captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshr tonight, the end of the term: we break down the supreme court's mostci consequential ons and what to expect from the next nominee's confirmaticess. then, what happens to the children? we explore the challenges of reuniting immigrant famisies. and, cha the dream: inside an innovative effort to provide affordab housing in rural alabama. >> words can't describe it. i couldn't believe it. after all these years someing i've always wanted was a house. and i was going to be blessed with the house of my own. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting scienan, technology, improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: anindividuals.

>> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thanyou. >> woodruff: there's no nominee yet, but the battle is already being joed over replacing anthony kennedy on the u.s. supreme court. the two sides went quickly to the ramparts today, with mid- fiveelections just ov months away. ou i'm ready to fight, are ready to fight? >> woodruff: outside the supreme court this morning, democratic senators warned the stakes coul not be hig the fight to replace justice anthony kennedy >> women's acc safe legal abortion is on the line, marriage equality on the line,ti rights on the line,

>> the menacing truth is that we g ve to face a reality com us where we might lose some of the precious ideals of our country. and i stand here to say, "this will not happen without a fight." >> woodruff: president trump h omised quick action at a rally last night in nokota, hours after kennedy announced he's retiring. >> i'm very chnored that he e to do it during my term in office because he felt confident for me to make the right choice and carry on his gre legacy. >> woodruff: over the years, kennedy joined court conservatives in rolling back campaign finance curbs and voting rights provisions. this week, he joined 5 to 4 majorities upholding president trump's travel ban, and againstn making-union members pay fees to public employee unions. but kennedy was also a swing vote, supporting abortion rights, as well as same-sex marriage.

now, democrats fear he'll be replaced by a down-the-line conservative. senate majority leader mitchel mccosaid today republicans will support anyone from the president's list of 25 names. >> the president's nominee should be considered fairly and not subjected to personal attacks. the ink wasn't even dry onic jukennedy's resignation letter before my friend the democratic leader seemed to echo that right here on the floor that none of the exceptional legal minds on this list would be tolerableo him. >> woodruff: but mcconnell's challenge is preserving a razor- thin majority. arizona senator john mccain is battling cancer, so the senate republican susan collins of foine said today she will cus on deference to previous court rulings, especially roe versus wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion >> i do get a sense of whether they respect precedent, from my

perspective roe versus wade is important precedent and it is settled.dr >> wf: minority leader chuck schumer said no precedent would be safe with anoth trump nominee on the court. >> president trump said in his own words that he wants to appoint a justice to give the court a majority who will overturn roe versus wade. >> woodruff: democrats are calling for any nomination to wait until after the mid-term elections inmb no. we'll return to the looming confirmation fight, and look at the supreme court's record in the term just ended, after the news summary. in the day's other news, a gunman killed five pand wounded several, at a building housing a newspaper in annapolis, maryland. a reporter for the "capital gazette" said the shooter firedn into tsroom. police said a suspect was in custody. aerial video showed peopleof

walking ouhe building with hands above their heads. officials say police arrived a withinute after getting the alert. >> we were here quickly. weame into the building ve quickly, we received a call as an active shooter. the building is securerom a tactical standpoint, that means that right now we believe there are no other shooters in the building but it is not, has not >> woodruff: there wwo no immediat on a possible motive. president trump and russian president vladimir putin will hold a long-expected summit on july 16th, in helsinki, finland. the kremlin and white house announced the details today. the leaders had two brief meetings last year. plans for a full summit had been postponed amid investigations into russian meddling in the 2016 presidential elections. deputy attorney general rod rosenstein today defendethe integrity of the russia probe. he faced hostile republicans at a house judiciary committee

hearing. they claimed he's withholding documents that show f.b.i. bias against president trump during the 2016 election campaign. ohio congressman jim jordan charged that rosenstein and hef.b.i. director christopwray are obstructing congressional oversight. >> mr. rosstein why are you keeping information from congress? >> congressman, i'm not keeping any information from congress that is appropriate. >> if you let me respond sir. >> is redacted! >> i am the deputy attorney general for the united states, ok? i'm not the person doing the redacting. i am responsible for responding to your concer as i have whenever you brought it to my attention. i have taken appropriate steps toemedy them. so your statement that i'm personally keeping information from you...ou >> ye the boss, mr. rosenstein. >> that's correct. and my job is to make sure that we respond to your requests and we have, sir.

>> woodruff: later, the hoe passed a republican resolution ucat orders the justice department to prdocuments on the russia probe and the clinton e-mail investigation. new protests broke out across the country today, demanding that separated migrant families be reunited. in washington, hundreds of people occupied part of a senatf ce building. capitol police made arrests whes the prot refused to leave. meanwhile, first lady melania trump made another trip to ther, southern bordehis time, to tucson, arizona. she toured a border patrol ldcenter and a short-term g facility for migrant cn. the state department warns that taking children from their families makes them mo vulnerable to being enslaved. the department today issued its annual report on human trafficking. it said children in government- run facilities become "easy targets" due to isolatioand poor oversight. r

there was erence to the president's now-rescinded policy of separating migrant families. leaders of the european union talked today about ways to stop large migrant flows across the mediterranean. they met in brussels, and discussed screening people at centeracross north africa, before they try to set sail. the issue has roiled germany's politics, and today, in berlin, chancellor angela merkel defended taking in thousands of migrants during 2015. >> ( translated ): 400,000 refugees had already arrived, there were very ma, we said in an exceptional situation we will help, and that we did. and now, as then, i think it was the right decision, ladies and ntlemen. >> woodruff: merkel was heckled by far-right lawmakers, and answered by yelling back. she also faces a rebellion within her governing coalition. australia has won a major trade dispute over its trailblazing tobacco packaging law.

the world trade organization ruled today that the 2w has not hindered fair trade. m dates plain wrapping for cigarettes and other tobacco products.f a numberher countries applied similar rules on tobacco packaging after australia's action. back in this country, the u.s. nesenate voted to approve farm bill. it reauthorizes a variety of programs, ranging from nutrition assistance to crop subsidies. now, it has to be reconciledwi a house version that imposes strict work requirements for food assistance benefits. and, on wall street, the dow jones industrial average gained 98 points to close at 24,216. the nasdaq rose 58 points, a the s&p 500 added 16. still to come on the newshour: democratic senator kirsten gillibrand on the looming battle over the next supreme court justice. the struggle to reunite families separated at the border. using architecture to serve the

greater good in rural america, and much more. oo >>uff: the supreme court wrapped up its term with a bang this wee justices handed down blockbuster rulings on the president's travel ban, racial gerrymandering, public emploboe unions andions. each case was decided alongeo gical lines. for more i'm here with marcia coyle, ccoef washington espondent for the "national law journal," and amy howe. she covers the high court for the websites "howe on the court" and "scotusblog." and we welcome both of you back to the program. so, marcia, let me start with you. everybody agrees consequential term. what made it so? >> certainly the types of cases that the court g.e.d. to hear and decide. as you mentioned, there was a whole range from

president trump's travel ban to union fair share fees, pa gerrymandering, the list went on and on. of course, at the end, thehe most consequential event of all was justice kennedy's retirement, announced retirement. >> woodruff: i want t ask you abhat in just a moment. but, amy howe, let's talk about something we haven't had a chance to address in the pogram yet and that is the ruling yesterday that affects labor unions, why is that somethingma that shouler to all of us? >> this is a sleeper case, i think, of the term, and was en t re overshadowed by justice kennedy's retireme same day it was handed down. this was a case by whi te supreme court by a vote of 5 to 4 ruled ifst you're te or local government employee and represented by a uon, you ca no longer be required to pay to cut the costs of collective bargaining, it's either called a share fair fee or agency fee,

podepending on yout of view. this is really significant. these fees cabe as much as $500 a year as they were in this case. i think unions fear, if people don't have to pay the fees, they will decide not to anthe unions will still have to provide the same services because they're still representing everyone in the workplace with less money which can lead to a spiral with money as more and more people decide to get out. and it overruled a 41-year-old decision that had upheld these fees back in 1977. it's a big deal in and of itself, but as we look to justice kennedy's retirement,e' tha legal document that you don't willy-nilly overrule an old case, you have to have a good reason foo, doingnd you can see a battle in the opinions that may be looking atl further b down the line. >> woodruff: what did you see, marsia in other dcisions handed down this term that tell you anythi about stare decisis,

about a hearing precedent. >> there was another huge case that has ramification force the economy, fo the e-commerce market, and that was whether states would be allowed to require onlineetailersso collect sales taxes, and the court had an earlier precedent -- in fact, two of them -- in which it said, no, you can't, unless that online or out of state retailer has a physical presence within ther state's rs. well, the court decided that we're in the e-commerce age, and that physical prsence test just cannot apply anymore. it's out of dat it was initially used because we had catalog sales. so the court overruled, basicallce two prnts that had the physical presence test, andal thaso created a strong ssent and, actually, the dissent this time was led by chief justice roberts, it w

one of the strange alliances h he aligned with some of the more liberal members of the court, saying this was really something congress ought to deal with because it has such huge ramifications for the economy, for the states it's possibly a billion-dollar windfall. >> woodruff: amy, let's talk for a moment about alignment on the court. what did we see by the end of this term and the decisions handed down in terms of the justices, wenow they're reliable conservatives and liberals on the court, but how did we seeuphem lin on the most important cases? >> we often talk about justice anthonkennedy being the swing justice. in many cases that will be h rememberjoined with the court's more liberal members on abortion, same-sex marriage, but this was a term in which there were 15 5-4 cases and he did not join the liberal justices on any

of them. the overwhelming majority of the 15 cases were thive more conservative justices, the cases in which there was aterse involving cell phone privacy where roberts ined with the more liberal justices, an immigration case held over after the death of justice scalia. justice gorsuch joined with the former liberal justices in that case like scalia would have. >> woodruff: the travel ban, marcia i hink one of the overriding themes is the court's five justice conservativeity dominated the most significant of thesely divided cas term not only because justice kennedy didn't move to the left sticel but also because ju gorsuch, in the union fee case, as you recall in 2016, that issue was before the court. th divided 4-4 after the death of justice scalia. it was justice gorsuch who made the difference this time. >> woodruff: after watching him on the court for this term,

what are we to hke of and how he makes decisions and the difference he's going to mak going forward? >> going into the term, you know, he'd only sat through one set ofases and i think issued one opinion last term because he joined the court very late and, going in, to the new teorp murmurings that perhaps some of the justic thought might be getting too big for his britches, but of the 15 5-4 cases, he wrote five including a major arbitration gued on the very first day in the term, and the the senior justice in the majority decides who's going to write the cases. so there were rumors of discontent but you didn't see them in the opinion assignment process. druff: what did you see? the other thing i would say about him is, during his confirmation process, he said he was an originalist and a tex textualist and i would say this rm he adhered close to that.

whenever he had an opportunity to use an originalist approach to interpreting the citution or the tex chiewlist approach to a statut the didhat and sometimes his approach on originalism didn't take him inm the direction as the staunchl originalistarence thomas. so it will be interesting to see where he goes. >> woodruff: a few seconds left. in that me, amy, the difference it will make having what everybody assaumes will be more conservative justice replacing justice kennedy. >> on abortion, affirmative action, same-sex marriage, it could make a very big difference, because they will have a solid 5-4 vote, and the conservative justices will feel confidenttoot havin worry about what justice kennedy thinks.

>> i would ke an eye on chief justice john roberts, i don't think he will beome a swing vote like justice kennedy was, but i think if there is rany sot of moderation of how far and fast the court goes to the right, he's the one that will do that just because he is more of a minimalist and, also, because he cares very much about the instution and that it not be perceived as a wholly pa itisan bo our structure of government. >> woodruff: marcia coyle, amy howe, thank youoth. so many eyes on the court. >> thank you. >> woodruff: justice kennedy's vacancy on the court means a brewing political battle to fill his seat on capitol hill. for more on the fighome, i spoke this evening with senator kirsten gillibrand, a democrat from new york. a i began ing what it means if the president nominates a strong conservative to the bench. what the president's promised is he ispgoing to apoint someone who will overturn

absolutely overturn roe v. wade which means women's reproductivity freedoms are at rsk, women's freedom to dede what they wan they will criminalize women's access to abortion services and reproductive joyces. i think every american should speaout and fight against this and i don't think we should allow a vote before the election. we should apply the same standard mitch mccon ll applied tpresident obama. >> woodruff: two points here, the person the president appoints will be one ofine members of the court. the chief justice said, when he was first nominated, i'm quoting, said roe v. wade is a settled law of the land. he said there's nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying the precedent. sods like there is not a sentiment to overturn it. >> i don't agree. president trump ran on the notion i'm going to overturn

roe v. wade, created an alist 25 people of appointees of people who he believes will ly overturn row roe v. wade. women need to speak up becausee women will beied civil rights to make decisions ofr thn bodies. we will be moving backwards and harming families and women. woodruff: you also mentioned the fact that majority leader mcconnell has said he wants i move quckly, the president wants to move qui you and other democrats are saying move this till after the ection, but they're saying this is not a presidential election year, it's very different, it's mid-term ections and there's a precedent for choosing other supreme court justices in mid-te election years. >> that's not what senator mcconnell said then and not what his republican colleague said. they said things like we're going to overturn the senate, we could have a different body of

senators, these new senators should decide, t people of america should be able to have a say. the people of america should be able to have a say, an i believe the women of america have to have an opportunity to stand up and spe a out make their views heard on election da i think this nomination should be left to next year and eery member should et -- every woman should let thr congressmb s know about decisions for their own health. they want to beenish women for their reproductive choices. >> woodruff: senator mcconnell is pointing to confirmations in the senate, justice kagan, she went through confirmation in 2010, justice breyer in 1994, that these were all mid-term election rules. >> right, and this is his rule, not our rule. he denied a justice nominee from president obama and i do not

believe he shod be given the benefitf before this election. this president intends to rewrite the law and to turn bac story over 40 decades of jurisprudence to underwone n's rights and to harm women, to punish women. >> woodruff: we know, senator gillibrand, the conservative organizations are gearing up to epport whoever the prsident nominates, assuming they like the chocoice. erned women for america, among others, are saying "our appy warrior activist ladies relish the figd shine in these historic moments." are u and other democrats prepared for this fight? >> we are, and i'm prepared fito t it and i know a lot of women around this country who are prepared to fiht it. they have been marching since president trump has been inaugurated. they are raising their voices, running for office, they are turning out to ve. women are mobilized and i believe their voices will be heard on this. >> woodruff: back to the

numbers, you kanw the republonly need 51 votes to get this nominee through. how concerd are you that some democrats who represent so-called red states, statese where esident is very popular, may be tempted to vote for the predent's nominee? >> i believe the american peoplt aren't goitolerate the next nominee if he's a gorsuch stylnomineeo's anti-choice, anti-women's rights, anti-ga rights, anti-clean water, pro corporation in all cases, i think the american people will speak t and inl 50 states, red, blue and purple states, and i believe that if members of congress, particularly senators, are listening to their vott ersi doink they could vote for a nominee like this easily, so i hope the american peoplstand tall and speak out and are heard on this very issue. >> woodruff: senator, finally, a different subject, this is about something that was a big issue a few months ago, legislation to address sexual harassment among members of congress. both the house and senate have

passed legislation but it's different and right now the house is saying the senate is ldup in terms of moving forward, finding a compromise. what's going on? >> the holdup is paul ryan and mitch mcconnell who will not let these two bills be conferenced. you have two bills that passed both chambers unnimously that are 90% the same, so why we are not moving tha tt legislatio conference is outrageous and absurd and i hope more people will not only raiss thisue but speak out about it because if you work in congress today,un you're a yman and woman and harassed by your boss, you have to wait for a montho have mandatory mediation followed by up to a month of man counseling followed by a month of mandatory cooling off and then you can report and, if there is a settlement, the taxpayers are left holding the bag. our bills both sides eliminate the three-month waiting, taxpayer-funded payouts and make sure you post the rules and have mandatory survey for all house and senate employees every two k

years so yoow what the climate is like here. those are the four pillars of bothills. let's pass, move it to congress and the question is why thede republican lehip in the house is not letting this go to conference. >> woodruff: kirsten gillibrand of new york, thank u very much. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: now the challenges of reuniting migrant families that have been separated. earlier this week, a federal judge ordered the trump hiministration to stop separating thoseren from their parents and re-unite thosd alin custody. today a white house spokeswoman said the president believes the judge's order must be lifted because it endangers national security when immigrant families illegally cross the border. but for now, the judge's order must be dealt with. amna nawaz looks at the difficulties of doing so given e present policies and situation. >> nawaz: there are still more

than 2,000 children been separated from their families at the border in recent weeks and placed in govement- n or contracted shelters. the federal judge ruled that the administration must reunite families with children under five within 14 days, and families with older children within 30 days. those children are currently in the care of a particular division of the health and human services department, the office of refugee resettlement. bob carey ran that office at the end of the obama administration, from 2014 until president trum while separation policies have changed, carey is knowledgeable about hothat agency works and joins me now. bob carey, thanks for making the time. i ofnt to start with somhe countless reports we've gotten from along the border, some ofth things i saw first hand in my week there about how difficult it is to connect parents with children in the system. what's your understanding based on you know how the syshtem works,is that so hard right now? >> well, it's, in part, because

the system o.r.r. receives was set up to reunite adolescents for the mst part who arrived unaccompanied to the united states with family members who eare already present in t united states. what you have now is children, often young children, oft tender age under age of 12, who , ve been forcibly separated from their paren it's a different system, it requires communication between health and human services office of refee resettlement and immigration and customs enforcement which affected the system.o it requires cration between the government agencies and requires leadership. >> you're saying the leadership isn't there? where exactly is the system falling don? >> it's hard to say because i'm not inside of it but i know that e systems that are place are to track children and reunite them wiparents. it's a very different system when you have parents who are now in detention who do not know where their childr are

some of those children arehe nonverbal,re not able to articulate who they are, where they're going, at the situation is, they're deeply taumatized and have beenrc ly separated from the only n,regiver in many instances they've ever knso there are a lot of systems problems that are compounding the humanitarian issues and, also, theseon decito separate children from parents were made quickly at the highest level ofd government a it's evident that it was done without any e-planning for how th children and the parents would be reuniteet >>e ask you now, i want to make sure we cover what we know and don't yet know, but this reunification process now being ordered, let me walk through what we know about it. help me understand where the obstacles are in each to have the steps. y obviousl have to find the child in the system. we know or believe there is an essential database. why is it such a problem finding kids in the first place? >> it should not be a problem to

find the child in the o.r. prstem, the database works and can find childretty quickly. the problem is finding the parent, connecting the systemsee bethe two federal agencies so that the parent can find out where the child is and thenfi ring out a way they can be reunited because many of the parents, if not most of them, are in a descension facility, and that's inherent riproblematic to reunite -- it's paramount children and parents be reunited but sending a child into a detention facility prison-like setting that doesn't have the ability to accommodate their needs, that's not secure or safe for them is a poblem from an operational standpoint and a humanitarian, legal standpoint. >> so the parents would have to apply for reunification, they have to be vetted. where's the proem or the holdup there? >> well, you know, a week ago the secretary of health and human services announced an emergency task foedrce creto respond to this crisis and

rectify these problems. you know, a week later, nothingb acti or concrete is known about the action -- the moves of that body. so, but there do need to bek steps to streamline the reunification prosses. for instance, background checks are now required if the sponsor of, the mother or father, is leased to a family meber. there need to be background checks on all people in the households, fingerprints, which take 20 days currently to process, so that's a problem and a new requirement that the ministration put inace that all these family members need to be fingerprinted. they are now charging parents for the travel of children who are being reunited. that could beve wai i think it's unconscionable you're charging a parent to be reunited when the u.s. vernment has forcibly sprayed the parent and child.he so are measures to streamline the system but i don't know if those are takin

place. today they're still charging parents for airfare, they may not have thpameans ty tore those. also, where are the parents going to be placed or are theygo g to be released such that they can be reunited in an appropriate setting with the child. so i think there are a lot ofgi ical coordination issues. obviously, these plans were put in place without consultation with the different agencies without planning as to howfa lies that were being separated were going to be reunited. eth not ear that the record keeping in the federal agencies, particularly homeland seurity, was accurate. the judge in his orders noted that the agency appears to be better able to track people's possessions than they are their children. >> let me ask you about the reunification ordered by juthe e. 14 days for kids under 5, 30o days 5 and older. knowing what you know about the system, can they actually meet thequirement? >> they can.

it would be a stretch, and it would require additnal resources and a lot of strategic planning, coordination and leadership. it would require guidance from thhighest levels of government, the same high levels of government that put this plan into actn to separate families hopefully can develop a plan to reunit them ona timely basis. requires human resrces, system modifications to databases, streamlining of processes used to ensure the child is being reunited with the right person and that i's happening in a safe and secure way. b carey, thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> woodruf stay with us, coming up on the newshour: making sense of nation's wealthiest 9.9%.sp and a brief butacular take from the writer and director judd apatow. but first, discussions about

affordable housing often focus on big, expensive cities, like san francisco and new york. but what about rural america, home to about one-fifth of the u.s. population? y jog reports on a program improving housing in a remote town in alabama. it's part of our ongoing series on poverty and opportunity, "chasing the dream." >> welcome to my house. >> yang: ree zinnerman was born in this tiny west alabama town of newber, and for her, it will always be home. >> it's a peaceful place and i chst like sitting here watg it and listening to the quiet. >> yang: soon, for the firov time, she'llinto a real house of her own. for more than 40 years, zinnerman lived in a mobile home.wh >> that' i was living in. >> yang: zinnerman's house comes courtesy of architecture students in auburn university's rural studio program. >> words can't describe it. i couldn't believe it.

after all these years something i've always wanted was a house. and i was ing to be blessed with the house of my own. >> yang: since 1993, rural studio students and faculty have been working, studying and living in hale county, alabama. some call it a lesson in social design using architecture to serve the greater good. the rural studio director is andrew freear. >> this sort of feeling that everybody deserves good design, whether they'rrich, poor, black, white, pink or green. >> yang: zinnerman's house is part of the studio's 20k project, launched in 2005 with the goal of producing residences that would cost $20,000 to build: "20k." more than two dozen different homes have been designed, constructed and given to residents. most are one-bedroom, about 500- square-feet. each design is named for the recipient. there's johnnie mae's house.

buster's house, and, next to ree's house, geraldine's house. brat's zinnerman's younger sister, geraldinton. >> the day he gave me the keys to the door i couldn't eveopen the door i was shaking. i was happy. >> yang: braxton has lived here for two years. the retired school cafeteria worker loves her kitchenyt >> i like evng about it. the way it's set up. i like my island in the center of the kitchen. >> yang: braxton's new energy- efficient house puts less strain on her wallet: her previous home was poorly insulated. it cost r hundreds of dollars a month to keep cool in the summer and warm in the winter. >> i was spending like about 350 on gas ithe winter every month. >> yang: $350? >> every month for gas. >> yang: while rural studios is helping improve the lives of local residents, the main focus is on training a new generation of architects whose social consciences are as strong as their aesthetics. >> what we're trying to do, is design a home that is easily a built, ain, easily

maintained. you know, our goal is to offer it up at some scale down the road, but we're determined to do it quietly and slowly, carefully. >> yang: the idea is to give students a hands-on experience working with an underservedin communithe heart of the south's black belt. hale county is one of the poorest in the state: 24% of all residents live below the poverty line, compared with about 13% naonwide. for african-americans in the county, e rate is even higher-- more than 35%. and in an area short on jobs, the population is dwdling, dropping six percent from 2010 to 2017. since the students live full- time in newbern, some 140 miles from auburn's campus, they're seen not as outsiders, they're seen as neighbors. >> it makes a different by them being part of the community because they have really imoved it. >> yang: and they ask their

neighbors to suggest who could use a new house. >> it was just sad for anyone to be living in those conditions in these days and times. >> yang: who better to ask than gwen melton, who delivers mail to 483 homes in the newbern area every day? for 10 years, she's quietly suggestepotential clients to rural studio. how does it make you feel when you go deliver the mail to that new house knowing where they had lived before? >> makes me feel great. >> yang: the 20k project began with lofty goals. rural studio associate director rusty smith oversees the project. >> we thought we were going to f wo a year or two or maybe three, and at the end of those house, and it would solve all the problems of housing affordability in the united states. >> yang: it didn't take them long to realize the hurdles to doinit on a bigger scale. >> we're in charge of the financing, and we're in this place wherwe live, we've got student labor to do it and the

faculty oversigh to scale, to do this outside of t,our operational footprinre many. >> yang: still, they want the project to focus attention o the issues facing rural areas, not just in america but around the world. >> it's absolutely a trojan horse for whole bunch of issues about rural living, that we're very interested in challenging and being a voice for. >> yang: for instance, cell service in newbern area is spotty. the town's new library, designed by the rural studio, is the only place high-speed internet is available to the public.>> t makes you feel real good to be able to say that we have a library.ra >> yang: liban barbara williams says that when the nearby high school closed five years ago, the town lost a community hub. >> what the library is trying to do is to try to meet some of thu needs of the cty that are being left i guess left unmet

with the closing of the high school >> yang: aoss the street is newbern's fire station. built by the rural studio in 2004, it was the first new public building in the town in a ntury. patrick braxton lost his job when the factory where he worked the next town over went out of business in 2013. now, he's a volunteer firefighter and newbers handyman. before the station was built, the nearest fire station was 15 minutes away. >> by having this truck rightwb here in n, we saved a lot of houses. saved a lot of people. >> yang: and saved newbern homeowners a lot of money, reducing insurance premiums. like all of rural studio's projects, style also has function: there are no fire hydrants in newbern, so the fire trucks carry their own water, and have to be kept from freezing in the winter.

>> it's very much about making sure that those fire trucks don't freeze and that that space is temperate throughout the year. >> that's macarthur's house. >> yang: ree zinnerman gave studen free rein to design her house, except for one detail. >> a red door. i just love red and my momma always loved red. >> yang: for zinnerman, the grngtest relief is simply ha a well-designed, well-built house to live in. for rural studio, it's about more than just solving a housing problem.vi >> s problems sort of imagines the future aseeroken and it to be fixed. i don't think there's anything broken here. but there's some really significant purposes that need to be served. >> yang: a lesson for stn ents in helpiderserved community. and heing the community learn how to better serve itself. for th yang in newbern, alabama.

>> woodruff: now a look at a group that one writer is dubbing "a new american aristo and the problems it poses for our society. no, it's not the billionares in the top 0.1 percent of the population that we often hear about. but the group th sits right below them: the 9.9%. our economics correspondent paul solman has more. it's part of our weekly series "making sense," which rs thursdays on the newshour. >> the united states is going down a path. it's a path of class stratification, growing inequality. and the consequences of that are more potentially damaging than i think most people appreciate. i >> reportea provocative atlantic magazine cover story," the birth of a new aristocracy" author and philosopher matthew stewart argues growing class division is destabilizing our society. >> so it turns out that the concentration of wealth in the

united states has really been on the top 0.1 percent, not the top one percent. but that doesn't mean that moeverybody below them losy. in fact only the bottom 90 percent did. so there's this group in between, the 9.9% that have managed to kp pace. ey play a very important role in on the one hand posively running the economy, on the other hand basically setting up barriers that prevent ople from below to realize the american dream. >> reporter: so how much wealth do the people in the 9.9% have? >> you need roughly $1.2 million to make it into the 9.9%. and the median is around $2.4 million. >> reporter: net worth this is. >> this is all net worth. and it incdes all forms of assets. so that would include home in the numbers i've seen it also includes things like cars. it's very important to unrstand that our wealth i not just financial. we in the 9.9% we enjoy better etalth.

we tend to live inr neighborhoods, which means we with.less crime to dea we have better education, so all of these non-financial forms of wealth turn out to be itical. ey don't only make us basically able to generate more economic wealth, but they also consolidate our position. we can then pass them down to our kids. orter: so it's obviously not good for people who are stuck below, but your argument is it's not good for people who are lucky enough to be above. >> yes, that's right. cause as the classes pul apart, the people on the upper strata have to work harder to keep their position. they have farther to fall if they make a mistake. so they invest more in preserving their position. but i don't thiak we've apprd how that ramifies throughout society. the way it locks them in place, draws battle lines, creates strust. >> reporter: and what's driving this? >> the basic driver is something that we're all familiar with. we ngall know the story of ri inequality. that creates a kind of rigidity,

an instability. that also removes fact and reason froour discussions, that we're not able to have meaningful, a meaningful basis for discussion among all americans. inequality feeds on itself to some degree. so the greater the concentration of wealth, the more that the people with that wealth can uses it to idate their position. by investing it in non-financial forms of wealth. >> reporte i've heard this referred to as transactional capital now. >> it can also be just physiological capital in a certain sense. so it turns out that not only are the wealthier getting healthier, but the people in the lower deciles are actually getting less healthy i respects. so for example for white,dd le-aged people with high school education and less, lifen expectancy hase down. >>eporter: part of what's driving this, is something that you and others call assortative mating. >> so assortative mating is just

when le marries like in the past 50 years, we've seen a significant increase in this kind of marriage pattern. there are some stues that suggest that as much as a third of the growth in concentration d of wealth to decisions connected with mating, essentially. >> reporter: just like in the woden days noble families, kings, queens, thed intermarryo consolidate their power or their wealth. >> well it reminds me of jane austen, to be honest, because we are returng to a world in which individuals seeking mates are frankly frantic. they can't find true love in someone who is of the adequate social status. >> you must come and make lizzy marry mr. collins! for she vows she will not have him and if you do not make haste mr. collins will change his mind and he will t have her!

>> the benefit that you get maom hing social status is tremendous, and the price you r failing to do that, fo failing to find a high-status mate, has gone up. it's gone up dramatically. if you're low status and you marry a low-status mate, marriage is actually harder. it's harder because you'rerk g harder probably or you have greater risks, greater stresses. you have worse health.ns and uently you, statistically are much less likely to have a stable household. >> reporter: so what do you want the 9.9 percent to do? >> we have to start ng about how we can live in integrated communities that are open to everybody. where geography is not an ilonomic and class barrier. our geography is kng us. we are setting up a system where we conce resources, the schools in a particular area. we concentrate economic power. >> reporter: and that's why people move to areas like where you live, brookline, massachusetts, which has this great educational system, right.

>> yeah, it's great. we have a quasi-private system of education thawe call public. i move to brookline, i send mypu kids tic schools, they're terrific schools. that's why you move there. and you can too. you ju have to buy a home that's worth $2 million. now that's a colossal, colossal blunder. in american history, public education was absolutely essential in building the middle class. that's how we got the productive economy in which everyone participates, and we had a reasonable degree of stability. wew setting up a system where you get the education you pay for.ea and that you get a bunch of citizens who are uneducated. and that's a recipe for disaster. >> reporter: i think that's what's so difficult for somebody like myself to hear or people in our audience. what we're doing is what comes absolutely naturally to us, that is investing in our kids. moving to a neighborhood with a good school for our children or grandchildren. you don't want me to sp doing at, right? >> just because our individual

actions are blameless when we look at them very naowly, that doesn't mean it's all going to work out for the best. i lived in mexico, i lived in the u.k. for a number of years. i've seen versions of this ocess going on. everybody involved is nice. but at the end of the day, they participate in this that leads you to a point where you've got a distinct class of wonderful people that a lot of other people are very unhappy with. >> reporter: and the people in that distinct ass, at least in places like mexico, and they have actual gunmen in their big, fancy houses. >> right. and there's a natural progression from gated counities to armed and gat communities. and we're sort of working through that now. and if we keep going down this path, yeah, we'll have the armed and gated communities. and none of us will have done anything wrong. but that's where we'll be. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, this is economics correspondent paul solmants e boston.

>> woodruff: next, another installment of our weekly brief but spectacular series where we ask people about thesions. judd apatow is a world-renowned writer, director, ananstandup come he says he owes much of his success the late comedian garry shandling, who is the focus of apatow's latest film "the zen diaries of garry shandling." apatow has his own scial "judd apatow: the return" that is now available on netflix. >> is there's any part of you that wants to try acting? >> i generally don't act due to, i have a voice in my head that's like no one wants to look at you and i always have to overcome the, i have a one scene in film the disaster artist, i was told that i was playing, like ak sleazy, producer, and then when they pro, you know promoted the film, they said yeah judd did a great job playing himself, and that hurt.

i don't think it's possible for most people to understand what it feels like to be a stand-up comedian, because it's what most people on earth are trying to avoid at all costs. standing in front of people, saying you know, saying what you beli positive reaction, you have to be really bad at it for a long time in order to lrn how to do my first memory of garry shandling was you kning m on the "tonight show" killinand then he was hosting the tonight show and i was interviewing comedians for my high school radio station, and i was able to nagle an interview with him over the phone, and i just remember that he was one of the only people that tried to make me laugh in the interview. i think that most of modern television in some way was

oaspired by garry, because garry did an incredibly silly, innovative show with his "garry shandling show," and then he did ,really grounded, satiric emotionally deep show with the "larry sanrs show," he worked so hard on it, and then it was time for it to air, there was no party, i just went to garry's house, and we watched alone, the two of us, and when it ended, the phone did not ring, and i thought well that is the perfect larry sanders moment, garry always mentored me, he would read all my scripts, he would go to all the cuts of my movies and give me notes. the hardest part about garry passing away was the person i would normally call about someone like garry passing away, was garry. t whngs come up and i have to make choices, if i'm just like quiet for a moment, i can hear gary, i know exactly what he would say, i know when he tould be like, you know what to do, you know whao.

what's fun about being and ambitious in coma y when you're d is you meet all these people and they're hysterical but they he no outlet for it so when i was in my early 20s and i lived with adam sandler. itat was so enjoyable abou was he was so freakin' funny all day long but didn't haob, so he would just try to be that funny to you. if i went somewhere with adam before adam was famous, i alwagr felt the rooitate towards him, i would get quiet and shy and just disappear into the wallpaper, but other people like i think one of the reahy i wanted to do my netflix special was because my only dream was to do stand-up, everying else was not the dream, and i feel like now that i'm older i have stories to tell and i have opinions on things. raising kids, living witthree women, not knowing you know where i fit in in a very female household, and i do talk about

spending most of my life just following them around sephora, i'm not even allowed to complain, i have to, i have to walk around and be like hey this is great, this is a great way to spend our day. and the weird part is now it really is.s sometien i'm alone i'm like i wish i was at sephoray, with the famo they won. this is judd apatow, and this is myonrief but spectacular tak comedy and garry shandling. >> woodruff: y can watch more ief but spectacular videos online at: pbs.org/newshour/brief. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. a join us onli again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you anyou soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been proved by:

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