captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, protecting the investigators-- republican senators defy majority leader mcconnell to push a bill to protect special counsel robert mueller. then, cuba prepares for historic change in leadership: what the future may hold for the island after the castrose and back to thfarm: inside the private sector effort to lure india's young people back to the countryside and a rural way of life. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been ovided by:

>> babbel. a language app that teache real-life conversations in a new language, like spanish, french, german, italian, and more. babbel's 10-15 minute lessons are available as an app, or online more information on babbel.com. >> financial services firm raymond james. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financ literacy in the 21st century. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic emengagement, and the advat of international peace and security.at arnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions:

and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by conibutions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: there's word that north korean leader kim jongn may be willing to drop a key condition for giving up his nuclear program. south korea's president moon jae-in said today the north wants to all nuclear weapons out of korea, t is no longer insisting u.s. troops withdraw first. in geneva, though, today the u.s. ambassador for disarmament said the north must turn words into actions.

>> it takes two to tango, and the north has to be willing to take steps that the north itself has said in the past it was willing to take. so, we'll have to see what happens. these are high-stakes discussions, assuming they take placeoo >>uff: last night, president trump said he'd walk away from a planned summit witht kim, i not "fruitful." irector mike pompeo has already met with kim, to discuss the potential summit. gday, pompeo's nomination for secretary of sta a boost. democratic senator heidi heitkamp said she'll vote for him. that could be just enough for pompeo to be confirmed. the u.s. state department charged day it has "credible information" that russia is workinto "sanitize" the site of a suspected chemical attack in syria. a spokeswoman gave no details, but sa efforts are clearly under way to remove incriminating evidence. the police commissioner of

philadelphia had apologized to two black men arrested at a starbucks last week. they'd been waitinfor a business meeting, when the store called police. the incident sparked protests over racial profiling. commissioner richard ross initially defended the action. today, he said he "fai miserably" in handling the situation. >> i should not at all be the person that is a party to making anything worse relative to race relations.n shame on me ify way that i've done that. >> woodruff: the men who wereed arreaid today there were moments that they wondered ifth 'd survive the incident. no criminal charges will be filed in the drug overdose death of prince, in april 2016.pr a minnesotecutor announced inday there's no clear evidence of how prince ob the pill that killed him. there evidence that he thought he was taking the painkiller vicodin.

instead, the pill containednt yl, a synthetic opioid that's 50 times more powerful than heroin. da poland, church bells sounded and sirens wailed marking 75 years since the warsaw ghetto uprising. in april 1943, jewish fiters held out for a month against nazi troops, before being crushed. today, the polish president visited the grave of the uprising's commander andpa tribute to the thousands killed. he also defended a new ban on saying poland was complicit in the holocaust. >> ( translated ): i am sure that whenever anyone talks about the responsibility or the co- responsibility of the posh state for the holocaust that person hurts the feelings of poles and also hurts the feelings of jews who are polish citizens. >> woodruff: more than three million of the 3.2 million jews in pre-war poland died in the holocaust. california governor jerry brown says he's reac deploy more national guard units

to the mexican border. st night, he announced federal funding will pay for 400 troopsg to gangs and drug smuggling, not for immigration enforcement. president trump disputed the claim today. he tweeted: "the federal govern for governor brown's charade. we need border security and action, not words!" nasa's new planet-hunting spacecraft is thooting toward stars, on a search for worlds that might support life. it's named tess, for "transiting exo-planet survesatellite." the satellite blasted off last night from cape canaveral, riding a space-x rocket. it will spend two year identifying planets around near stars with potentially livable temperatures. the u.s. senate narrowly confirmed a new administrator of nasa today. republican congressman jim bridenstine won on a party-line

vote of 50 to 49. democrats challenged his non- space background and questioning of climate science. and in a historic first, illinois senator tammy duckworth, in a wheelchair, helt her newborn da as she voted "no." senate rules changed last night to permit babies on the floor. the "new york time reports wells fargo will likely be find $1 billion for a series of infractions, includiing customers buy auto insurance policies that they did not needo stocks closer on wall street today, dragged down by the dow jones industrial average tumbled 83 points to close at nearly 24,665. the nasdaq fell 57 points, and the s&p 500 droppe c15. still toome on the newshour: the end of the castro era in cuba. an island-wide power outage underscores puerto rico's fragile recovery.

how a trade battle with china could shift the u.s.my, and much more. >> woodruff: in the latest twist in the russia investigation, former new york city mayor rudy giuliani is joining president trump's legal defensteam. the move comes amid bipartisan calls in the senate to pass a bill to protect special counsel robert mueller. a short time ago, i spoke with the vice chairman of the mtelligence committee, democratic senatk warner of virginia and began by asking about the addition of giuliani. >> well, the presi team seems to expand and contract on almost a weekly basis. i had a lot of respect for mr. giuliani when i was a prosecutor and mayor of new york. i didn't knw he actively

practiced law. t mr. trump has the ability to hire whoever he wants. at the ind of the da hope this will also mean mr. trump will alsallow the muller investigation to continue unimpeded because, at the end of the day, americans deserve the answer from his invesgation and, frankly, from our senate intelligence investigation as well. >> reporter: speaking of the mueller investigation, you and other bipartisan senators are supporting legislation to protect robert mueller's job. why? t> well, judy, over the las year, we've seen this president turn his ire on anybodyhat crosses him. we've seen him attack comey, mueller. his own original attorney general mr. sessions had to recuse himself because he was involved with some of these russian activities, and we set up this special prosecutor to be overseen by a long-term career

individual republican rod rosenstein, and the president says there'sinoyet, yet he continues to think on press reports think of firing mueller, may have tried to pull thetr ger a couple of times. on top of that you have thees ent making attacks against the integrity of everybody at the f.b.i. and the justice department. that gets us into very scary times in my mind when peoarple choosing which laws they want to follow. my republican colleagues have said if mr. mueller was fired, that would be the end of the trump presidency. i think we ought to go ahead and reinforce that by passing this legislation. >> woodruff: i'm sure you know, senator, en that law came before committee last fall and scholars were divided over whether it's constitutional fr the congress to do something like that, you have a number of republicans saying it's not necessary because the president himself says he doesn't plan to fire robert mueller.s >> therene thing we've

found from this president is he's unpredictable and say one thing on one day doesn't mean it will be his position the ne day and, over the last months, he's clely tweeted against mr. mueller's investigation a number of times, his allies ve gone out and attacked the justice department and mr. mueller, so i would rather bsosafe thanrry. the fact is while there would be in this legislation, the ability, even if m mueller was fired, have him take it to court ten days, let's just preclud all this and put something on the books that will protect this individual and investigation. >> woodruff: but the majority leader in the senate whoco controls whas to the floor mitch mcconnell says he doesn't plan to bri this to the floor. >> i'm disappointed in a time where there appears to be broad bipartisan support, and i know the jiewrkd committee was going to mark up this legislation, i would hope the majority leaulder reconsider that if it comes with a mig marity out of

the judiciary committee. we're in unprecedented times. even during the watergate era, i don't remember a prnt so broadly attacking the whole f.b.i., the whole justice department in these unprecedente ways, reinforce bid alrice and certain news networks where i thinpeople are starting to question whether rule of law is going to stand at this point in time.at why i think this investigation, regardless of where it ends up, is so importt to be protected. >> woodruff: and, in fact, the "newshour" in clab weighs with npr the marist college s done a poll coming out just now saying that the pubsli confident in the f.b.i. is starting to slip.as what i want t you, though, is about the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein there is been speculation about whether his job is safe. >> right. >> woodruff: republican congressmen have gone to see him if recent days sayg he may face impeachment proceedings if

he doesn't turn over documents relating to the origin of the mueller investigation. is he safe in his job? >> well, judy, believe firing mueller or rosenstein would create a constitutional crisis. i think history would then judge all ofevs. i besome of the president's allies are frankly trying to simply intimidate deputy attorney general rosenstein, a career profsional, politically a republican just as mr. mueller is. and this is part of what pears to me at least as someone who follows this very closely campaign wherever it's orchestrated to undermine rosenstein, undermine mueller, undermine the f.b. and that puts us in uncharted territories. >> woodruff: finally a question or two about mike mike pompey. you have not said whether you

will vote for him. do you think he wi be confirmed? >> that's actively discussed but i feol no pressure rush to decision at this point of time choosing a new sretary of state. acknowledging a new secretary of state has been approved is a really weighty decision. >> woodruff: senator mark mar warner. thank you very much. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: now, to cuba.to y marked the end of an era: the rule of the castro brothersa th fidel castro and then his younger brother raul controlled cuba for nearly 60 years. now, as william brangham reports, a younger generation the helm amid re-ignited tensions with the united states. brangham: applause echo throughout cuba's national

assembly, as 86-year-old raul castro handed e presidency to his hand-picked successor. after six decades of rule over the island nation,oday marked the end of cuba's castro era, but not its legacy. in his first speech as cuba's new head of state, miguel diaz- canel pledged to carry on e socialist revolution led by his predecessors. >> ( translated ): socialist l nation, we will be faith the exemplary legacy of the commander in chief fidel castro ruz, historic leader of our revolution and also to the t exampl value and teachings of armed force general raul castro ruz. >> brangham: though raul castro will remain head of the communist party, the island's most powerful post, 57-year-old diaz-canel represents a new generation of cuban leaders. its a generation that wasn't even alive during the 1959 cuban revolution, led by fidel castro which ousted the u.s.-backed government of fulgencio batista, and instituted a socialist state of his own.

fidel's alliance with the sovieo quickly made the island an epicenter of cold war tensions.o the next five decades, fidel expanded state control over cuban life and cracked down on political dissent.w as shortages g the island, fidel blamed the u.s. trade embargo. then in 2008, an ailing fidel officially handed the presidency to brother raul. raul oversaw a dramatic turn in u.s.-cuban relations: the two nations nounced the re- tablishment of diplomatic ties. in march 2016, then-president obama be in nearly 90 years to visit the island. months after fidel's death in november 2016, president trump rolled back some obama-era efforts to ease restrictio on u.s. businesses and travel to cuba. then-first vice president diaz- canel ot back, echoing fidel's defiance in a speech, saying, "cuba will not make concessions to its sovereignty and independence, nor negotiate its principles or accept the imposition of conditions."

the trump administration also expelled 15 cuban diplomats, and cut staff at the u.s. embassy in havana by more than half. this, after 24 americans, including many diplomats, were stricken with mystery illnesses. today, raul blamed the trump administration for deteriorating u.s.-cuban relations. meanwhile in washington, officials in the administration and on capitol hill id they don't expect cuban citizens will have any greater freedoms underi new leader. the "new york time's" azzam ahmed has been watching these developments from cuba, and he joins me now from havana. azam, this is obviously an enormous day, the end of the castro era. i think for so many americansnd castro a cuba have been synonymou what is the mood like there? what is the feel like in cuba today? >> it's sort of a strange namic because as you said, cuba's been synonymous with the castss for the lat 60 years, oet on the streets there's not people gathered und television or talking about it

in the streets, it's almost layers of apathy that have kind of taken over and it seems almost as it's beenhis very managed process. it happened in the national assembly, on natnal television, but it's almost as continuation of sta passing on to the new leader. >> brangham: who is the new >> the people from the u.s. embassy have not met with him. he worked in a province about 5 hours outside of havana and the people there largely responded well to him. he was a relatively modern thinker. he was for instance a major ldvocate of one of the first sort of gay cubs to open up in the community even at a time when people were protesting it. he road his bike to work, an anecdote that gets shared, whenv

he could ridden in an air conditioned car around his province. his jobs are sort of governors some way ad strait an entire area which gives them a lot of autonomy, like a governor in the united states, awe ton pi of sense how to govern. and he was a minister of higher education, after which he became rauúl castro's hand-picked successor. >> brangham: what is yor sense overwhat cubans want out of a new presi tnt? >> i thiy want more private sector, more investment, more opportunity on the street. if you ink about it,e last ten years have been this incredible amount of historic change. fidel castro stepped down, rauúl came into place. he put in changes, creation of private ctor, foreign investment, the opportunity for cubans to leave and come to the island it doesn't feel so historic to the people.

it's people talking about this in big ways but they don't feel it in the day in and day out. >> brangham: do you have a ense of what this new president and hismergence in power mights mean for cuba relations? >> president trump has taken a diffsent stance from hi predecessor about how to act and talk about cuba. this is a president who nev fought in a revolution, was born a year after the revolution ended, so he's someone who fought for the these are and the ideals of the revolution without the heritage of hing been a guerilla, so i think he will have the less space to do the things his predecessor did who bore the name of castro and was harder to push back against. even rauúl castro had pushback o some of the reforms he wanted to make. not everyone was happy about opening relations with the united states. so someone who is his

hand-picked successor, who doesn't have his historic legitimacy but has it because rauúcastro says he does, has less flexibility to enabout the changes that a lot of cubans want. >> brangham: azam ahmed, thank w y druff: we keep our focus on the caribbean. seven months after hurricane maria devastated puerto rico and its power grid, the entire island lost power yesterday. in fact, crews are still workint to restore ecity to the full island today. amna nawaz explores how it's raising questions once again about the adequacy of those efforts. >> nawaz: while the latest blackout affecting more thanre million residents is the biggest since september, there have been periodic problems witc icity on the island. less than a week ago, more thane 850,00le lost power. yesterday's hit came after a subcontractor removing a tower got too close to a high voltage line. it went out of service and triggered a shutdown. but even as most streets and

homes went without, some useds, backup generatnd there were generators for a special baseball game last night between the cleveland indians and the minnesota twins. the latest episode raises many questions again, and our special correspondent, monica villamizah who has covereproblems there, joins us once again. monica, welcome. >> thanks. would have been reportg on this painfully slow pace recovery ever since hurricane maria hit. .ow does this keep happening, everyone wonde >> that's a great question. puerto ricans are being asked to sort of be patient and understand at least by the power utility company, they keep on asking everybody, be patient and understand, but generating electricity and distributing it to everybody is very difficult and our infrasucture wa december made by maria. but if you stop to think, puerto ricans are saying how can we be patient after, you kno not having electricity for months on end? many people still today do not have power and how can it be so

complicated? the truth of the matter is, in all fairness, it is com and the grid was very poorly damaged but also if very bad conditions. they have a massive transmission problem right now which means it's really fragile and unstable. so if you will, if you're knock down a tor, how can it throw a whole island into darkness. that's not normal in other countries. in puerto rico it's hngappe because that was the system put in place and the powerrer grid is observe iread and th their situation. >> so a bad problem decimatedd de worse by a category 5 storm months ago. who has the autrity to fix it? >> that's a great question and what we have been seeing, a political blame game. the power utility company blames fema. fema blames the corps of engineers. puerto ricans blame the trump administration. everybody is going to bla everybody, but in the end, the

island is bankrupt, there is no money and to fix this enormous problem is going to take billions and billions of dollars that the island does not have.fa so they'rng a very serious situation which is fixing a massive prblem, fixing it soon because, remember, hurricane season is going to start again and in the meantime all the local authorities and politicians throwing blame around. in the end, everybody is to blame in a way, but what they have to do andat wh lot of people are telling me now is they want to look at local authorities and pass that to ty to sort of own the situation, as you say, and, you know, make something better for the island, really. try to, you know, construct the future themselves. >> and what about people on the ground, what are they telling you? how do ethey fel about all this time and where they are today? >> in thee beginningwe first reported in puerto rico, the generalized feeling was we are american citizens and being treated as second-hand citizens by the trump administration, ctively, because the response to our hurricane wasn't

the same as we saw in florida or texas, for instance, and thrfs no sense of urgency, but wewe , you know, here dying and hungry and being affected. it's sort of sightly shifted now, and i think they're looking to their local authorities, t the governor, to the mayor, et cetera, like, what are you goinxto do to our problems because, you know what? in the end, they say they don't have education because of all the restructuring and the consolidations of schools, et cetera, they don't havey education, tn't have power and they don't have health, so when a government is notg providat, it's somewhat t's whenand raw and th people are going to start asking more of their local authorities beand local leaders cause they really need solutions to urgent problems, and theituation they're facing right now is we stay here and make things better or we have to leave to the mainland. >> and with hurricane season around the corner they need those solutions fast. monica vis lamizar, thar being here.

thanks for having me. now, america's growine deficit. it's one of president trump's main arguments for imposing tariffs on china. but what about the argument that the trade deficit benefits our economy? our correspondent ul solman explains, part of his series, "making sense," which airs every thursday on the newshour. >> so all wee doing is imposing tariffs, t to punish china, but to recover, let me be clear about this, but to recover the $50 billion a year in damages ey inflict upon this country by engaging in these practices. >> reporter: that was peter navarro, president trump's economic advisor, insisting to judy woodruff rently that the threat of tariffs, taxes on chinese imports, is meant to discourage china from cheating on trade by subsidizing their companies, for example, stealing our intellectual property. the point is, they were to

knuckle under and stop cheating, china's pructs should be pricier and our economy should grow, says navarro. how? >> alright, paul, the growth of any nation is simply four things. >> reporter: it's been more than a year and a half since navarro first tried to walk you and me through the economic logic. but economists keep berating us for never giving the mainstream rebuttal. here's a reprise, hoping navarro won't mind my stealingin hillectual property.th g.d.p. itotal size of the economy in a given year. by definition, thatahas to equal "c" for that year's consumption, what we cs spent here in the u.s.; "g" for what our government spent here; i for total investment in america, a finally x minus m: x for what foreigners pay us for our expos, minus m, what we pay them for what we import from them.

the bigger the total, the bigger the annual economy or g.d.p. but the economy will shrink if there is a trade deficit, if more imports than exports, more m than x. so here's the big idea: tax the imports with tariffs and they'll become more expensive compared to homegrown products. then more of us should buy american. that would mean more u.s. jobs, the trade deficit would shrivel, the economy would thrive. doesn't sound crazy. and yet many economists, if not most, would agree instead with the doctrine of trade deficitso arguedrcibly by conservative economist milton friedman. he once jabbed his finger at me, decrying the newshour's penchant for pitting st one free trade economist against one protectionist, when within the discipline the ratio was 10 to one in favor of free trade. of course politicians were noth betterking a favorable balance meant a trade surplus,

nft a defici but a surplus is uorable, he g argued in oliny video. >> that means we're sending out more goods and getting fewer in. each of you in youolprivate houswould know better than that. you don't regard it as a faverable balance, when you to send out more goods to get less coming in. >> reporter:o by trading dollars for goods, we, as consumers, benefit from a trade deficit. and there's another way we benefit. the chinese and others lend us money to help buy chinese stuff. remember, we don't just run a trade deficit, but also a budget deficit, uncle sam spending more than he takes in, year after year. the latest projection is that by 2020, it will top a trillion dollars. not,to cover the budget defi sam borrows, giving investors" treasuries," i.o.u.'s, in exchange for cash. but since american investors

don't save enough to buy all the treasuries, foreigners do much of the lending, to the point that they now own about a third of our $21 trillion cumulative debt. t china has be main buyer of late. so when we run a trade deficit with china, they accumulate dollars. they don't just stuff them under the mattress. they lend them back to us, in exchange for our treasuries. tsd that's the second reason a trade deficit benes: chinese dollars help keep our taxes down. so we can keep consuming on credit-- consuming, among other things, chinese goods. for the pbs newshour, making sense correspondent paul solman. >> woodruff: now the pilot inar of that emergency landing

of a southwest airlines jet this week. southwest flight 1380, traveling from new york city to dallas on tuesday, had to land in philadelphia 20 minutes after takeoff. one of the engines had exploded in mid-air, sending metal fragments into the wing and cabin. passenger jennifer riordan died after a nearby window shattered and she was pulled halfway out the opening while other passengers tried to save her. most of the 148 other people on the plane were not hurt, and pilot tammie jo shults, a former navy pilot, was praised for how she handled the emergency. here is some of shults' communication with air traffic control.

>> woodruff: and our science correspondent, who is also an aviation expert, miles o'brien joins me now. so, miles, i think everybody who was on that plane who has been talking to the press has been saying how grateful they are to the piot tammie jo shults. i mean, remarkable calm. just how difficults it to fly a plane under those circumstances? >> judy, the awful lot going on at once, two

major emergencies smultaneous, a presumed engine fire, the loss of an engine, all that goeons with that, and an explosive rapid decompression, all that goes alng with that. those are two emergencies that flight crews train for and lear by memory w do, and they had to sort through those checklistsimultaneously while, all at once, the aircraft steeply banking to the left h degrees because to havee loss of thrust and the extra drag caused by the explosion the engine, and on top of that having to get down as quickly as possible to an altitude of 10,000 feet where the air is thick enough for people breathe and, yet, what you hear on the radio on the other side of that cockpit door was as routine as it gets -- calm, cool, collected tammie jo shults proved what a great pilot she is. i suspect, given her navy background, she's been ine som tight situations.

landing an f-18 on an aircraft carrier at night in bad weather is not for faint of heart, but this was certainly no walk in the park and she did it perfectly. >> woodrf: well, a lot of people are enormously grateful to her. ncles, that navy training really can make a diffefor a pilot, can't it? >> yeah, a lot of people have been making comparisons to sul sullenberger and his landing a feyears back. both these pilots were trained by the military, the sullenberger's case the air force, in tammie jo shults' case thnaviy. for years airlines have benefited by essentially free training bthe military, and it matters when the chips are down as we saythe other da in philadelphia. as time goes on, fewer pilots are moving into the airline world, fewer in general and fewer pitts in the military. the military is hanging on to them longer because it's

expensive to lose them. the civilian training doesn ite match the military training in some respects and you have to wonder, as we look toward the future of airline flying, if the civilian training may want to up its game a bit. >> woodruff: miles, the faa is saying it's ordering inspectionf ngines looking for metal fatigue, talk about the significance of that. >> what's most significant is there is a hauntingly parallel incident, same airlines, same aircraft in august 2016, the only difference is nobody got the ait got on the ground crhurt. safely but exactly the same thing happened with metal fatigue as the cause and that fan blade being spit out like a, ast piece of shrapnel. subsequent to that, the manufacture of the eine cfm which is a joint venture between g.e. and safran sent ouat service bulletin to the airlines

who had these engines and said you probably should coultrasound testing of the fan blades to make sure there are no cracks because they're not nessarily visible. southwest was among the airlines who thid they resistedt call and said they needed more time to do it and hadn't done the inspections. if truth is, if the faa and n.t.s.b. had acted quickly after the first event in august 2016, this event may not have happened. >> woodruff: you're saying southwest and other airlines resisted? >> they did. you knw, the airline biness is a profit-making business and the fact of the matter is safysy alosts money, and this particular event, as troubling as it should have beenen its own in august 2016, was not treated with the urgency i think it should have. mo woodruff: well now it is certainly gettin attention, a lot more attention. miles o'brien, we thk you as always. >> you're welcome, judy.

>> woodruff: now, the first of a two-part series looking at the world's soon-to-be most populous country and the challenges of food production. with a growing migration to cities, there is concern india might not be able to produce enough food to feed its people. ecial correspondent fred de sam lazaro reports on onep' greffort to restore rural land and communities. it's part of his series, agents for change.>>eporter: on a hot n on the farm, parthibaraj says nothing quenches your thirst more than fresh coconut water. pais 26-year-old was on a path most rural indiants dream for their children: an education and an i.t. job in the city, far more lucrative than most.arming in ind first class. but despite earning a master's degree, parthibaraj came back tn his family farural tamil

nadu about six months ago. thoffice cubicle life in information technology became unbearable, he says.ed >> ( transl ): i worked six days a week, 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m., there was a lot of pressure, very little respect. >> reporte i had a six pack, he says, but the sedentary job and poor diet turned it into a... >> family pack.y >> reporter: bming back home, he's an outlier in a country that's seen robust economic growth, but almost all of it in urban areas. india will soon become the rld's most populous country but you wouldn't know it walking in the rural areas, which have been emptying out in a rapid urbanization. so even though this country's population overall is young, average age just 29, the average age of an indian farmer today is 50. >> i think even without climate change, india faces a great challenge because of theop increasingation and limited land available for

agorculture. >> rr: jagannathan srinivasan is a climate scientist at the indian institute of science i booming high tech capital, bangalore. >> all of us have seen in the last 50 years in bangalore large amount of agricultural land becoming apartments. yeah, that is a serious concern >> reporter: indian cities continue to spread into the countryside, with high-risehe apartments forrowing new middle class. but the majority of urban migration is into urban slums, by subsistence farmers uble to make a living on land degraded by years of neglect and misuse-- the overuse of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and deforestation that causes erosion. >> about 50 years, no public investment went into restoring these landscapes. that is a serious, serious harm or neglect. >> reporter: jagdeesh rao started a group called foundation for ecological security, which has worked to fix that neglect.

he brought me to an area about two hours outside bangalore that had languished for years, says farmer t.v. srinivasa. >> ( translated ): there was no water in the tanks, there was no water for livestock, ninfodder he commons lands. we'd work here in the rainy season but when it didn't rain or in drought we had to go to bangalor we went to the city for at least six months of the year. >> rep ter: rao's group, supported by corporate, foundation and some government grants, began organizing farm communities. groups of neighboring villages gotiated with governmentor authities to replant public forestlands felled for timberd mmons areas-- land not titled to anyone but technically in government control. across rural india, rao says millions of acres of the commons lands have been classified as wasteland and neglected. rao's organization foundation for ecological security arrangeg to useernment employment

program intended to relieve rural suffering to restore infrastructure, mostly to clear canals and ponds that had long dried up as silt from deforested land flowed down. if we would ve come here five, 10 years ago, what would this landscape look like? >> there wouldn't have been any water here. those trees that you see there would have been stunted saplings because there's no effective governance. there's fodder, which five or seven years ago there wouldn't have been anything. >> reporter: with reforestation, now when it rains water flows from the hills, instead of sand or silt.ho the result iing ponds that actually hold water year round. that serves livestock and also replenishes surrounding soil, orrao says, producing brus vegetation that can feed larger animal herds in the commons land. suter left over is distributed and shared by cons the foundation also brings communities together in exercises to plan ahead: how

much water is available and can it cer the crops individual farmers want to plant. ifot, they must reach hard decisions; plant less thirstyan crops or just less. >> the crux is in actually bringing people together so they manage the land together so that they develop the own rules, regulations, responsibilities, punishments, rewards. you just have to rely on nature's potential to heal itse, the second thing you need to rely on is the power of people to collaborate. >> reporter: so far rao's foundation has worked in some 13,000 villages across india, affecting about eight million people. he says in time, government officials who may have been wary at first, have come to see the group as an ally: one that helps them deliver results, such as there are concerns about equity, whether larger growers will take more than a fair share but these farmers say they're not worried.

>> ( translated ): the village has hired an irrigator whose job is to make sure that the water is distributed fairly across all the farms. he is paid by all the farmers. >> reporter: and they say having water year-round and good s il quality haowed migration to cities and in some cases erompted the reverse for, literally, greenastures here-- a chance to go beyond subsistence farming. 28-year-old venkat narayana has a college degree but says he didn't nd it to do the math. >> ( translated ): iulthe city, i probably make around 20,000 rupees a month but here i make about 50 to 60,000 wolsing with ani i work two hours in the morning and two hours in thevening i'm in my village near my family, i'm free and i don't have to >> reporter: with an income of about $800 a month, many times the rural indian average, he and his newlywed bride, bhagalakshmi say they can live happily ever after, tending a growing herd ot 11 holsteinst produce about

50 liters of milk each day. meanwhile, parthibaraj, the software engineer who decided not to join the urban middle class nonetheless hopes to cash in on one of its growing demands: organic food. he's raing fish in this pond and will soon plant rice, beans lentils and some vegetables. wn ( translated ): we have eggs, vegetables for ourse so we don't need to buy those. i've also sold a goat recently and some fish. it will take some timehe business to develop and grow. >> reporte the income isn't yet what he was making in thee city in thcrative software engineering eld, but it's a shot at a lifestyle he's wanted since he was a kid, running o arouthe family farm, pursuing the goats and now, that abdominal six pack. for the fred de sam lazaro in rural tamil du, india. >> woodruff:red's reporting is a partnership with the undertold stories project at the

university of st thos, in minnes >> woodruff: author meg wolitzer has a habit of tapping into the cultural moment. her latest book asks big questions about women's power and feminism in the time of #metoo. jeffrey brown has this latest edition of the newshour bookshelf. >> brown: in her first months of college a young woman has a harrowing encounter with a male student and life changing one with an older renowned feminist writer and activist. the new novel "the female persuasion" is about friendship, womanhood, ambition and power and addresses issues very much of this moment. author meg wolzer joins me now. welcome to you. >> thank you. >> brown: so right off the bat this book we have an encounter that one can't help feel the kind of moment that we're in.ri but you wereng before all

that.th >> wele old issues. i mean issues around female power misogyny the treatment of women. how do youake meaning in the world these are all issues that i've been thinking about and writing about for a very, very long time. >> brown: this is a story sang about an education of a young woman and her peers and also about different generations of women and how they see each other. >> you know there's a second wave feminist and younger women whare feminists. and i was thinking so much about my childhood and my mother who is a novelist named enm a waltzer was growing up. she hadn't been to college when she was young and her parentra didn't enc her in a big way. she was helped so much by theme s movement. and i saw that happen a it in my home. i started a consciousness raising girls part of one and continued it wn i was in junior high school and we were so earnest and we wrote away to the national organization for women asking for a list of topics and they gave us a list that included things like sexual fulfillment and you when we urwanted things like when parents won't listen.

but we were these budding feminists and it was exciting and i thought about the different generations and i'm very moved by how different people come to make that kind of meaning. >> brown: where do you get the ideas inspirations models for people in the things you write about. i mean what these are these are just ideas that you're that are in your head that somehow youpu out into a new novel? >> you know it's a strange kind of thing that's so hard ton. expl i have a sort of an idea or a i problem thant to kind of work on in a book and in this case some of those issues that i mentioned really show sues were there first. ea-- well one main one i would say is who is the person you meet who can change your lifeorever. there's sometimes someone when you're young who sees somethingo in you and thamay not even see in yourself but also around those other issues that i mentioned. but that one in particular occurred to me and i saw this young woman eer who is really hot faced who whenever she tries to sort of speak uher face

goes you know really, really red and hot and she can't articulate what she feels and then there's this older kind of chic renown feminist who says something in her and sort of taps her and sets her on a path that she never thought she'd be a life >> brown: but you know you know it's interesting in your case because reviewers and literary critics have often noted how you're sort of hitting the zeitgeist in various books of yours is it so. is it intentnal or is that st sort of what happens? >> i think that people's you know people say all the time right what you know but i think that really it's much more like and these are the things that i've been thinking about forever. there's one way to reaesy know what os you as a writer just look at everything you've googled for the past 24 hours which is sort of a horrifying idea for most people. in my case it would kindf be a combination of virginia woolf and does this mole look suspicious so i don't think that eeose are good novels but other things that i'vethinking they are very i can't help you think about her characters as well it's true because these ideas and then i saw these

people i saw this olde charismatic woman and she kind of steps up and says i'll take those ideas and thathe who you leftook in. >> brown: why is fiction a good way to do that? beyond that i know i asked some writers and they sailiwell i'm a no write fiction. but what's your answer for me? >> look at this moment we're in it's theoment of hot takes and people sort of in a fever about ideas and kind of putting things into the 24 hour news cycle. i kind of think of myself as the master of the warm take. i love the intimacy of a novel and how it lets you get to know people. it doesn't have answers at least my novels don't. i just want to kind of let them unschool and say what is it like. what is it like for men right now what is it like for young women. what is it like for these older women who came of age in a different world. and my novels i hope just show a little bit of what is it like >> brown: you know in e world of literature, especially in discussions of big social novels of the kind that you're writing and a lot of the discussion has

been around the lack of recognition of women writers and you yourself have participated contributed to that in your own writings thinking about it. where are we now? i rote an essay in the "new york times" called the second shelf which was kind of a pun in the second sex and i tatked about ort of different levels of recognition that thterary men literary women had received and one othings that i talked about was book covers and how sometimes and it's sometimes there of course exceptions to this a book by a k n might have big bold typeface that said this b an event and a book by a woman might sometimes have what i joking called a cover that you could call a little girl in a field of eat and the idea of imagining two men sort of standing on a train platform what's that. what's that. you're getting bill a little girl and feel the weight. i loved it. no thas not going to happen because the book cover seems to suggest that this isn't foone gender and i feel that books are for everyone. >> brown: so that's the world of

literature and then the larger world you see of me too and the kinds of issues you're writing about in this novel. >> i definitely say it it's all sort of swimming around 'r i feel like in this swirling moment. and as a novelist i just want to kind of go into a corner and keep looking at things and it's not a definitive thing. i mean this can't be the novelto of the movement it can't be. i wanted to. these are timeless issues as well as being timely. we've been talking about them forever. >> brown: all right the new novel is "the female persuasion," meg wolitzer, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: next, we turn to another episode of our weeklyta brief but splar series where we ask people about their passions. tonight, composer and artist samora abayomi pinderhughes. he has written for such artists he h performed everywhere fr the white house to carnegie

hall. pinderhughes latest project is called "the transformation suite." >> tooften for me, music ends up being about the show and then people clap and they might talk about itnd then they go home. that makes no sense to me.ur i want to makethat if somebody is moved by my music, that's going to make them live differently. jazz is protest music, pure and simple. jazz is music that came from the gutter, from the hood. jazz is in and of itself as an improvisatory art form. literally represents the idea of imagination in the moment. i believe that the artist's responsibility, like nina simone used to say, is to reflect the times. i think that if we look at movements throughout history, rere's always been music the movement. and those are my favorite tists, harry belafonte, bob

marley, marvin gaye, they capture the esnce of the moment. what we do as artists is we move people and so if we ca people in service of moving a nation, towards an idea like justice for something or someone, then that is my responsibility. harry belafonte talked to me about all the people in the invil rights movement bein their 20s and making all these incredible things happened because th's their energy, ey're vitality, their imagination. it's my generation's time to take responsibility, to take ownership of ourorld. it's very important you know, for me being african-amecan, mix race artist and person to illuminate the issues that a present in today's world around police brutality, around incarceration, to hopefully be able to move forward in a way that is really equitable and just for all people. the "transformations suite" is a five-part tone poem combining

music, theater and poetry, to diamine the history of african protest both in thpora and specifically in america.♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ every time we play the "transformations suite," it's a different performance because every city that we go, i ask the members of that community or the members of that school, what are the things that is-- that are going on here that you find what are the things you're fighting against or for, and then we put that in the music.i anink a lot of people feel like me as far as the urgency of the moment, that we don't have time to waste. so that's what i iean when i saon't have time for anything but urgency in my art. we really don't have time for thiss a society. my name is samora abayomi pinderhugh, and this my brief but spectacular take on my responsibility as an artist.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> woodruff: you can watch additional brief but spectacular episodes at pbs.org/newshour/brief.he and that'sewshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and reihan salam. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> kevin. >> kevin! >> kevin. >> advice for life. life well-planned. learn more at raymondjames.com. >> babbel. a language app that teaches real-life conversatiin a new language, like spanish, french, utrman, italian, and more. babbel's 10-15 mlessons are available as an app, or online.

more information on babbel.com. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporatron for publiccasting. 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

welce to the future. pbs digital. fu tuku we're the history detectives, and we're going to investigate some untold stories from america's past. this week, does this all-american tape player have a secret link to hitler's germany? gwendolyn: did this famous study all-aof the roman empire lead an american senator to predict the civil war more than a decade before the first shots were fired? if this toy mouse is nam mickey, walt disney may have some explaining to do. elvis costello: ♪ watchin' the detectives ♪ i get so angry when the teardrops start ♪ e ♪ bcan't be wounded 'cause he's got no heart ♪