captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: gjud evening, i'm woodruff. on the newshour tonight, travel ban at the supreme court-- we breakdown the arguments testing the limits of president trump's authority and get response from sally yates, who lost her job by refusing to then, new details raise serious questions about mr. trump's pick to head vetens affairs. and, miles o'brien gets exclusive access inside facebook to revl how the social media giant struggles with the problem of false news. >> one of the issues we face is that misinformation is often very engaging. so, people don't create a lot of fake boring stories. in general, if they're going to go through the trouble of creating a fake story, it's about something really inresting and exciting. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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>> supportthe john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcatring. and by cutions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. oo >>uff: now, it's up to the d s. supreme court. president trump's bar travel from muslim nations went before the justices today. jeffrey brown begins our >> brown: crowds of protesters grew outside the supreme c trt, as insid justices heard arguments on the third version of president trump's travel ban. the state of hawaii challenged the policy, and argued it

unconstitutionally discriminates against people from five muslim- majority countries >> can we have a president that says, in the terms he has, things like, "a complete and total shutdown" of muslim immigration should happen in our united states? our nation was founded on a different premise. >> brown: the chalnge cited then- candidate trump's own words, from 2015, after terrorist attacks in france. >> donald j. trump is cal ing for a tond complete shutdown of muslims enteng the united states until our >> brown: lar, as president, mr. trump also re-tweeted anti- muslim posts from britain. regardless, the justice department argued today the ban is not based on religion. white house press secretary sarah sanders followed up. >> the focus of this travel ban has been on safety and security. s 's limited to small number of countrd a lot of muslim-

or brown: the issue has followed a winding courseore than a year. president trump signed his first travel ban order, one week after taking office. it blocked most people from iraq, iran, libya, somalia, sudan, yemen and syria from enorring the united states f 90 days, and indefinitely banned entry for all syrian refugees.up chaos d at airports where newly arriving travelers were detained, followed by a wave of protests. as i made a determination that i believed that itnlawful. >> brown: acting attorney general sally yates refused to defend the ban, and president trump quickly fired her. eventually, key provisions of the policy were blocked in federal co and three other states filed suit. less than a month later, the trump administration announced a cond travel order. it included six of the same muslim-majoritty countries, left out iraq. it also dropped the indefinite ban on syrian refugees, and allowed individuals with valid

visas to enter the country.at ersion, too, was largely blocked by a federal judge, this time ihawaii. >> an unprecedented judicial overreach. >> brown: the administration again appealed, and the president lashed out. in june 2017, the u.s. supreme court said the second travel ban could take effect, while it waited to hear the case. then, in september 2017,an president trumunced a third order, as the second was set to expire. y is time, it included five of the muslim-majoruntries from the second ban, while adding chad, north korea at some governmficials from venezuela. chad was eventually dropped from thlist. hawaii, among other states, went back to urt. last december,he supreme court allowed this latest version of the ban to take effect, pending today's arguments and a final decision. that decision is expected by june.

for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: we'll hear some of toy arguments before the supreme court, after the news summary. in t day's other news, the white house criticized a federal court ruling in favor of daca, the program that protects young migrants from deportatio a spokesman called it "extraordinarly broad and wrong." last night, a judge in washington ordered the administration to resume taking new applications under daca, in 90 days. previous rulings applied only to renewal requests. french president emmanuel macron went before the u.s. congress today with a message on leadership, iran, climate, trade and more. was all aimed squarely president trump. lisa desjardins has our report.s >>rdins: the french leader walked into the house chamber with clear challenges to thean trump ernationalist waves across the world.

a>> you can play with fea angers for a time, but they do not construct anything. >> desjardins: macron warned against going it alone, or turning a blind eye toward world problems >> we can choose isolationism, withdrawal and nationalism. but closing thdoor to the world will not stop the evolution of the world. >> desjardins: instead, the french president said now is the time to stabilize nato and other ternational institutions he also urged the u.s., again, to remain in theran nuclear agreement. macron acknowledged the deal is not perfect. but he advocated keeping it in place and negotiating additional measures. >> but we should not abandon it without having sometng substantial and more substantial instead. that's my position. (applause) >> desjardins: mainly democrats applauded. but macron cares most about an audience of one, president

trump, who yesterday called the iran deal "insane." to bring mister trump on board, macron suggests a supplementalen agreon iran's ballistic missile program and regional influence similarly, president trump's withdraw from the paris accord on climate change was a targetr cron. >> i am sure that one day, the united states will come back anr join the parisment let us face it: thero planet b. (applause) >> desjardins: another seeming difference with president trump: trade. onth parties clapped as ma denounced tariff and trade wars. >> at the end of the day, it will destroy jobs, increase prices and the middle class will ha to pay for it.in >> desja the address to congress was macron's last major

stop on a three-day visit to the u.s. for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: the preside of iran issd a fresh warning to the u.s. today, not to quit the 2015 nuclear agreement. hassan rouhani insisted his government will not renegotiate, even one sentence. and, he mocked president trump's criticism of the deal. >> ( translated ): he says this deal is a very bad deal. well, if it is a very bad deal, then why did the u.s. government sign it? you don't have any background in law. you have any background on international treaties. how can a tradesman, a building constructor, make judgements about international affairs. >> woodruff: the back-and-forth comes as european leaders are trying to work out additional restrictions on iran that would satisfy president trump. back in this country, a federal grand juryuth carolina has gldicted 14 state prison employees for smg drugs, cellphones and other contraband to inmates. state officials say phones, in particular, can help prisoners plotprisings.

just last week, a prison riot in bishopville killed seven inmates. it was sparked by rivas fighting over turf. the u.s. military says reports ar sexual assaults in the services jumped 10 percent in 2017. me came as the "me-too" mo put a spotlight on sexual misconduct, and a scandal involving online nude photos rocked the u.s. marine corps. the marines had the largest increase in assault reports, at nearly 15%. an independent commission lled today for sweeping reforms to end corruption in college basketball. it proposed an end to "one-and- done"-- players turning pro after their freshmen year. that would mean changing n.b.a. rules. the commission also urged lifetime bans for college coaches who cheat. former secretary of state condoleeza rice chaired the panel. in indianapolis today, she appealed to school presidents

and coaches. >> these are the people who are most responsible for giving these young men a chance to achieve a college education and a college degree. and frankly, some have given in instead to incentives to win at all costs. oodruff: the commission was formed in the wake of a federal investigation into a bribery and corruption in college basketball. onpublicans in arizona hel to a u.s. house seat in tuesday's special election, but it was close. the g.o.p. debbie lesko beat democrat hiral tipirneni by five points, in a district president trump carried by 21 points. tlesko succeeds congressmnt franks, who resigned over sexual misconduct allegations. housing secretary ben carson is out with a proposal to change rents in public housing. if congress agrees, it could mean some two million families will pay more, possibly triple what they pay now.

another two million-plus households, the elderly and disabled, would be exempt. the proposal also allows for requiring tenants to work for their benefits. and on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average gained 59 points to close at 24,083. the nasdaq fell three points, and the s&p 500 added five. and, his family says former president george h. w. bush is improving, and has moved out of intensive care at a houston hospital. the 93-year-old is being treated for an infection that spread to. his bl he was hospitalized a day after the funeral for his wife, barbara. still to come on the newshour: we breakdown the arguments over the travel ban at the supreme court. i sit down with the former acting attorney general sally yates. pres embattled veterans affairs nominee, and much more.

>> woodruff: we return to the arguments at the supreme court today over the constitutionality of president trump's travel ban. marcia coyle of the "national law journal" was inside the court and is here with me now. so, marcia, welcome. this is such a watched set of arguments before theourt. people have been talking about this, anticipating it for montt . tell us wre the main concerns that were discussed today. >> judy, the justices really are focused on three key isses before the court, and that is did president trumexceed his authority under federal immigration law in issuing this proclamation, or travel ban? did the travel ban itslf discriminate under federal immigration law on the basis of national-- nationality, or, also, under the constitution, on the basis of religion?

so that's where we saw the bulk of the questions go to both lawyers who argued today. >> woodruff: so we do have n odd yoi excerpt from the court. you were just reminding me that these asare rele, typically at the end of a week, but in this case, beuse this is a big one that everybody is looking at, they released it today shortly after-- >> yes, a lot of interest in this case. >>woodruff: so this is a excerpt of justice kennebunkpors asking questf noel francisco, representing the trump administration. kennedy dr

>> wf: so, mas marcia, what's the significance of that exchange? >> judy, the president's campaign statement, hispo election statements and his tweets on twitter have focused a lot in the lower courts as they try to determine whether this travel ban's real purpose or motivation is animous towardsmu im countries, not national security concerns or foreign policy crnlz. mr. katyal, neal katyal, who was representing the state of hawaii and the travelers of the travel

ban, said these statements are relevant to making that decision as to whether the travel ban-- motivatithe rea behind the travel ban. what weight the court gives to those statements we don't know yet. some judges have felt you shouldn't look at them, that campaign statements are campaign statements. but those-- there are other judges who feel that you have to look at them in order to determine whether there was animous at work here. >> woodruff: and, i mean, they got right to it. at one point justice kennedy saying whatever he said in the campaign is irrelevant?" >> solicitor general francisco is basically sayiitng, yeahs irrelevant, because you look-- first, you lookt the text of the proclamation, and then, also, you realize that government officials take an oath to defend and protect the cotitution, and they arenot going to issue this as a result of discrimination or animous. er woodruff: so now we have another exc.

now, this is just alito questioning neal katyal, who, as you pointed out, is the attorney represting the state of hawaii, challenging the travel ban.

>> woodruff: so significance of this one. r >> we'ht back to the president's statements and tweets. mr. katyal also pointed out how postelection, president trum retweeted three very virulent anti-muslim videos, and he responded to additional questions along the line of-- from the chief justice, is there any kind of statute of limitations on these campaign statements? and mr. katyal said the president could have repudiated the statements he made but he ver did. he embraced them, and that is further evidence of animous. judy, there also is a very serious question and exchange throughout the arguments about

the power and authority of the president. you had justices sotomayor and ginsberg saying congress has set out a scheme to deal witseh the sorts of situations. congress makes immigration lawsa justice sotr asked, "what gives the president the authority to do more than what congress has said is adequate?" god mr. francisco, the rnment's lawyer, said that the president has the authority under immigration law to supplement what congress did. mr. katyal sayshe di't supplement. he has supplanted what congress does, and congress uses caots, not sticks. no other president, according ko mral, in the last 100 years has enacted such a broad band on entry into the united states. >> woodruff: >> woodruff: so, marcia, much of the commentary coming after the courtroom arguments today was that, well, the justices seemed, themmajority of t,

seemed to be leaning in favor of the government. we know that you can neverse predict on this. you've told us that 100,000 times, but what did you hea today? >> it seemed as though certainic ju were more sympathetic to the government. justice alito seemed that way.u ght take some of the chief justice's questions that way as well. whereas, justices more on the liberal end of the bench, were mr. sympathetic to mr. katyal. but, i will say, this judy, i think it could be a very close decision. i don't predict someone like justiceo kennedy has a real concern about religious discrimination throughout his jurisprudencw so i think il be very close. maybe that's what i'll rest on, a very close decision. >> woodruff: all right, we have you on the record, marcia coyle, it's going to be close. >> it's going to be close. >> wood: rurcia coyle of the "national law journal," thank you. >> my pleadsure, y. >> woodruff: and we are joined

by sally yates who worked at the justice department for two decades. she served aeps theuty attorney. and then for 10 days, last january, yates served as acting attorney general, until the administration fired her over her refusal to defend the president's first travel ban. sally yates, welcome to the newshour. >> thank you for having me. >> woodruff: so you made a stand. it was over a year ago. you said you were not going to defend theirst tral ban. we're now on the third version of that travel ban. the justices are taking a look at it. could you defend this one? >> well, they've made some important changes to this travel ban. vethink the president has described this tban as a watered down version of the first one. for example, in the first travel ban,toit applie people who were lawful permanent residents and had valid visas, and i don't think anyone would seously contend today that that's constitutional. there were no waivers for individ als as they discus great length today.

there was no national security process. they jumped through a lot of those hoops now and made number of important changes. but i think you still have to ask yourself is this travel ban infected by the same animous that infeed the first one, and that is the intent to discriminate on the basis of religion? e president's intent to efctuate a muslim ba as best he could. >> woodruff: and if you were the justices how would you come down? >> well, i'm a careful lawyer. i haven't studied this one in the same way i had the first one, but i'm really concerned about that, and i would have to be convinced that somehow there is a diffent intent here, tha it's not something just dressed up better. d so far, i'm not convinced. but i haven't studied this in the same way i did the first ban. >> woodruff: well, we invited you here because youhave been spending a lot of your time recently looking at thenls of the independence of the judiciary. you're sponsoring a conferee on that subject tomorrow. and i wanted to ask you about

that, and i also wanted to ask you about some news that we jusa learned abou that is the president's attorney, michael cohen, his lawyer has informed a court in california, that cohen will assert his fifth amendment right not to iniment himself in any matter involving stormys, danistephanie clifford-- the woman who alleges she had an affair with president trump. hearing that, what does that tell you, if anything, about the course of that-- those cases? >> well, it's a course revers of sorts. from news accounts, he's been saying there wasnothing inappropriate with respect to that. and to assert the fifth amendment, you have to have a good-faith basis to believe that the truthful answers to thos questions would incriminate you in a crime. so that's what he's saying by ying he would take the fifth. >> woodruff: so it says something to you about whether he knows something or not. >> well, it certainly is an indication of that, yes. >> woodruff: so let's talk a a little bit morut that. and, again, i want to give you a

chance, first, to speak broadly about the importance of an independent judiciary as you put it. why is that important to you? >> well, you know, there are a lot of important policy issu confronting our country right now. but from my perspective, the most important isn't any one of those. you know, people of good will can have different views about the best policies. it's really the aault on our democratic institutions and norms. and that includes an independent judiciary and the rule of law and a free press, amonothers. >> woodruff: and you've said that some of that, of course, ur concern comes out of-- groagz of grows out of this administration, the president'se ed concerns that he's expressed about the robert mueller investigation, the investigation into whether there was a conneooion with during the election. what is it about what the president said that mosert co you? >> well, it's what he's been saying almost since day one here, you know. our the rule of law to actually have any meaning i country, we have to ensure that there is a division between the departmentf justice and the white house.

and, really, in goinckg administrations, republican and democratic alike, at least since watergate, there's been essentially a wall betweend. j. and the white house on criminal investigations and prosecutions, not broadbu policieson those, both to ensure that those decision aren't politicized and to ensure that the public has confidence they're not politicized. here, from the very first day, the president has done everything from repeatedly calling for the jailing of his former political rifle, reaching in to the department to try to squelch investigations of mike flynn or sheriff arpaio.nt even as rec as last week, tweeting that, essentially, that the citizens of this country shouldn't have any confidence in people who are cooerating with e government because they'll just make something up to essentially save their skins. that's a remarkable thing for the president to say about his own justice department. >> woodruff: and you've also spoken about his criticis of

rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, w of course appointed bob mueller. there have been some suggestions fire him.mig and yet, it hasn't happened yet. hae white house keeps saying, "no, it hasn'pened. the president has no intention." should that p setple's mind at ease that the white house is saying it's not something the president plans to do? >> well, it seems like we repeatedly get right up to the precipice of the presriident somebody at d.o.j., whether it's the attorney general or trying to shame him into resigning, or rod rosenstein, or the special counsel, mueller. from news reports, anyway, last week, he backe off of it onc he had been assured that he was not the target of the cohen investigation. un, that ought to worry us even more that his decisions here are situational based on whether he feels like he's in the sights of the justice department. thw's not how the rule of

is supposed to work. >> woodruff: one of the arguments the white use has made, sally yates, is, in fact, there are a number of people who vote democratic who are favorable to dwheems are working with robert muel or, onef them andrew weissman, one of the top prosecutors. this has been reyorted. he sen an email after you made the statement you would not defend the first travel ban. he was complimentary of you. he said, i'm so proud. i'm in awe." i guess the president's argument is if there are people who are already disposed not like mean d to agree with the other side,an then how i expect them to treat me fairly? >> well, you know, i think mr. weissman's email was saying he was gratified that the department was actin acting in y that he believed was consistent with the law and the constitution. that's how we shou prosecutors to think. >> woodruff: let's talk about the department of justice. you are still in touch with nt ofe at the depart justic how are they working through this? and what do you think there

reaction would be if s se attempt to disrupt this investigation? >> you know, this has been a really marred time for the fos at d.o.j., and that's been one of the things that's concerned me the most. you know, these are hardworking diligent people who are trying to call ey like of they see it, based on the fact and the law and nothing else and remarkably, they have a president lobbing assault as his own department of justice on an almost weekly basis, putting justice in quotes when he-- in one recent tweet, and calling them "shameful" d "an embarrassment," and "the f.b.i. is in tatters."at you know, t really hard when that's coming from the president of the united states. but i also have confidee that those folks are so committed to doing the right thing there that ey're going to keep their nose-- you know, their head down and just try to do their jobs. but it certainly does have an impact on public confidence and the justice department and our criminal justice system, and that's a crime in and of itself.

>> woodruff: ioinal que quickly bjames comey. we know this is part othe mueller investigation, at least we believe it is. he wrote in hbook-- and we're going to be talking to him next week-- among other things that he l you know that he w going to make an announcement toward the end of the 2016 presidential election that the investigation into hillary clinton's emas would be reopened, that you let him know you disagreed with with that decisionmut you didn't tell h not to or urge him not to. do you think retrospect that you should have done something dis erent. >> tha matter that's is under investigation by the department of justice inspector general. he'soking at mr. comey's actions and while there's a pending investigation, i'm not going to comment on at. >> woodruff: all right, we'll leave it there. sally yates, former ing attorney, thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. d

>> woodruff: nails raise further questions about president trump's pick to head veterans affairs.g john yplores some of the sticking points. >> yang: judy, today the white house stepped up its d dr. ronny jackson. press secretary sarah sanders said he had been fully checked out before president trump chose him, even as shocking new allegations emerged. we are now joined by a democratic member of that panel, senator sherrod brown of ohio. senator bro fwn, than joining us. late this afternoon, the mmittee's democratic summary of what they've been told about the allegations against dr. jackson emerged. what to you is the most troubling on it? what's the most surprising on it? >> i will emphasize it may have been the democratic staff putting this out t it's the bipartisan move by the committee, the republican chair, to dlait hearing on dr. jack son, admiral jack son, because they want to know, too what exactly happened. and senator tester, the senior

democrat and i and others on the committee are talking a lot to individual senate republicans, what they're hearing and what they're thinking. perhaps the most troubling-- thh most troublinng to me is the white house prized likeability and loyalty of dr. jackson morehan they did e ultimate issue here, and that is what's best for veterans. and this strted with firing dr. shulkin, because s dr.lkin opposed the privatization, the politicization of the v.a.it coming out of house. i think probably the most troubling single thing about dr. jackson-- and this is corroborated by enough ple-- 23 people have come forward, military or former military, talking tos-that he was so inebriated one night he went out one day and wrecked a governmen car. thingsly that, the president clearly didn't ask questions about, his staff didn't, beore he was nominated. ord this just creates chaos-- the most impnt job here is how do you take care of nine

million veterans, and they have injected this chaos into the whole upper management of the v.a., and there is-- you know, it is a leaderless institution now, a leaderless agency that takecare of nine million veterans. nt outg: i should poi that dr. jackson told reporters at the white house tharch that he denies wrrecking a and he also said that's easy to check and he's moving forward with his nomination, he said. there are also allegations in the summary that he was prescribing per ocet, anioid, to people on the white house staff, andhey were having trouble tracking it in the white house medical office. >> yeah, i mean, we hear all these things. we see this corroborated by a o numbpeople-- again, 23 people, military, active duty, or retired military or veterans who have moved on to other things-- have spoke ben these issues, this whole host of issues. they have credibility. we want to get to the m of it. but what's clear here is the

white house-- firsthy fire dr. shul kip because they wanted to politically-- they want to polit sint v.a. and privatize it. and the president seems to go along with the koch brothers will and others against what every veterans' group who have spoken out about it, whether the legion, the paralyzed vets-- all oppose the privatization of the v.a. because they know the people at top that ke money from this private company, that veterans health services and moral at the agency always suffers when do that. you start with that, but there's more chaos injected here because there's no backup plan. i mean, i talked to people thatk t the cincinnati v.a., or the dayton v.a., or the community-based clinics in ohio, and they tell you we just want a v.a. that has got a stae

management, that does predictable things, instead of this chaos with no end in sight, as dr. jackson continues ndto fl and people keep asking questions that the white house never asked. >> yang: you said the white house never asked. do you have a question about-- concerns about how well thee whuse is vetting some of these nominees? >> well, i'm concerned that they're veth at all. from my observations up close-- i have been in the white house a number of times.ed i've wathem up close. i've seen their nomination process up pretty close-- i mean, i'm not at the white house watching them do the nominations, but what happens is the president has an idea of somebody, usually based on hekeability and loyalty-- loyalty topresident, not necessarily to the people this cabinet agency person might-- person they might serve, like the veterans. ae likes them, he finds them loyal, he says hets to nominate them, and they move without staff saying, "wait a minute, mr. predent"-- like they always say in every other

white house-- "wait a minute, we need to make a l of calls to find out his background, if there are any problems, if he's had managementssues or substance abuse issues or performae issues." these 23 people we talked to, apparently none or very few of them were ea h called bythe white house. >> yang: quickly, senator, dr. jackson says he wantaise hearing soe can address these allegations. do you think he deserves a canirmation hearing so speak? >> i mean, sure. i just want something to happen quickly, and i want to get this resolved. i think, though, the deal should be if there's a hearing, that the president should have a backup plan in place now, somebody that really well vetted, that can come and run the v.a. >> yang: senator brown, sherrod brown of ohio, thank you. >> thank you so much. >> woodruff: now, we return to the rohingya crisis. last nig, we explored the plight of hundreds of thousands

of refugees trying to return home to myanmar from camps in neighboring bangladesh. more than half of those refugees are female, and among that population, young women and girls are often forced into marriage to much older men. tonight, again in partnershipr with the pulitnter on crisis reporting, special correspondent tania rashid and viographer phillip caller report. >> reporter: for the rohingya women who've fled terr myanmar, there's a brief moment of celebration. they live quin theor of a refugee camp, without sanitation or enough to eat. the mreajority of refugees are women and girls. and for girls like 13-year-old noorkais, all too often they are married off young. child marriage is common among the rohingya, but insecurity and poverty is pushing many families to marry off their daughters even earlier.

the women dance because soon young noorkais will wed a man she has never met before. >> ( translated ): if i don't get married now, i'll be too old. s they will call me a useld woman. and the community will think i'm sleeping with other men. people will tease me and talk bad things about me, so my mother is marrying me off quickly and young. >> reporter: she fled myanmar six months ago after soldiers attacked her house in khine state. >> ( translated ): it was thef middlee night and we were fast asleep at home. myl of a sudden we heard that mar troops had surrounded our neighborhood. they started shooting at us with their guns and set my house on fire. we ran away as fast as we could into the jungle. we didn't have any food or water with us and walked for 15 days through the jungle to get to bangladesh. >> reporter: despiteorrors she witnessed, she reflects on happier times back home.ed >> ( transl ): when i was younger i used to go to school.

i learnt to read and write a bit burmese and arabic. i enjoyed playing jump rope with my friends. >> reporter: noorkais's mom, hasina, says it's tradition tory marry veoung. she was married at 12 and is passing this rite of passageht down to her da. >> ( translated ): islamic law says it's a sin to send the girls to school, and the ryadition says it's compul to marry our daughters off betwn 12 to 14. >> reporr: but that is a practice that must stop, says rohingya islamic teacher abul hashem. he runs an madrasa in the camp which teaches both boys and girls. >> ( translated ): girls that get married at 12 years old end up having ry bad lives, before they get married they need a good education and understanding of the koran a girl should get married whensh is 18, when she's an adult. these rohingya muslims that marry their daughters underage

are damaginghe reputation of the community. >> reporter: girls are ofteno forced intrriage because their families can't afford to feed them and by marrying them off, they create new householdse to secure ood aid handouts from t u.n.h.c.r. rehana was married at 12 to a 30-year-old man who promised to suprter and her four sisters after her father fell ill and was unable to work. but a few weeks after the wedding she discovered the truth. >> ( translated ): my husband lied to me.he he saias from myanmar, but actually he was from bangladesh and was already married towi another woma two kids. one morning he went to work as usual and didn't come back. he's been gomo now for six hs and hasn't contacted me once. i think he's gone back to his other wife. >> reporter: rehana is sixre monthsant with his child. it is illegal for bangladeshi men to marry ringya refugee women, but there is little enforcement in the refugee

camps. >> ( translated ): i'm always in pain, my whole body aches and i find it hard toove. i chose not to have an abortion because i want my child to have a good life. i'll beg for money if i have t but i still hope my husband will return someday, so we can build our own family. >> reporter: on the morning of nurkaiis's wedding the family prepares food for the guests. her mom, hasina is cooking curry. she's pleased to marry her daughter off, it's one les mouth to feed. but nurkaiis is anxious, she sits alone, away from the family. these are her last moments as a hild. her sister, who aged 11, shays with her phone in the next room unaware thais next in line to be married. meanwhile the groom, 18-year-old habib is looking forward to trying on his new clothes bought by the bride's family. most rohingya don't have the money to buy new clo the relatives watch curiously as he gets dressed.

it's a rare sit. habib says he is excited to marry a young girl. >> ( translated ): it's much better to marry a girl when she's really young. >> reporter: he plans on havingn chilith nurkaiis as soon as possible. >> ( translated ): a woman's role is to cook and clean, to look after the children and read the quran. after marriage i will work and do my best to provide for her and if allah wants me to be a father, it wilmahappen. afteiage i'll find more peace. >> reporter: nurkaiis's aunts dress her up in her wedding clothes. she puts on a tamain, a traditionally patterned skirt and a scarf. this is the first time nurkaiis has put makeup on and sheau grimaces as he paints her face. the last step is thendation stripes across her face, thesy ol of a rohingya bride. her look is complete.

outside, the festivities continue, her uncle is dancing to rohingya songs to celebrate the wedding, while habib selects the music on his phone. the imam arrives, but the bride is nowhere to be found. her mom goes to finds her. nurkaiis is hiding in another room.>> ( translated ): hey get up! you need to get in there! >> reporter: and takes her into the main hut for the wedding. in traditional rohingya muslim weddings, the men and women sit separately. nurkaiis hangs her head. she told me she was resigned to her fate. habib also appears anxious. the imam recites a few verses from the quran, he asks the couple if they agree to be married. >> ( translated ): yes i accept. >>eporter: habib agrees, b nurkaiis doesn't utter a word. despite not agreeing, the marriage is officiated. her opinion doesn't matter. d r aunt insists she go ant with her husband.

but nurkaiis will not move. her grandmother pushes her into the room to meet her new husband for the first time. but nurkaiis could only stay there for a moment and runs away. the reality of being a wife has dawned on her. she's no longer a child but a married woman. for the pbs newshour, i'm tania rashid from the kutupalong camp in bangladesh. >> woodruff: tomorrow night, in the final part of the series, tania rashid takes us inside the disturbing world of human trafficking in bangladesh. of woodruff: now, false news, and the challengombating it. since the 2016 electe have all become more aware of the problem. initial efforts to stop it or slow it have had mixed results at best.

today, french presiden temmanuel macrd a joint session of congress false news is an "ever growing viru that threatens to "corrode the very spirit of democracy." erfacebook is front and cen all of this. tonight, miles orien begins a four-part series, spread over the next four dnesdays, about the larger problems including at lecebook, part of our weekly segment on "the ading edge" of technology. >> reporter: at facebook, the scale of everything is hard to grasp. the largest building at its headquarters in menlo park california spans a quarter mile, and sits beneath a lush, n acre rooftop park. it's vast, built into the landscape, and growing fast, ch like the force of human nature they curate inside, on the largest open floor plan in the world. >> so, this entire area is the news feed team.

>> reporter: sara su is a ger on the news feed team. she gave me a rare glimpse of the inner workings of the space on facebook where users spend most of our time. these are the trenches in becebook's btle against misinformation thaan after it hit the 2016 presidential elecon like a tsunami. >> here, we have a lot of the team that works on misinformation and working with our third party, fact checking partners to identify and take action on potentially false news. >> reporter: with more than two billion monthly active users uploading 300 million photos a day, sharing more than a half million comments a minute it is simply impossible for humans to keep up. so decisions here are made by machines running a complex formula-- an algorithm, which sarah su and her team are constantly tweaking, trying to teach the software what is false, or enticing yet

unfulfilling spam called clickbait, and then send it to the bottom of the virtual pile. >> we work really hard to come up with these techniques that can identify what is likely to be clickbait and then show it lower in people's news feeds.s if it sh lower consistently it gets lessve distributionll then spammers see less of an economic incentive and the goal is to reward the types of content that are actuly leading to good experiences and disincentive is bad. >> reporter: is that working you think? >> it is and we're doubling down on it. >> reporr: but during our visit, the team was grappling with a particularly mean- spirited piece of false news; that david hogg, a slavivor of the nd high school shootings in florida, and now gun control advocate, is a s called crisis actor. the algorithm did not flag and lower the ranking of this piece

of false news. in fact, it had gone viral and rose to thtop of trending stories. research scientist shaili jain is trying to understd why. yeah, and i supposed the other factor is once you kind of home in on whatever it may be they just change their taic, right? >> right. it's a bit of a cat and mouse game that we try to find thead guys, they enhance their strategies. >> reporter: the bad guys are constantly looking for ways to fool facebook's newsfeed algorithm, which learns in great detail what we like, and then strives to give us more of the same.>> nd we take all this content and honestly for most people on facebook, there are about 2,000 stories that you'd get all together, that total inventory of things that we might show you. >> reporter: dan zigmond is the director of analytics for the ne feed. he explained how it works. that's the average, 2,000? >> 2,000 is the average, but most people, they're only looking at about 200 and there's

some line here and most people don't scroll beyond that. >> reporter: so every item gets a ranking based onthe way you use facebook. that makes it sound more simple than it is. >> you could rank it sthat the things you're mostly likely to like are at the top. you could rank it so that the things you're most likely to comment, the things where you're most likely to spend the mostti me. and each of those rankings, we'll give you a slightly different order. >> reporter: and so they do a little bit of each-- the algorithm blends all of these criteria. what we see at the top of oured , in theory, should be a representative sampling of all the things we are interested in. d that's the rub. there mounting research that suggests in are much more likely to read, like and share mrmation because it is designed to target our emotions. >> one of the issues we face is that misinformation is often very engaging. so, people don't create a lot of fake boring stories. in general, if they're going to

go through the trouble of creating a fake story, it's about something really interesting and exciting. and so those stories can get these proptional amounts of engagement people might click more than they would click, like a more stayed kind of honest story. a little bit like eating junk food or something like that >> reporter: fiddling with this is tricky territory for facebook because its business mod depends upon engagement. tyr attention is the commo it sells to advertisers. coul couldn't it?usiness, >> well, i psonally feel really strongly that there wons be a businless we have a place where people can have good experi really think about first. >> reporter: but critics are skeptical the flood of falsehoods can be dammed by simply changing formulas. they see a fundamental conflict at facebook. >> the problem is a business model that creates incentives for you to manipulate the emotions of the user and to make them vulnerable manipulation

v third parties or bad actors. >> reporter: silicley entrepreneur roger mcnamee was an early investor in facebook and remains a stockholder. the social network's key role in spreading misinformation has turned him into a vocal critic. >> whatever provokes a religion or anti-immigrant, whatever the issue is that gets people into that emotional state, is what facebook is looking for. and so what they figured out how to do was to take the newsfeed, e core messages that you see and to tailor them to provoke the outrage cycle at a itedictable interval. >> reporter: and ps is an ideal topic to spark that outrage. the 2016 presidential election became the perfect misinformation storm, fueled by hyper-part spammers and russian trolls meddling with our democracy

and as worrisome as it iin the u.s., in many countries where fabook is the internet, authoritarian rulers have spread misinformation to incite violence against minorities and political foes. but for all the smoke it is hard to find the re. >> and so we've got to use sort of detective work and in this case sort of internedetective work to find them. >> reporter: cameron hickey is the producer of this sers. he began his career as a computer programmer. ame in handy as we start digging. >> it was really clear that in order to get a handle on it, we had to do some data journalism. and so, i started building this atol to understand the scale of the problem, loohe various places where it was coming from arst so we can understand it. >> reporter: he d by looking at some existing misinformation sites and isolated telltale patterns, including the age of the pages, the way thre content, and common terms like "outgeous," "shocking," and "unbelievable."

and then he wrote a program to help the newshour investigation he calls it newstracker, and it will soon be used by harvard university to research misinformation online. hunting for wiley spammers is akin to a game of whack-a-mole. they change their domains with erastonishing speed, but c noticed they don't change their facebook pages. after all, that is wherehey gather their audience. so he focused on facebook. >> and so, what turns out the f key ding the next source, is this woman. she is my grandmother. >> reporter: her name is betty manlove. she is an 86-year-old christian conservative, trump supporter. she lives in indianapolis. unbeknownst to her, she has liked more than 1400 partisan, hyperpartisan, spam and even russian disinformation sites. her newsfeed is filled with "junk news," as her grandson esscribes it.

were the leads he was looking for. now, after more than a year of work, newstracker is offering a real-time dashboard to better understandhe nature of the problem of junk news. >> one of the things that i discovered really early on in looking through all these junk news sites was this pair of sites, truth exaand truth monitor. >> reporter: they are virtually identites, one catering to liberals the other to conservatives. he confirmed one person owns both and began watching. then, last summer the conservative site abruptly changed gears, offering lifestyle stories instead of red meat political fare. >> and iwas at that moment where i was like, "i got to know what happened here. why did this shift happen?" i actually rched out to the publisher and called them up and said, "i want to understand what you're up to." msurprise, he responded. >> reporter: and sbegan a long, strange trip that led us to one of the most pc

purveyors of hyper-partisan content in the world-- not in macedonia or st. petersburg, closer to home, in california. in coming installments you'll meet him and cameron's grandmother, and see the problem of junk newshrough their eyes. and finally we will take you back inside facebo, to see how they are redesigning the newsfeed, employing third party fact checkers and using artificial intelligence to solve a problem that may be too hard for humans to grasp. i'm miles o'brien for the pbs newshour in menlo park, cafoia. >> woodruff: one other note: fog all of the around facebook, its ad business has not been hit just yet. the company reported today it the company reported today it earned alst $12 billion in revenue for the first three months of the year. that is dloas 5% more than it earned for the same period last year.

we also have more about the news trmeker project, and how it to be, on our website. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodrune. join us onnd again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> mor funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> consumer cellular understryds that not ee needs an unlimited wireless plan. our u.s.-based customer service reps can help you choose a plan based on how much you use your phone, nothing more, nothing less. to learn more, go to consumercellular.tv >> babbel. a language app that teaches real-life conversations in a new language, like spanish, french, german, italian, and more. >> and with the ongoing support

of these institutions and individuals. ra >> this prwas made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by c newshour productions, ptioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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