captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, july 14: after russian operatives are indicted ewfor election meddling, questions about the integrity of the coming midterms; as nes come and go, some migrant children remain separated from their families; and in our signature segment, using living shorelito protect and nurture coastal areas. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> "pbs newshour weekend" is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. the sue and edgar wachenheim foundation. tethe cheryl and philip mi family. oy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. walt. barbara hope zuckerberg.

corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. >> additi aprovided by:s been d the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. cfrom the tnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening, and thanks for joining us. one day after the united states charged 12 russian military inlligence officers with hacking into democratic campaign and state election operations in 2016, president donald trump suggested the obama administration was responsible. fore heading out to play golf at his turnberry, scotland, club this morning, the president tweeted, asking: "why didn't they do something about it?" e were other tweets on a variety of subjects, but none criticussia or praised the justice department indictments. after golfing today, aides say

mr. trump wipare for his monday meeting with russian president vladimir putin in helsinki. at a news conference with british prime minister theresa may yesterday, the president said he will bring up the russian cyber-attacks but dismissed the possibility putin will a in philadelphia today, the main topic at the annual meeting of secretaries of state and election officials is cyber- security for the upcoming midterm elections. veral state officials said the federal government is doing a better job of communicating about the risks. for more on the russian hacking and what is ahead for u.s. election security, politico reporter eric geller joins us now from washington, d.c. we saw se of this come out last fall about secretaries of state and voter registration systems being vulnerable. what did we learn?t how did they it done? >> well, this is a very interesting sort of two part indictment. the vast majority of it focused on the hacking of the democratic national committee, the clinton campaign, there were also a few positied in there about

attempted attacks on state elections systems., in one cawhat they did is they broke into a company that sells software that's used to verify voters at the polls. so you walk up, you tell them your name, they lk on the list. what they're doing is they're using software to make sure you're on the vo that software is made by a company. in this case it's believed to be a florida company called vr asystemsd on a leaked nsa report published last year. they got into thisth company, ey looked around, and then they used what they knew to send e-mails to a bopch of pe in florida, elections supervisors in varioucounties, basically saying, you know, click this link. again, pretending toe from at company to establish legitimacy. it's unclear if they get into any systems maintained by those florida counties, but that was one of their attempts and, of course, they tried in many other states, to the indictment also mentions that they successfully got into one state election ard, illinois has said we believe that that is a reference to us. they have confirmed in th that they were hacked. and the number in the indictment

is 500,000 vers in illinois. w okay. so -- out of hi to say that the results of the election were not compromised because of this, s, if youss the aim can have access to voter registration data, you can kind of muck it up for people who you suspect might be on the other team coming out to vote and ther suppress the other team or make your voters come out, right? >> yeah, exactly. that's the big concern for, folks. for the most part, voting machines a impervious to most forms hacking. there are ways to get in one by one, but the big concern, as you mentioned, is the voter registration systems where if you an drop as obama's former cyber coordinator was concerned about during the election, if you drop every third voter from the voter registry, that's chaos on elect n day and youonly need to do that in a couple of states. you don't even need to do that ng state as long as people in the swing states are hearing about chaos in other states that's a problem. >> so let's look forward. here we are just a few months away from a mid-term election. does the intelligen community,

does the department of justice in their indictment, does anybody feel likee are secure enough from this happening again? >> wel you know, 's interesting. the dhs secretary was asked abt this at a cyber security conference several months ago. she was asked are you confident in the secury of the election systems? and her response was telling. e question.answer th she said i'm confident in our efforts to protect the elections, which is essentially saying i think everybody's working as hard as they can. again, that's not an answer to the question. right now, the secretaries are meeting -- secretaries of state are meeting in philadelphia for their summer conference, and election security is the top issue there. you have the federal government several months ago giving out almost $400 milliostates to upgrade their voting machines, upgrade their registratio system. frankly, that's not enough for some states, especially given that states get the money based on voter populations. so some of those states that have big problems might not be getting enough money to fix them and even if they are, who knows if you can get those voting

machines into place before the midterms? >> all right, eric geller joining us from washington tonight. thanks so ch. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: for a thirprday, esters gathered across the united kingdom against president trump's policies and statements. tltoday in scod, thousands of anti-trump demonstantors marched chanted in the capital of edinburgh. >> no trump, no way. immigrants are here to stay. >> sreenivasan: at a city park, critics brought a 20-foot balloon depicting the president as a baby. it was the same one flown over yesterday's protests in london. and a greenpeace protester breached a no-fly zone over the turnberry club, paragliding with a banlr reading "trump, w below par." in managua, nicaragua, toda dozens of university students along with priests, doctors, journalists and other civilis are now free after being trapped inside a church overnight during gunfire from pro-government forces, but not before at leastn one peas killed and several ot rs were wounded in the attack. nationwide, skirtshes have been ing place for months between

pro-government forces and those demanding the resignion of president daniel ortega. the skies over western japan have cleared after heavy storms caused the country's worst weather disaster in decades. more than 200 people died in heavy downpours, related flash floods and landslides, and another 54 people remain missing. japanese prime minister shinzo abe visited some of the thousands forced into shelters and promised to support rebuildingth iregion. >> sreenivasan: when it comes to protecting shelines from threats of erosion, storms and rising seas, the traditional solution has been to build walls or hard infrastructure. bu alternative is gaining traction. it's called a living shoreline. this story is part of our ongoing series, "peril and promise: the challenge of climate change"; and produp d in partnersth climate central, a non-profit science

and news organization. on a muggy summer day, almost a dozen woers and volunteers form a bucket brigade. they pass 20 to 30 pound bag trucked-in oyster shells onto waiting rowboats. then, they transport them down the shore, piling the bags strategically in the shallow water next to the marsh. about 200 bags of oyster shells are used to build each 20-foot artificial reef, a form of green infrastructure known as a living shorelin rachel gwin is the restoration coordinator for the choctawhatchee basin alliance, or c.b.a., a nonprofit environmental organization building this living shoreline at a waterfront home on florida's panhandle. , without these reefs, what's happening to this shore? >> without these reefs, this rsh area-- which is a really good, healthy salt marsh-- it would just eventually keep eroding. >> sreenivasan: traditionally, seawalls built of concrete, wood hardened plastic have been used to lock shorelines in place

anprevent erosion. a living shoreline is an altern which protects the land behind it from erosion by reducing the wave energ as the waves are knocked down by the artificial reef, sand and other sediment is trapped behind it, rebuilding the shore and allowing vegetation to grow. >> with the living shorelines, each site is different-- especially with the sediment movement, if it's sandier or silty-- but you could start to build back shoreline. and with the grasses growing out, it can help reclaim g.bit of your shoreline while stabiliz >> sreenivasan: so, all this is new? >> all of it is new inast two-and-a-half years. >> sreenivasan: on the other side of the bay, homeowner jennifer mcpeak's property has been transformed since the c. shoreline.ed a living >> prior to having this protection, this whole shoreline was scrubbedaslean. it w just sand. there wasn't one blade of vegetation on the entire length of the shoreline. and that was making the erosion far worse. >> sreenivasan: you're watching

your land, your back disappear? >> we were watching our biggest investment fall into the ocean. yes. >> sreenivasan: mcpeak and her husband waed what many of their neighbors had: a seawall. they even started the process of getting a permit from the state's department of environmenotection, or d.e.p. >> we had signed on the dotted line, we're putting in a seawall. and the representative from the d.e.p. said, "have you ever hear and i said no.reline?" she said, "well, contact these folks over athe choctawhatchee basin alliance and ask them about it because i think you guys would be a really good candidate." >> sreenivit took almost a year to get the permits from the state and federal government to build the living shoreline, and it cost about $3,000-- about a quarter of what an 8 seawall would have. thstc.b.a. subsidizes the co with grants, labor and oyster shells, which are collected from local restaurants. are you surprised at how fast it's taken? >> shocked. shocked. we just had to protect the shoreline a little bit to give a chance for these grasses to gain

a foothold, and with it all this life. and that's been the biggest thrill for us. this isn't just grass and some reefs; this thing is teeming life. >> sreenivasan: the bags of oyster shells create a whole new research shows that living shorelines attract more marine life and plants than seawalls. what kind of things do you see here? >> oh, my gosh. every kind of crab you can itagine. we've got hermrabs, stone crabs, blue crabs, fiddler crabs, marsh crabs. i sound like that guy from "forrest gump" right now withit the shrimp, bu me with the crabs! ( laughter ) >> sreenivasan: mcpeak's living shoris one small example of what's been tried on a larger scale to protect shorelines all around the gulf. here in pensacola, florida, just like the rest of the southeast or much of the eastern seaboard, coasts have to deal with large storms and hurricanes. but there's a growing bo of research that suggests living shorelines like this one are more resilient through storms

than hardened shorelines like seawalls. >> it looks today as gf not better, than before the hurricane. >> sreenivasan: darryl boudreau is the watershed coordinator for the nature conservcy. he showed us a 30-acre living shorele project in downtown pensacola called project greenshores. the first part was completed in 2003, one year bore hurricane ivan hammered the region. >> hurricane ivan was a category three hurricane. it was basically a direct hit. it washed away the road on i-10 further up the bay. that's how powerful that storm was. but the road behind project otgreenshores was really n damaged. >> sreenivasan: the experience with project greenshores in pensacola is not unique. in norolina, researchers documented how living shorelines like this one were barely damaged after hurricane irene in 2011. while about 100 yards away, this hardened shoreline had to be thmpletely replaced. , there's sea level rise. climate change is expected to push seas in this region up

between two and five feet over the next 80 years. we've got two different strategies to al with sea level rise. you got a solid wall, and you've got this marsh. what's going to do bet >> i... i would say over time the marsh is going to do better. the seawall is sort of a fixed point, so it's a fixed height. it's a fixed location. with sea level rise, the water levels are going to increase. and the only way to adapt a hardened structure iitto come backa higher structure. >> sreenivasan: project greenshores was funded by the federal government, thate and private sources,luding the local utility provider. another phase of the project is currening developed using money from the b.p. oil spill. boudreau says it was designed to be an example of what a living shoreline could but with more than 14,000 miles of the nation's nearly00,000 miles of tidal shoreline already hardened with infrastructure like seawalls, living shorelines currently represent a tiny fr of america's coasts.

>> it takes educating the community because they see a softer solutioy just say how does that protect it? tht once they have it put in at neighbor's house and they say, "hey, their property is not t oding," and look at the wildlife tis attracts, that's how you get that change and you win people over. >> sreenivasan: so, seeing is believing. >> seeing is believing. >> we don't have the research that shows us how to do it all, t. >> sreenivasan: just cebrian is a marine ecologist with the dauphin island sea lab and the university of south alabama. >> so, that's dauphin island, right there. >> sreenivasan: he took us to a living shoreline project by an uninhabited barrier island off the coast of alabama. funded with money from the stimulus plan in 2009, researchers installed bagged shells but also a commercial product known as reefbletal triangle filled with oyster shells and concrete reef balls, like these, which are submerged under water. cebrian says fish and marine invertebrates love the habitat, t bune of the reef designs have completely prevented erosion. the reefs are too far the shoreline.

>> we e still losing the shoreline very quickly. >> sreenivasan: however, at a nearby site, the state and the federal government funded this project to install these trapezoidal concrete blocks to help rebuild a narrow peninsula damaged by hurricane katrina. since the nearly one-mile of artificial reef s installed in 2010, the shore has grown dramatically, creating a vrant ecosystem. >> so, it's a very healthy environment. we have documented that oysters lon settle here. and also, a of birds will come over to hang out here, as well. and also, there's a lot of fish that come to these blocks because they find a structure. so, all in all, combining marshes with pyramids is a very effective way to create living shorelines. >> sreenivasan: and there's a lot of research behind this. before these concrete pyramids were deployed in the bay, they e were tested here, at a wol at the nearby university of south alabama. engineers tested scale models of the sign. here, they can adjust the size and frequency the waves to

simulate real-world conditions. bret webb is a pro coastal engineering and has shnsulted on dozens of living elines on the gulf coast. >> testing allowed us to say, trmber one, that the original sizeture would not really work well for that site, that they were going to need it be a littleigger. the other thing that allowed us he say is that, hey, we don't need three rows of structures; we could just have two rows. >> sreenivasan: webb says isresearchers, including eineers and ecolog, are still fiatring out what works and one size does not fit all. even with customizatn, webb says, living shorelines are not appropriate for all waterfronts. >> there are also certain cases where somebody just absolutely needs vertical, you know, d ructure along city waterfronts ings like that where you've got wharfs and marinas or maybe ports and harbors. going to a natural shoreline e.ere is... is really somewhat counterproduct >> sreenivasan: but back on the banks of the choctawhatchee bay in florida, oyster reef living shorelines like this one have ngen very effective at protectiand from erosion and

silding natural habitat. as a finp, the team plants supplementary grass along the shore. >> fishing is going to g good out here. >> sreenivasan: homeowner butch richard, a retired air force pilot, is optimistic tre on the far side of his property will start to build back up afte years of erosion. >> once you get that grass going and going intohe water, towards the water, then you're making big progress. >> sreenivasan: the c.b.a. has ngilt more than two miles of lihorelines around the choctawhatchee bay, and the group says the idea is gaining traction; there's currently a e-year-long waiting list to have an ster shell living shoreline installed. >> sreenivasan: learn more about living shorelines. visit www.pbs.org/newshour. th >> sreenivasan week, the federal government reunited 58

children under the age of five who were separated from their xican border.he even though some of the reunions happened after last tuesday's ngdeadline, a judge oversehe legal challenges to the trump administration's immigration policies commended the government for their efforts. but he also cautioned that he'll be watching clely as the deadline to return more than 2,500 older children to their families approaches on july 26. joining us now from el paso, texas, is julian aguilar, who reports on the border and itmigration for the non-pr "texas tribune." first, give us an update. where are we at? >> it's just like you described. think that now toriginal deadline has passed for the five years and younger, what the government calls the tender age children, there are two things playing out. when they're going to drop to that more than 100 original number le you mentioned, it was about 58 that have been reunited and the government says there are others who have not cause of various factors with respect to whether or nohethe

personcame in is actually their parent, whether those eeople pose a danger to th children, laying the groundwork for a potential slowdown so people know what to expect, coming up with the rest of the separated children that have to be reuleted in s than two weeks. >> the government goes out of its way say we want to make sure we're returning the children to their rightful family members. has that been a pretty significant problem in the past? >> there's beea lot of criticism about how people are upset because president obama did the same thing, separating families, and although the obama administration did it, it was o a mualler, smaller level. to give the government credit if vertente child was in sent to a human smuggler or trafficker or somebody that in the future did this d arm then all eyes are on the government saying you really shouldn't have one so i think the government to be fair is trying to be as cautious as they can, but on the flip side of the coin you have a lot of people saying well the government is in this predicament because of the

zero tolerance policy anyway that never needed to happen and what we've seen in elpa on tuesday when the deadline for the five and younger children were, there are three fathers that were reunited that evening and reuben garcia, the director of the annunciation house that received the families said he could tell on the partfef the ral government's side that there was an urgency to get this done as quickly as possible, so they know there's a lot of eyes on them. buey know they're under heavy criticism,at the same time, as we saw on friday with the press release saying everybody needs to slow down, take a breath because we need to make sure that these children and y rents are really who tsay they are. again, i think that's kind of laying the groundwork for what's gog to happen in the next two weeks. >> well, let's talk a little bit about those 2,500 d ds. it see the government's communication, they said -- they mentioned the word files, that there were files on all these children. ndi'm trying to figure outn your reporting, what have you found is the amount of information that the government has on a per child basis? >> well, the government says -- of course, they know where every child is and who every ild is because they're assigned an alien number, as are the

rents, but what we've seen on the ground is that it doesn't necessarily play out the same way for each family. for example, last week there was several parentasin elo that were reunited with their children. o ere was one gentleman from honduras who gote his daughter for an hour, and then they were separated again because he had to submit a birth otrtificate and that happened a few days ago if week ago, and now, he had to make an appointment for fingerprints. tut meanwhile there were other parents that got here after he did that had already been reunited so it's sort of aes ng game as to what's going to play out with each scenario and this example i gave of the honduran gentleman, his daughter anhe are oth in el paso, which i think is even more telling and even more frustrating for this gentleman because you have families that are hundreds o tmiles apartt have already been reunited and this gentleman is, you know, in the same city limits as his daughter and he's still having to jump through some hoops. thve's one example, but i heard that's occurring, you know -- it's not just a singular incident where that's occurring across the country. >> you also followed a couple of

different families who are trying to reuni and sometimes, you said once they get into the country, their child is hundreds of miles awho. do they get from one location to another? >> well, the government -- and they've said t for years, you know, it just depends on bed space. for example, the tent facility, the camp here outside of el paso in el paso, they had to extend that contract because they still needed to keep the beds for the unaccompanied minors. say somebody was apprended near el paso or within el paso and their ultimate destination s new york or chicago or maryland and they had an aunt or uncle or a relative there, they would sometimes send the young eild where they were cl to the sponsor, to the guardian and keep the parent detained where th were originally apprehended. i think this is part of the frustration -- it's sort of mix and match all over the cory, which is sort of leading to this long amount of time for these folks to be reunited.

>> thanks for having me on. >> this is "pbs newshour weekend," saturday. >> sreenivasan: 20 years ago, atndy lou sat on a jury that handed down the penalty to a mississippi man convicted of a double homicide. her guilt propelled her on a mission to track down her fellow jurors to see how they feel years later. it's the subject of a new documentary for the pbs series" p.o.v." called "juror number y," it premieres monuly 16, at 10:00 p.m., but check your local listings. >> at some point,, someone orme dy decided let's just have a straw vote. we're going to -- write your initial verdict and let's pass the hat around and everybody drops it in. and we'll see how divided we are and when it came back around to me, i pulled out every one of themand every single one of evem had death penalty. y single one of them.

i was like -- it just -- i think at at moment everybody in that whole room -- it just froze them in their seats. >> i was looki out the window, down the street and there are people out there going to unch, they're walking in the park, they're walking around the street. they've got a normal life. and we're u p herewe're getting ready to kill somebody. >> exactwa. everything blank. and i just -- i don't even home.er the drive i do remember as soon as i got home, as soon as i wet to go unlock my house, i just broke down and started crying. it was juon an emotieyond what i've ever felt before. i thought about th every day, every moment for a while you know. did we do the right thing?

yeah, we did the right thing. did we do the right thing? yeah, we did the right thing. >> sreenivasan: finally toght, the 12 boys and their soccer coach rescued from a flooded cave in thailand will be going home next thursday. the ys showed drawings of their teammates and thanked their rescuers in videos made ho thital where they are still recovering. >> hello. i am adul. now, i am very fine. i'm very thank you so, help me, thank you so much. >> sreenivasan: doctors say a few of the boys had pneumonia exd infections, but all are cted to make full recoveries. that's all for this edition of ass newshour weekend. i'm hari sreen. thanks for watching. have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by:

bernard and irene schwartz. the sue and edgar wachenheim foundation. the cheryl and philip milstein family. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. fagelos. the j.p.ndation. keosalind p. walter. barbara hope zerg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individl and group retirement products. th's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been ovided by: and by the corporation for public broadcaing, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. be more. pbs.

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