what drives homeleness. it's mental illness, it's alcoholismdrug addiction and childhood abuse and neglt. >> brown: breen says he's trying to stay in touch with the people hesrew, hoping new portrait will emerge. you can see his entire "reet art" series onhe "san diego union tribune's" website. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown in san diego.

>> sreenivasan: the n.c.a.a. basketball tournament will captivate sports fans in the coming weeks. but here's the story of a team you won't see playing during march madness. tonight, tiny grace university in omaha, nebraska is playing in a regional post-seas basketball tournament for christian colleges. bu station net in nebraska tells us season is about more than wins and losses for the royals. >> repr: coach brandon rogers is going easy on his team tonight. they've just played four games in five days, including trips to kansas, oklahoma and south dakota. and the eight person team is down to seven. one player is sick and injured. for every big money, high profile college sports program you'll see during march madness,

there's a tiny, low-pr program like grace university. the royals compete in a national athletic association of about 100 small christian colleges, and have won a few championships over the years. unlike some major conference hools, grace doesn't have things like showers with heated floors, lockers with built in ipads, chartered jets to games. the royals travel in a rented 15 passenger van. it's a small college that started the season with a new young coach and big dreams. >> ouroal is to get to regionals. it's never been done since we've joined the division one in the n.c.c.a., so wre excited. we're hungry. >> reporter: but a few weeks before games started, grace announced it was closing after this school year. low enrollment and financial allenges were the cause. >> my first reaction was what? what?ke wait. no, i'm supposed to graduate

from here. >> obviously that hit us all very out of the blue, none of us expected that by any means. >> some day's are hard. and it's, "man, like this really sucks. what am i gonna do next year?" and helping each other through that, and then some days we joke about it like, "ah, our schools like what is going on?" and we make light of it. >> coach will park in two parking trips and be like, "oh, it's okay. our school's closing >> reporter: the royals are avaying with a sense of responsibility to a lasting memory of grace athletics. because they're the only tm left on campus. closure led to canceling the men's basketball season. >> it is just something incredible, because everyone's fighting for something rht now. you know what i mean? we're fighting for next year, the unknown. we don't know at it is, but we all are doing it together. >> if you have tl she'll at least know the wrap-around pass is there. >> reporter: rogers and his royals know more about their

next game, next opponent, then they do about next year. >> there's nothing we can do to change it so, just enjoy the time we have now. >> god is good. i know that he has a plan for , and he's going to take care of all of us. >> is definitely brought it closer together, and now we really take every game to heart. we were all really loofong ard to next season. and now, there is no next season. >> good evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the final home game here at grace university. >> reporter: the royals are all sophomores and juniors, most from other states. when grace closes in may, they'll head elsewhere to finish their degrees.

some may have a chanceg o keep playinsketball together at the same school. >> it's coming to an end. and it's hit, it hit reality or reality hit today. >> ended on a bang. super proud about that. >> this is it. this is the last time. >>d it's my last season. eporter: there's still have a few more practices and tournament games. a few more chances to make lasting memories. a last c nce to make the last chapter of a small college's sports history a good one. for the pbs newshour, i'm mike tobias in omaha, nebraska. >> sreenivasan: and we'll be ck shortly with a poet's brief but spectacular take on creating a space for people who have fstorically been left out the arts. but first, take a moment to hear from youl pbs station. it's a chance to offer your support, whichproduce the

kind of stories you just saw, and keeps programs like ours on thair. >> sreenivasan: tooth decay is the momon chronic childhood disease, and 90% of all adults have cavities. but as special correspondent cat mese reported in january, dentists are trying to combat tiose problems with a new, low- cost alter to traditional treatments. here's a second look. >> reporter: it's an unmistakable, stomach-churning sound: the high pitched whir of the dentist's drill. for more than a century, it's been one of the main tools in the battle against tooth decay. the standard "drill-and-fill" treatment is not a lot of fun for anyone. but for some patients, especially young children who often have to be sedated or put under, it can be very challenging, and even dangerous. but the silvery liquid in this

little bottle has arted to lead to some big changes recently in the way some tooth y is being treated. >> we started in 2013 using this, and it's-- in 35 years, i have not seen anything that's worked as well. eporter: dr. frank mendo is a pediatric dentist on the warm springs indreservation in central oregon. he is one of a small but growing number of dentists who've begun using silver nitrate, a widely ed liquid anti-microbial medical treatment with fluoride varnh, a widely-used dental product, to stop tth decay. >> the silver kills the bacteria, and stops new bacteria from growing. the fluoride re-mineralis, or hardens, what's left. >> reporter: on a recent morning, 13-month-old zavion wallulatum and his siblingpaid a visit to dr. mendoza. zavion has eight teeth so far, and despite his family's best

efforts to keep them healthy, four have cavities. three months ago, dr. mendoza began the rst of several treatments. the cavities have been stopped and, as of now, no new ones have formed. the black spots on his teeth are actually the silver doing its job on the decay. the staining is the main six-year-old sylvia is also getting treatments, and so far, her cavities are under control too. but older brother frederick, who developed cavities as a toddler before dr. mendoza beg using silver in his practice, ended up under general anesthesia in the hospital. that's a common story for young omildren in warm springs, and in tribalnities around the country, which have high rates of dental r cay. >> olf of the kids went to the hospital, up until we started thver nitrate project four years ago. we've seen aboki half as many requiring o.r. treatment since then, and we've changed nothing other than add this to our program.

>> reporter: the dark spots can eventually be covered with tooth-colored material, and when the baby teeth fall out, the stains go awayoo. mom nancy wallulatum says she doesn't like thetains, but she believes the trent has kept her younger children from having more-invasive work done. >> it's really fast. you just come in and out and then we're done. otthink it's really helping them to prevent them too to surgery. >> reporter: preventing kids from being put under, or sedated, has become a priority in the dental world. the authors of a recent article in the journal "pediatrics" wrote, "an estimated 100,000 to 250,000 pediatric dental sedations are performed annually in the u.s.," and they highlighted the case of a four- year-old boy who died after sedation in his dentist's office. but, they noted it's difficult to track "adverse events or deaths" because there's no "mandated reporting." the article's authors joined an expanding group of dental

experts, including the american y of pediatric dentistry, who say a treatment that combines silvebeand fluoride can effective, in appropriate the a, called silver cases. diamine fluoride, or s.d.f., was cleared by the f.d.a. last year for reducing sensitivities in teeth, but its so-called "off-label" use for stopping cavies is now its main use. the treatment is much cheaper than drilling, typically about $30 per vit. >> it works on most cavities. the problem is, it dllsn't work onavities. >> reporter: one of those on the frontlines of s.d.f. rearch is dr. jeremy horst, a pediatric ist and post-doc fellow at the university of california san francisco. he and his colleagues are studying, among other things, the structural and chemical changes in teeth before an after they've been treated with silver products. >> we completed a short term study, which blew our minds. it didn't look like the bacteria changed very much at all, there were just dramatically less of them. so it decreased the infection

dramatically. that was when it worked, so we tied to look longer-term, and we need to look at ca that didn't stop. are there certain bacteria that are making the infections, the cavity in the tooth, still grow? >> reporter: dr. horst is also studying how often s products need to be reapplied to be effective, and he's using >> so this is a bit of a tooth we've imaged, so the dark area is the cavity. the surprising thing is, the silver pen inner part of the tooth. pretty well as far as the cavity goes, and sometimes beyond, and rces it and strengthens it. increases its hardness. >> reporter: and that's a good thing? >> that's a good thing. teeth should be hard. >> reporter: u.c.s.f. is teaching both pediatric and general dentistry students about s.d.f., but it's not universally taught, or practiced, around the country yet. there others though who could benefit if the treatment spread. 61-year-old keizer, oregon resident roberblock had a stroke 12 years ago that made it difficult toare for himself and his teeth. dental decay ia problem for

many older adults, especially those in nursing homes, where t can be tougho get dental care. block began getting silver treatments from a local dentist >> reporter: dr. duffin, who textbook that silver nitrate was actually used in this country for a time in the early 1900s, believes what was old is new again, for everyone. >> i personally believe that this is the appropriate eatment for every person who has tooth decay, because it is the most effective way to treat disease regardless of income. >> reporter: later this year, the american dental association plans to release a clinical practice guideline on all non- surgical approaches to cavities, including s.d.f. for the pbs newshour, i'm cat se in warm springs, oregon.

>> sreenivasan: next, we tstn to another lment of our weekly brief but spectacular series, where we ath people abour passion. tonight, we hear from award- winning raised in new york city, she is the daughter of dominican immigrants and frequhetly includess of race, gender, and oppression in her work. acevedo's latest book "the poet x" became available this week.u. us girls who never saw ourselves on bookshelves, but we're still writing poems when we talk and we've been called teeth sucking of snapping eyes, born bitter, brittle of tangled tongues, sandpaper that's been origamied into girls. not worthy of being the hero nor the author.

but we were always medusa's favorite daughters. dreaming in the foreshadows, we composed ourselves. since childhood, taking pens to palms, as if we could rewrite the stanzas of lifelines that y to tell us we would never amount to relegated to the margin, we still danced bachata in theno fos. we still strong-armed the gatekeepers. we still clawed ys onto the cover, brought our full selves t color palette and bouquet of pansies and big hoops and these here hips and smart ass and popping bubble gum kisses. us girls who never saw ourselves on books writing tales in the dark. us brown girls, brick built, masters of every metaphor and evermorphosis. catch us with fresh manicures, nail filing dosidian stones and painstakingly crafting our own mirrors and stories into existence.

this poem that i read for you all was thinking through, what does it mean to be someone who maybe didn't grow up with a mirror and wanting to create that now? to see your reflection and also show kids who might look like you, like ¡hey we're here. it's very much thinking about those of us who wrote even when we didn't see ourselves as main characters a for those of us who are writing now who hopefully will come forward with more exaand who are also going to carry the torch of saying, our stories are just as important as any other in the cannon. i think a lot abt the vements that are happening right now in terms of me too and times up. weoing to shift the status quo, shift the way that women have been trear so long and i just hope that the shift always remembers women or color disenfranchised women who maybe may not have the loudest

opcrn may not be that loud are still thought of and remembered and passed the m. my name is elizabeth acevedo and this is my brief but spectacular take on seeing you. >> sreenivasan: you can find additional bri but spectacular episodes on our website, pbs.org/newshour/brief. there's word north korean leader kim jong un has written to president trump. details to be announced at the white house this evening. fox news reports kim sent the letter inviting the president to meet. abc and cnn report a south korean delegation hand delivered the letter at the white house this evening. follow-up dates on our web site pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm hari sreenivasan. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon.

>> major f for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and with the ongoing support of these institution >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions t pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ptioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by me aaccess.wgbh.orgt wgbh

elyse: we're the history detectives, and we're gog to investigate some untold stories from america's past. wes: this week, does this poster reveal a bizarre alliance between an american filmmaker and a mexicarevolutionary? gwendolyn: why do the names of some of america's most powerful leaders appear in a cabaret singer's autograph book? elyse: and did this preacher's robe once conceal a rebel's military uniform? elvis costel t: ♪ watchin' detectives ♪ t get so angry wh teardrops start ♪ ♪ but he can't be wounded 'cause he's got no heart ♪