captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: imgration limbo-- republic lawmakers' attempt today to come up with an immigration fix falls flat, as children separated from their parents hang in the balance. plus, we ctinue our reports from the u.s.-mexico border with a federal judge tasked with deciding the fates of immigrant families. and making sense of e-sports: inside the economics of how th competitive video-gaming world is changing the sports landscape. >> the butiful thing about e-sports and about gam you don't have to be six-three and 220 to have a shot you don't have to be six-foot- nine to dunk. anybody can come. male, female, any race, any

gender as long as you have some basic physical functionality, it's a level playing field. >> woodruff: all that and moreig on tonht's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> consur cellular. >> financial services firm raymond james. leidos. >> and by the aled p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21stentury. ar >>gie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and ofe advancement nternational peace and security. at carnegie.org. >>

nd with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: immigration-- and the plight of separatedai families-- r"topic a" tonight in washington and at the u.s. southern border. but republicans are still divided over how to change immigration law, and more than 2,300 children are still being ld separately from their parents. congressional correspondent lisa desjardins begins our coverage. >> reporter: mix reactions

came from across the cntry today, after president trump's reversal on faly separations. from protesters in milwaukee, degry entire families will b ined... to a sense of relief from undocumented immigrants staying in a private shelterallen texas. >> ( translated ): this is good news for the hispanic community, because no one has the right to separate children from their parents, seeing so many kids aiying and asking for their moms, was simply u >> reporter: from the white house came a new outreach on the issue. first lady melania trump made a surprise visit to mcallen today, touring facilities holding unaccompanied minors, including a few who were separated from parents-- a result of her husband's immigration crackdown a the border. >> i've heard theyre very happy and they >> they love to go to school. i >> also like to ask you how i can help to these children to reunite with their families.

>> reporter: the first lady decision's to wear a jacket while leaving washington today, with writing on the back that said "i don't really care, do you?" prompted questions. but her spokesperson maintained that there was nhidden message. on her trip, mrs. trump wasal joined by azar, secretary of health and human services-- the department tasked with overseeing the children after they're apprehended by border patrol. an h.h.s. official confirmed that for now, chdren separated from parents are still going to foster care homes and facilities all across the country. as for president trump... >> we don't want to have children separated from their parents. >> reporter: he defended histi s in a cabinet meeting today but seemed to give conflicting statements on whether families would sy together. saying both this... >> i signed a very good executive order yesterday, but that's only limited-- no matter how you cut it, it leads to separation ultimately. >> reporter: and this: .s i'm directing h.h.s., d and d.o.j. to work together to

keep illegal immigrant families together during the immigration process and to reunite these previously separated groups. >> reporter: u.s. customs and terder protection stated today that it would now t to keep families together, but detained, as icontinues "to fer for prosecution adults who cross the border illegally."pe bule those who deal with the families involved are deeply concernehe they sayew order ignores those already separated. sergio garcia is a public defender in texas. >> to , it doesn't mean anything. anfor my clients, it doesn mean anything. th reporter: newshour talked with garcia about e more than 2,300 children separated from their families, asking what is the chancehat their parents will ever see them again? >> i think it's most none. and the reason why i feel like that is because there , you know as you probably know, parents who come and ask

questions about asylum, who ask questions about immigration. they're being detained right now, they're being prosecuted e turning away people wh are actually seeking information like asylum information which is a right that they have they have a right to make that claim. so i would say zero. >> reporter: still in question-- the legality of the president's executive order. tothe department of justicy asked a federal judge to change les governing immigration and customs enforcement detention facilities and allow fothe detention of immigra families who enter the country illegally to be held indefinitely for longer than the current 20 days, in an effort to keep them together. meanwhile, in the legislative branch, the house ofpr entatives voted down one conservative immigration proposal. and layed a vote until tomorrow on a republican compromise that would make the president's new policy of detaining familiesenogether perm and judy, that compromise bill tackles not only the issue of child separation, but it also includes a possible pa

citizenship for daca recipients, or "dreamers," and money for president trump's border wall. >> so, lisa, tell us more about what's going on behind the scenes at the capitol you have been there. i know you spent today and yesterday there. why are they having such a hard time coming together on this immigration issue? >> well, i think we see the classic divide the republican party has had for a long time now. this movement of this big vote to tomorrow tells us who main things, judy. it tells us, ne, they do not have the votes for this compromise tonight, but, two, they think they might get them by tomorrow. they feel there are conservative momentum, a move toward limiting immigration more tn this compromised bill does. if this compromised bill fails tomorrow, that means the attention turns to the senate and a poslsible narrower ution for this child separation issue. i think, overall, judy, in the past two days it's been so wild. today the joke at the capitol was it felt like and really was the longest day of the year. >> woodruff: it sounds like th're not close to puling this off, to coming to an

agreement. >> unclear. this compromise bill h chance tomorrow, but it's still uphill. >> woodruff: very quickly, the cket the first lady wore today got some attention. it sad on the back, the style,i don't care, do you. the ite house said nodden message but the president's been tweeting about it. >> apparently, it was an open ssage. the phrase i really don't dare do you refers to the fake news media. he tweeted pla melania trump sas iae doesn't care about the med and what the media says. aaybe not a hidden message, but the president saymessage about the media. >> woodruff: different than what her office said. >> yes, they said there was no message. >> woodruff: we'll have a conversation with an immigration judge near the border in texas after the news summa in the day's other news, the

u.s. supreme court ruled that states may legally force online shoppers to pay sales tax.ec the 5-to-4ion overturned two longstanding precedents that allowed online retailers not to collect sales tax in many cases. a number of states argued that as a result, they've been losing billions of dollars in revenue each year. in iael, the wife of prime minister benjamin netanyahu was charged with fraud today. sara netanyahu is accused of using some $100,000 in public funds to pay for meals from restaurants and celebrity chefs. her lawyers call the charges "baseless and delusional."th prime minister also faces a series of corruption investigations. turkey is headed toward a crucial electi sunday and the esident today appealed for support.ip recip tardogan wants a new term with greatly expanded rewers. early voting is alady under way, but polls show the .residential and parliamentary races are tighteni erdogan's opponents are warning agnst one-man rule. back in this country, the trump admistration proposed mergin

the u.s. dartments of education and labor. budget director mick mulvaney spoke at today's cabinet meetin and laid out an extensive plan for reorganizing the government.cr he called foting a single "department of education and the workforce". >> we think that makes tremendous sense because what are they both doing? they're doing the same thing.tr they'rng to get people ready for the workforce. sometimes it's education, sometimes it's vocational training. but they're all doing the same thing so why not put them in the same place? >> woodruff: the plan also would create a single food safety agency, among other changes. many of them will first need congressional approval. the u.s. house of representatives narrowly ayproved a new farm bill t that sets tougher work requirements for food stamp recipients. the larger bill renews a broad array of crop and nutrition programs. it now moves to the senate, which favors a more dest measure without the tougher food stamp provisions. the c.e.o. of technology company intel has resigned over a

consensual relationship with anm oyee. the company said brian krzanichd violts non-fraternization policy. it gave no details.d 2zanich joitel in 1982 and became c.e.o. 3. trade tensions again kept wa t street on eday. the dow jones industrial average lost 196 points to close at 24,461. the nasdaq fell 68 points, and the s&p 500 slipped 17. from new zealand today, word of a happy arrival. prime minister jacinda ardern gave birth to a baby girl. later, she posted a picture with the seven-pound newborn alongside her partner, clarkeyf d. the late pakistani prime minister benazir bhutto was the only other world leader to givel birth in office. and, on a sadder note: koko-- the famed gorilla who knew sign

rnnguage-- has died at a preserve in califoia. she was born at the san francisco zoo, and began arning sign language as part of a project with stanford university. her cacity to communicate and show emotion gained renown, and was featuredcumentaries. koko the gorilla was 46 years old. still to come on the newshour: how the immigration debate is playing out in court, navajos seek to draw new political liney ewriting the election map, and much more. >> woodruff: now, one judge's teke on the immigration de and how the trump administration's family separation picy has been playing out in his courtroom. amna navaz satown earlier today with judge robert brack, a federal district judge based in las cruces, new mexico.

>> the vast majority of the work you do here, of the cases you see in your courtroom deal with immigration. offront row seat to how t changes in policy affect what you do. you said it looks like we'de in thh throws of a system that's been on life support way too long.wh did you mean by that? >> so i think we all agree and have for many years that our immigration sytem is broken andh rtbreaking as this crisis along the border was this last couple of weeks, a guy that shows up here every day and does this every day has to find hope somewhere, and i'm thinking, i'm hoping that maybe the moral outrage associated wih what's happened will be the thing that -- the catalyst that finally makes us ook hard at this immigration system that we all agree needs to be fixed, and if that's the case, then this was the last gas op, you knof

that system, and maybe we can replace it with somethinghat makes sense, that's humane and compassionate and still addresses our security needs and our labor needs. >> most federal judges, i think, don't speak out about these kinds of things, it's fair to say, but you he been writing letters over the years. you wrote one first in 2010 to president obama. you've written many sine thn. why? why are you talking about this right now?rt >> i'm not comle doing it, and i never set out to be the spokesman for the federal juciary on this issue. and the fact is judges have a constitutional lane that they need to stay in and i'm trying to be sensitive to thahat. been promised -- we as a nation have been promised immigration reform ever since i have been here, 15 years. ts and starts, never has happened. in my view, i am just reporting back from the front lines about what i see and what i know and

how i experience the immigration problem, and i'm hopeful thaton this informahat i'm ateviding will inform a deb that will finally happen. >> no other federal judge comes close to your senncg record, right, over the last five years i was reading that you sentenced maybe 6,000 defendants for felony immigration violations, and l ur critics way you are then send them back to the same syst they were fleeing which is not necessarily compassionate. they say that that will be your legacy. what do you say to tt? >> well, you know what? there's some truth in that. as a federal district judge, i'm the only on down theory that can sentence the people that come before me, and i guess i could say, as some of my critics have recently said, if i' conflicted in this way, i should quit. well, maybe there's some credence to that thought, but here's thehing -- if i'm not sitting here, somebody else is, and those people are going to be

sentenced. this system iso a monster that has to be fed every day. >> there's been sontuch atn paid to the family separation policy, and there isc also a lot oversation now that the president has issued orders for that to end, that that cris is now sort f behind us. do you believe that it is, based on what did you've seen in your courtroom? >> so i have seen an uptick in cases involving families tseparated at the border last 30 days, and i hope that i don't see those anymore. viously, there's an issue of how to reunite the 2,000 kids and their families, you know, their parents. in the meantime. do i think that's going to be the end of it? i've seen, as said, we had fits and starts with this immigration problem for a long time, and if it's not this, it's something else. the family separation i talking about and this is most

heartbreaking is the folks that have been here for ten years or 20 years. we had one today 30 years. they've lived here, you know, most of their liv'ves. thfelt so comfortable under the prior system, the prior non-criminal prosecution system that they pun t dowots here and they have american citizen children and they have american citizen lives, in many cases, and i preside over a process that tears them apart. i'm a husband and a father, and i'm saing to another husband and father just across the bencu from me, can't ever live with your family again. and i thought, what must it be like to hear those words, because i can't imgine having someone else say those words to me and i just -- it's heartbreaking, and if it doesn't

break your heart, then -- well, you don't get it. >> judge brack, thank you so much for your time. >> my pleasure. >> woodruff: amna joins us from the border. that was such a powerful interview with the judge. you were in his court morning and spent time watching him work. .ell us about what you saw >> yeah, judy, we spent about an hour and a half with him earlier today just to give you a sense of how these things generally work, we see again at 8:45, they wrapped up by 10:20 in. that time 13eaases wererd by judge brack, all men one woman, that's considered to be a light day. all the dforts were there in colorful jumpsuits they have been issued in detention or county jail, wherever they're held, they're all handcuffed the wrist and shackled at the ankles. what they hadom in mon, none of

the people had any kind of criminal history prior to the criminal conviction that led them to judge brack's courtroom today, that being an immigration-related case. but it's the details that spike ick out andparate these stories o from another. there was a 19-year-old young man from guatemal larks tried twice to enter the united states, bo tim unsuccessfully. held for 35 days, being deported to guatemala. a young mother from honduras, left behind four children with her sister to come to the states and works and she was the last 60 years in atlanta before apprehended and sent back to honduras. finally a 27-year-old man from mexico who came to the u.s. when he was just seven years old, lived here 20 years, went toe, school horked here, earned for his family. he went back when g married

and illegally ent red with his wife, four month pregnant, they are both being depo.rt judge brack said he would do all check to make sure they're both ported together. >> woodruff: we heard about the fact there's an unanswered question about how the children separated from their parents will be pulled back together and i should say as i asked you this, we ju learned in the last hour or so that the attorney general jeff sessions id in an interview today that it was not the intention of the trump administration to separats families, parate out the children. what do we know at this point about how that process is going to happen? >> well, it may not have been the inntion, but i guess anyone familiar with the law would tell you that's an inevitable consequence, that the parents anthe children the care for are separated fromth

. a man named frederico in judge brack's court from guatemala, 51 years old, he and his son came together. when they were apphended, his son was forcibly taken from him. he's been held 38 days in government custody, the father has. i had a chance to speak with his public dinender. ll that time, he has not had contact with his son once. most of the time, he didn't know where his son was. his lawyer showed me 60 pages of e-mails that she and other immigration lawyers have been working with to navigate the s governmetem to figure out where the son is, can they set up at least a phone call between the son and father. i called puic defenders to find out if this is normal. i asked another public defender along the border what's your success rate of reunification of parents and children who are separated and i was told zero percent. another one said this happens

all the time. there are sll 2300 childrein government custody forcibly separated from their parents, and the children are in a parate system, the parents are being moved through the criminaa systsuch a pace that they are prosecuted and deported oftentim a chance to make contact with their kids and they don't know when or if thebey wilble to again. judy. >> woodruff: amna nawaz reporting from close to the border. thank you, amna.ep the forcibleation of children from their parents at the u.s. southern border has focused attention on t conditions of the detention of all young immigrants. and now john yang reports that there are troubling allegations about one facility housing migrant teens in virginia. >> reporter: judy, today virginia governor ralph northam launched an investigation into claims of severe physical abusee of immigrantgers at a juvenile detention facility near staunton, virginia. northam acted just hours after the associatedress reported the claims made by immigrants sent to the facility by u.s.

authories. one of the reporters who broke the story joins us now, michael beisecker, an a.p. investigative erporter. michael, thank youmuch for joining us. >> good to be with you. first of all, tell us who these young people are in is facility and how they got there. >> well, the statements filed as part of this lawsuit were from mostly kids from central americx and ico who crossed the icrder as unaccompanied minors and were pked up by immigration authorities and put into the system under the department of health and human receivables office of refugee resettlement, which essentially puts these kids in shelters, in facilities that will house them while their immigration cases ten, you know, seeking hfg status wind their way through immigration courts, which can ta a years. , so, these are similar to the children who have been forcibly removed from their parents along the border in the last f n weeks butot the same.

>> this lawsuit was filed before the zero tolerance policy was announced in april separating parents from their children. however, once those children are in thm systenow, they are classified as unaccompanied minors and coulp end uat some of the same facilities which is why we were looking at them. >> and these young people wereo being gang members? >> well, in manyases, they have mental issues that can cause them to act out, have behavioral problems that may cuhave made it dif for them to acclimate to bei in less secure faci so what a program manager from this facility n shenandoah valley, virginia, testified to before congress back in april was that many of the kids labeled as being gang members, potentially violent criminals, they get them to the facility, screen theoand find they

may not be gang members orri wheated s, they may just be young peoplhave behavioral issues that need to be treated. >> what are the allegations made about the treatment? >> they're prese career and consistent between the statements. several of thehildren say they were strapped to what was called a safety chaiesr,entially a restraint chair with wheels, that a white bag was placed ove their head ey were left in there for sometimes days. other teens and children, they ranged in age frm 14 to17 said that their clothes were taken away and they were confined for days oend to their cells, steels, bedold a window where people could see in 24 hours a day and without their cloththesn virginia mountains, it was drafty. >> and a lawsuit that's been filed, you've got corroborating

evidence? >> we were able to speak to someone in that facility, who had been in that facility, who had met face to face with the kids, and that person reported seeing bruises and in one case broken bes that, when she asked what happened, she was eold that the guards had assaulted thm. consistently between the statements, the children said that they would be struck child they were in restraints, handcuffs and shackles. >> and what's been the response from the facility? >> there's not been any. in court documents, they deny all the allegations. however, we have been unable to get any response froerm them the last two days. also the department of hearvh and human es has yet to respond to our story and we reached out to them in advance of pu alication. you said this goes back to the obama administration and you did speak to officials who served at that time in the administration. >> we talked to a top official who oversaw t refugee

rettlement program over obama and these allegations ran over a span of years. he said he was unaware of complaints at shenandoah valley but had heard about them after leaving. he said ad he heard about them while he was in charge he would have invtigated and potentially canceled thepa contract thas to house the kids. >> there has been congressionte imony about this? >> there has been from someone who worked at the facility and she said, in some cases, the e ildren have behavioral problems that can fficult to treat in what we could call a correctional-setting, a -like facility, and the would be better served in residential psychiatric treaent facilities, however, those facilities are often hesitant to take a child with a histy of behavioral problems or the potential for violence. >> you call this ai prson-like facility but these children have not been convicted of crimes.

>> that's correct, y're housed in the same facility wita juvenile delinquents that have been either charged or adjudicated with serious crimes. however, they were largely segregated from the mostly whitn inmates, je inmates, and the latino kids said that their facility was much more stark, they didn't have access to cushy chairs, as good food, didn't soles,ccess to video con and some of the perks that were affordedo most by white detainees they were deprived of. >> michael beisecker, associated press, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: the but first, how election maps are drawn can help determine which political party controls power. the u.s. supreme court narrowlyo ruled inases this term, keeping in place boundaries in

inryland and wisconsin. a fight is still rin one utah county over current district lines and their effect on the voicef native americans. from the university of southern california's anneninrg rural repoinitiative, tommy brooksbank has the story. >> reporter: san juan county is the largest county in utah, about the size of new jersey. it stretches from the predominantly white, mormon towns of monticello and blanding in the north, to the vast navajo reservation in the south. it is also the poore county in the state. >> on the navajo reservation, the unemployment rate is around 72%. >> reporter: rebecca benally's county district includes theon navajo reserva she is currently the only native american serving as one of three county commissionerseven though the navajo are a majoty of the total population. but that could change when residents go to the polls for a special election in november. late last year, a federal judge ruled that the county voting districts had been gerrymanded, in violation of

the constitution, by lumping the navajo into a singleoting district. the ruling was a huge victory for the navajo nation. and for wilfred jones, a plaintiff in the lawsuit. >> there were some tears that were shed at that moment for my family on my side. >> reporter: jones decided toe sue because, hgued, navajo residing within the county district that includes the reservation had been denied critical services. his own sister died because there was no ambulance available-- like this one in the north-- to take her to a county hospital. >> and she had a heart attack and they couldn't get there until about an hour later which was too late. >> reporter: the old county commission map placed most of the navajo population in the third district, which guaranteed that the other two districts would have the finalay on neunty issues. the w map, drawn up by a court-appointed expert and put into effect in december, spreads that population around.

reaction to the court's decisior in the nern part of the county was swift and angry. kelly laws is the republican candidate for county commissioner in district two-- that is th potentially swing the three member council majority to the navajo. he ifurious that the new district lines trisect the town of blanding. >> this is a perfect case of gerrymandering at it's very best and the part that's interey ing is how m the counties in the nation have had this done to them? >> reporter: but the argument that gerrymandering has been replaced with more gerrymandering has been rejeed by the tenth circuit court of appeals, which denied the county's most recent appeal. the court says the new districts were drawn to fairly reflecthe overall population. new voting lines aside, the two parts of the county are still worlds apart. on the navajo reservation, some people lthout electricity or running water and school buses must travel over miles and rtles of dirt roads. in the northern f the county, there are two big

libraries, a community centeon a golf course, and two hospitals. najo residents are hopeful that the redistricting-- which affects both the county commission and the school board- - might bring more resources their way. ito is a candidate for the school board. he lives on the soh side of the san juan river, ich he sees as just one more barrier to connecting with the northern part of the county.he opes the new district lines will mean more resources forio reservchildren. to i know that there's funds out there, but it just right there, where the border's at. and all the funds that i've seen that happened in the past it's just been out on that side. >> reporter: the debate over redistricting is playing out against a long history of angerw byte conservatives here over what they see as federal overreach. in 2014, it was a face-off with the bureau of land management over a.t.v. use in recapture canyon. morehan a decade ago, federa agents swarmed into blanding and

arrested a number of citizens for illegal trade in native american artifacts. one of those arrested was a local physician, who later coitted suicide. librarian nicole perkins still gets emotional about it. >> the raids, when they came an. raidededd, and his family and the other people here. you saw all the local people, they came in with guns and vehicles just like we were isis or something. >> reporter: today, thatalnger over fedntrusion o ntinues, with county leaders planning to appeale federal court yet again over the new district boundaries. they lose that appeal, the battle for political control of the county comes down torahe for commissioner in district two. wilfred jones isa ptimistic that vajo candidate will qualify for the ballot and win that seat. we're in the 21st century

here. we should be able to vote and voice our opinion. in reporter: if the navajo two of the three seats on the county commission, it would overturn more than a century ofi political domi by white residents. for jones, who was born beforeve namericans had the right to vote in utah, it would be a personal, as well as historic, victory. for the pbs newshour, i'm tommy brooksbank in san juan county, utah. >> woodruff: now, the plans to revitalize the newspaper of note for the united states' secondt largty, "the los angeles times." patrick soon-shiong is a multi- billionaire surgeon, entrepreneur and part owner of the l.a. lakers. he has spent half a billion dollars to buy the paper, which has faced big setbackscent years. as critical as it has been to the city of los angeles, "the l.a. times" has struggled with

huge financial losses, two- thirds of the staff were laid off over time, three top editors months andced in 1 there've been multiple publishers. soon-shiong is also migrant, born to parents who had fled china during the b occupatijapan during world war ii. he joins me now from los angeles. patrick soon-shiong, congratulations. you're investing in a newspaper at a time when few around fewer people are reading them. why? >> well, i think it's important for democracy, it's important for education, it's important for this count, and it's an institution that i think we need to protect, and, to me, i grew up in apaheid, south africa, and the only thing that was my spite was a newspaper, frankly. >> woodruff: and, you know, you and i had a little bit of a conversation about this no long ago when we talked. what is it about journalism

today that you think you can make thrive? because we look across the country, newspapers are struggling, people are moving to digital, whais your dream here? >> well with, the first thing, there's ame funntal need of this issue of truthful news, right. i think that truly the -- and as i said in my t letter,ink fake news is a cancer of our times and, frankly, this social media allows this proliferationle metastasis. i think the place whe we need to find truthful information a journalistic integrity is in the newspapers. but i think we also recognize that we have this problem of where technology has now taken over where people want news reere they can it, wherever they may be, and the digital mobile platform. i stl am of the old school, i still love the tack tile feel of

a physical print and what i call leisurely reading. but we ned to adapt and adopt very quickly in realtime into this whole new world of digital age. so today i think joisurn need to have cross technology skill sets.ee they to podcast, they need to do what i'm doing here, tv interviews, and print, and it's a very different life for theli jours, but without journalists giving us good, real investigative reporting, i think we will have lost a lot in terms of this institution. >> woodruff: do you think you can do this and befitable? after all, it's a business. >> it is business. this is not a philanthropic exercise, this is not an exercise of vanity. ais is an exercise where this business has to nos an institution survive. the "new york times" and "the washington post" have shown, in

factif they create great important stories wth great journalists, they can adopt, and we must.r and the anss i'm hopeful. we are notoncerned or scared of technology. part of my work n cancer doing genomic sequencing and cloud sequcing and artificial intelligence, i think we can bring together a model that thrives. >> woodff: and you're working in a news room that has lost, as we said, a large percentage of its staff, of its reporters, you're dealing wih a place that's been traumatizedin virtuallecent years. what's it going to take to turn und? aro >> i speak to my news room and i say this is like a traumatizedy childdrome.

wa announced the executive effort. the next day the transformation editor. the idea is to strengthen the news room.na the josts are the lifeblood. e-longthis as a lif program for us to really create stability. so i think, if we actually track the -- attract the best talent, and california is a unique ecosystem to itself, we will be e le to do fine. >> woodruff: you cto this, patrick soon-shiong, as someone who didn't come out of journalism and you said you're a physician, your inestments within in health care and pharmaceuticals. the "l.a. times" has wrten a story that earlier this year,ro corsies in your business career, were they accurate in those stories and do you think your background is a fit for

this? >> first of all, hat's what i told the "l.a. times." they should feel to write everythingnd anything about me completely independent of the owner as long as it is ir and truthful. i think it should be the standard for anybody. fairness, honesty and truthfulness is all any personk could for. but with regard to my background, i lookt journalists like scientists. they love discovery, we love discovery. they love theruth, we want to find the basis of the truth and we love publishing. so while my background has been in discovery working with scieists a physician scientists, i look upon journalists as sucre if woing to do opinions, we should very, very clearly say this is anio opin and everybody should be allowed to have their opinion, whether it be right on, left opinion, middle road opinion. so i think the opportunity for us now to create an educational

forum, a forum that will inspire, a forum that will inform, and a forum that will provide entertainment, so to speak, even, of sports, of arts, lifestyle. so i'm real excited. 's a steep learning curve for me but i'm really excited about this next episode of what i going to be doing. >> woodruff: dr. patrick soon-shiong, the new owner of the "los angeles times" and the san diego union, congratulations. >> thank you so much, judy. >> woodruff: as traditiol sports like baseball and football struggle with stallingr viip and an aging fan base, a new kind of "sport" has emerged with huge appeal enr millions around the world. economics correspopaul solman has the story from austin, texas where he went to a three-day event for wh known as "e-sports."

part of his weekly series making sense. >> reporter: pro sports don't get any hotter than this in the s... in france...in oland... the fans are in ecstasy-- ands, sometime despair-- over e- sports: electronic athletics. that's right, they're playing video games for money-- big money. come on, you ask, this is? "sports" well, the olympics are considering adding e-sports because they've mesmerized the digital generation while traditional sports worry aboutde ine. >> we're not really concerned anymore about this hang up like it sports or not. >> reporter: we're at dreamhack in austin texas, canadian mike van driel here from sweden t manage the event. dreamhack austin drew a crowd of

only 30,000-- $30 just to watch, $89 if you also b.y.o.c: bring your own computer to play in the amateur pen. but you know how times many fans will tune in online? >> i mean easily 100 million. >> reporter: 100 million? >> yeah. >> reporter: the box office take in austin: nearly a million ollars. but this is just othe dozen or so events dreamhack hosts every year.e' >> doing two events in the u.s., two events in spain. anthen in two weeks from n we'll be at kind of the original koping, sweden. >> reporter: and how many people come to that? >> about 55,000. >> reporter: in jonkoping! that's standing room only at yankee stadium. moreover, while we were at dreamhack, a separate tournament ng place at a resort in wisconsin. and there were others all over the world, including several big tournaments strictly online. >> so many events happen on the sameeekends because there's not enough weekends. >> reporter: following the fans,

of course: the money. growing at 40% per yigr, e- sportse to gross nearly a billion dollars by the end of 201840% or so from sponsorships, 20% from ads, another 20% from media rights. at dreamhack, signs of the new money were everywhere: high tech cameras on cranes, so-called "casters" call the action play-by-play-- lireamed , worldwide-- as the pro gamers play for rich prizes in addition to thr substantial salaries. >> they're well over six figures. and then the sky's the limit with prize money. w reporter: that's shazam shahzeb khan, a stse pro e-sport is "counter strike," where five terrorists try tod plant bombs anve counter- terrorists try to deter them-- permanently. whoever "neutralizes" the opposingeam first, wins.

shazam plays for "complexity gaming," one of scores of pro e-sports teams in various leagues playing different e- sports video games: "dota 2," "p.u.b.g.," "overwat l," "league ofegends." they all compete for top talent like shazam.pl last year, city was bought by dallas cowboys football boss jerry jone who's been joined by traditional sports moguls wlike bob kraft of the ne england patriots football dynasty, who's invested in a leagueor the video game overwatch. team "complexity," which makes its money from corporate sponsors and its cut of tournament wnings, provides plenty of support. >> we've got a persol fitness sports psychology coach. like even teaching some of the players how to cook, taking some players to the gym and showing them like a healthy lifestyle, getting advices on like you know fixing your posture. >> reporter: hey, "posture" is key, if you sit as much as these

guys do, practicing 8-10ours a day. but look, says the entrepreneur who founded and thenold the "complexity" team, jason lake... >> the beautiful thing about sports and about gaming is you s don't have to -three and 220 to have a shot. you don't have to be 6 foot 9 to dunk. anybody can come. male, female, any race, any alnder as long as you have some basic physunctionality, it's a level playing field. >> reporter: there is oned: physical hazararpal tunnel syndrome.ni rodriguez, a.k.a. "chudat", also plays professionally.>> f i played for about one or two hours my fingers are pretty much, they just start tourt. >> reporter: chudat is a star at "super smash bthers melee," a stly gun-free mano-a-mano affair released way back in 2001 buedchudat's e-sport was she for a sequel, "super smash brothers brawl," and both he and the game appeared to be solete. >> was no good at it. so i had to kind of like drop "smash" and i had to focus on

li j my real life so i got a and then i went back to school. >> reporter: luckily, a 2013 nostalgia documentary revived "melee" and rodriguez's career for the time being. >> people think thathis game will dry up and it will just like completely disappear. >> reporter: well what do you do after that >> i got to go back to school and get a job. reporter: so unlike baseball or golf, video games go, video games come-- and sometimes quickly. the video game of the moment, soon to come a pro e-sport with a league of its own:oo "fortnite," a t-em-up featuring a battle royale. 100 players drifting down to an island and then sniping awayo emerge as sole survivor. with promised tournament prizes of $10million next year, it threatens to become the biggest e-sport of them all and was plastered on screens throughout released less than a year ago, the game already has0 million ayers, in part because it's

"free," while a typical video game costs $50-$60. so how can it offer $100 million in prizes? because "fortnite" has turned out to be a superb virtual merchandiser. matthew adams, playing "fornite" at the "b.y.o.c." area of dreamhack, is one ofts customers. >> you can earn dances and buy them like here's a break dance. like in d times, like disco. >> reporter: and you could oreither earn those dances your character or you can buy them? >> you canuy them in the shop. >> reporter: how much is a dance cost roughly? >> like two dollars. >> reporter: two bucks a dance. >> yeah. >> reporter: "skins"-- the outfits players don-- are $10 to $20 apiece. as a result, "fortnite" grossedm $2lion on "cosmetic items" and weapons upgrades in the month of april alone! how many hours a day do you play this?

>> maybe like five, i play a lot.t >> i think t will be as popular as baseball, basketball, and the sports. it's just a matter of time. >> reporter: matthew's dad zac adams is a pro athlete himself, a long-driveolfer who has hit a ball 450 yards onto a fairway. he's taken up "fortnite" to spend time with his ds. but now wait a second. "fortnite" is the next b e-sport. but doesn't the violence conce the father? a 2015 review by the american psychological associatn linked video games to incased aggression, though it found no link to violent crimes. >> i think that the parents that do allow them torelay should be onsible to bring that to the top of the list. a reporter: matt's dad said he wasn't worried abo "fortnite" addiction. but that was before the world health organization pronounced this week that such addictions can be a "gamingisorder"

in extreme cases. do you worry at all about the addiction factor? i asked him if he was addicted to the game. and he said, "ah." >> i mean it's tough to like put my finger on that. you know because if you balanceo life with exercise, proper diet, and you're and you're doing things to keep yourself h mentallthy, you can have a hobby that maybe isn't necessarily addiction but it's what you do. you know and it's what drives yourife. >> reporter: i had one last estion for zac's son: wh but do you have any drf becoming a professional gamer? >> yes. >> reporter: you do? >> yeah. >> reporter: do you think you have a shot? >> maybe. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour in austin texis, this aul solman, sticking to my tv economics career-- at leastw. for

>> woodruff: next, we turn to another installment of our weekly brief but spectacular ries, where we ask people lout their passions. tonight, in honor .b.t.q. pride month, we hear from yoube contributor, jackson bird. he hosts the podcast "tnsmission" and creates videos for transgender people and for everyone to better understand the transgender community. >> i think it can be difficult for people to wrap their heads around gender, specifically cisgender people whose gende identity is congruent with the one assigned to them at birth. it can be difficult for them because they never had to question their gender, which is astonishing to those of us who e trans because we spend so much of our time questioning gender and thinking about in an existential way and wondering why is gender, and what is gender, and how did this happen? when i was 25, i came out as trsgender, which means basically i came out as a guy.

when i say that i'm a transgender man, what that means is that when i was born, i was assign female at birth. i was socialized as a girl growing up. it never really felt right. from a young age, i did felt i should've been born a boy. didn't think i could share with anyone. so, what i did instead was,el this is the life that i have to lead as a woman. so, i would just try to be the best woman i can be ineahatever that in a veryy stereotypical om society." t , my name is jackson bird. i am two years prgery. i have been making videos on youtube for a long time. and i start making them when i was kind of dealing with my gender identity and kinda knew at the back of my head if my audience would continue to grow on youtube, i would eventually have this pressure of having tcl come out pubonline. there's something in the trans- community called "living stealth". and only some transgender people have this privilege.

what that means is that you are perceived enough that read is the gender that you identify as en you go out, in your everyday life, people aren't going to questioyour gender. for anyone who is not consistently read as the gendery dentify as, it's so much harder because they're going out in public every single day, just living their lives and having strangers on the street, on the bway, the cashiers on th grocery store, giving them weird looks, maybe even dirty lookski and basically them explain themselves anywhere they are.th so's every single day, multiple times a day coming out process, on top of the very turbulent, traumatic one that you probably already had when you told your family and friends. if you're watching this and you're wondering wt you can do to help close the gaps of the inequality that exists between l.g.b.t. people versus straight and non-transgender people, i think the biggest thing is to just see the humanity in us, to raise up our voices, especially in so many places of mia and community and spaces where our voices are under-represented.

i did not haverony transgender models growing up. i hard have any gay or queer role models growing up in texas in the '90s. i didn't even ow that transgender men existed. that lack of representatn growing up made me literally feel like i was alone in the world and there was no onelse like me. so to now, get to be the role model that i needed as a kid is just indescribable. my name is jackson bird and this is my brief, but spectacular take on providing anplatform for ender people. >> woodruff: you can find additional brief but spectacular episodes on our website: pbs.org/newshour/brief. fore we go, we're sorry share this passing. charles krauthammer, the syndicated conservative columnist and fox news antributor, has died afte battle with cancer. he'd not been on television for

nearly a year, and wrote public letter earlier this month announcing he only had a short time to live. krauthammer, a former psychiatrist and paraplegic since a teenage diving accident, won the pulitzer prize for his commentary, and was a best- selling author. charles krauthammer was 68 years old.ew and that's theour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. for all of us at the newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> knowledge, it's where innovation begins.ad it's what us to discovery and motivates us to succeed. it's why we ask the tough questions and what leads us to the answers.e' at leidos, wre standing behind those working to improve the world's health, safety, and efficiency.id .

>> kevin. >> kevin! >> kevin. >> advice for life. life well-planned. learn more at raymondjames.com. . >> consumer cellul >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to youpbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by ll newshour productions, captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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