caioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm ghdy woodruff. on the newshour to president trump's conflicting statements sow confusionhe on howhite house views the threat of russia to u.s. democracy. w then, we explot we know moscow is doing now to disruptea this yr's elections and u.s. efforts to sece the vote. plus, as carbon changes the ocean's chemistry and kes it harder for shellfish t researchers turn to plants for a solution. >> what we're trying to do is deliberately grow kelp within ac specrea and thereby remove co2. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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ported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank u. >> woodruff:ore whiplash at the white house today over russian interference in u.s. elections. it came as president trump appeared to dismiss the threat, and denied that he ducked confrontation with president vladimir putin >> there's been no president ever as tough as i have been on russia. >> woodruff: the president used a cabinet meeting to insist he's

been firm with russia, at the helsinki summit and beyond. ny i think president putin knows that better thandy certainly a lot better than the media he understands it and he's not happy about it. >> woodruff: then came a potential new bombshell, when a reporter asked mr. trump if russia is an active threat. >> is russ still targeting the u.s., mr. president? >> thank you very much. no. >> you don't believe that to be the case? >> let's go.sh we're fi here. >> woodruff: that seemed to ncntradict the director of national intelli dan coats, who warned last week that is, indeed, still tryin to penetrate the american democratic process. >> what's serious about the russia is their intent. they have capabilities, but it's their intento undermine our basic values, undermine democracy, creatwedges between a us our allies. >> woodruff: it was left to white house press secretary sarah sanders to say just what the president meant by his answer today. >> i had a chance to speak to

the president after those comments, the pres said "thank you very much" was saying no to answering questions.ki we're bold reforms to make sure this never happens again because we take this because wean recognize our election system are incredibly important and a cornerstone of our dmocracy. >> woodruff: >> woodruff: all of this, after t. trump appeared to acce argument of russia's president putin, on monday, that moscow did not interfere in the 2016 u.s. presidential oulection. thated off a storm of bipartisan criticism, and yesterday, mr. trump claimed he simply misspoke helsinki. >> in a key sentence in my i said the word "would" instead of "wouldn't." the sentences should have been i don't see any reason why i wouldn't or why it wouldn't be russia. se woodruff: after that, some

republicans, like tor bob, corkerair of the foreign relations committee, had seemed ready to give the president the benefit of the doubt. but then, came his comments toy. >> i don't know what it is about the president's retionship with putin that causes h to doubt, to trust him over our intelligence community but it's really damaging morale. it's baffling to those of us who have concernabout the integrity of our elections. h s walking back the walk back. >> woodruff: senate minority leader chuck schumer lambasted mr. trump's tuesday clarification as "weak" and sai esident would need another walk-back, after what he said today. and, he called for the u.s. translator in the trump/putin one-on-one meeting to testify. >> the translator workfor the federal government, works for the taxpayers, and maybe the only person who can accurately report what president trump said

to president putin behind closed doors, what concessions were made to vladimir putin. we want to know, did the president make concession that hurt tour national security, what did he agree to?a >> woodruff: iries of tweets this morning, the president boasted that his summit with putin was a "success." he wrote that "so many people ar the hinds of intelligence loved my press conference performance in helsinki." and, he declared that russia had offered to assist u.s. nuclear talks with north korea. secretary of state mike pompeo also talked up progrs at the summit, sitting next to the president today. >> we can now begin to have important dialogues to put that relationship in a place where wr reduce tisk to the united states from threats from russia. >> woodruff: but adding to the ongoing furor, mr. trump, in an interview that aired last night, appeared to question again the

reason for nato, and its bedrock pledge to mutual defense among allies, designed with russia in mind. >> why should my son go tont egro to defend it from attack. why is that? >> i understand what you're saying, i've asked the same question, montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people. >> yeah, i'm not against montenegro. >> yeah, right >> or albania. >> no, by the way, they're very strong people, they have very aggressive people, they may get aggressive, and congratulations, you're in world war iii. >>oodruff: members of both parties are now demanding that top national securit dplomatic officials testify before congress, aclose any deals mr. trump may have struck with putin. secretary pompeo will be first up. ri testifies at a senate h a week from today. late today, cbs news released part of their interview with president trump where he claims he told vladimir putin the u.s. will not tolerate election interference.

>> do you hold him personally responsible? >> well, i would, because he's in charge of the count. just like i consider myself to be responsible for things that happen in this country. so certainly as the leader of a country you would have to hold m responsible, yes. >> what did you say to him? >> very strong on the fact that we can't have meddling, we can't have any of that. >> woodruff: and newshour white use correspondent yamich alcindor joins me now. yamiche, you've gone from thng president san helsinki that he was inclined to believe vladimir putin to thesaying he misspoke and then the back and forth today and now this comment that he holds vladimir putin personally responsible. atat do we understand at this point about wh the president believes? >> well, based on his conversation with cbs news, he's saying that he does hold president putin personally responsible for election interference but, at the same time, is contradicting the

intelligence community who has said over and over again that russia meddled many if election and putin ordered it personally. he's saying i'm a bit reonsible for things tha happen in general in the united states much as putin is responsible in general for things that happen at russia. i would assume a lot of people woulsay he's not being as forthright at he should be. the president did not walk backe other thingsaid in the press conference. it's not just the would and hwouldn't, it's the factt he said that the f.b.i. and doj were having a witch hunt, a probe that was hurting u.s.-russia relations. he didn't say he takes that back or that putin offers strong denial and he be stecally was taking him at his word. ihat is something he did not walk back so, le the president was saying there arear ications that need to be made he isn't changing all the things that haned at the press conference i attended. >> woodruff: one of thegs thit's not clear because

it did sound and may still sound as if the pre is equating the u.s. intelligence community in terms of its credibility with russia's president putin. >> well, i ked sarah sanders directly on this question of whether or not the president was having a false equivalency. i said specifically, after v charlottesvillginia, when the young woman was killed while protesting neo-nazis, the president got acot of klash for saying there was violence on both sides. then in finland before the world the president said both parties, both vladimir putin and the u.s. intelligence agencies had their issues when it com to the russian election interference, and why is he putting them both on these equalplaying fields? sarah sanders said, one, it was not fair to put charlottesville and russia on the same -- compare them at all, that they shouldn't be compared. she also said the united states and the trump administration takes election interference very seriously and are looking into this. that said, the president didn't

back up orcktrack from what he said when he said both parties had issues with when russia interfered in the electi. he's not taking that back. >> woodruff: how are republicans handling this? some are giving the republicans the benefit of the doubt, others have me out in a way never before and questioned and even criticized him s. e republicans like senator rand paul and congress collins coming out and saying they agree with the president that they have issue with the mueller probe, that they question whether or not rusa interfered like they claimed and then you have newt gingrich who came out and clarified himself and you have senator lindsey graham andr riburr of north carolina both saying the president needs to be way more forceful on ths, both republicans. republicans have not pushed back on this president very much but ese two and others republicans are saying the president needs to get this right and he need to be more clear about. this the other thing thin's happ democrats are using this to fund raise just the d

triple c said today they raised in june $15.2 million. james comey is also coming out urging veople toote for democrats. of course that's the former f.b.i. dirtor president trump fired, so democrats are seeing this as a way to win in the midterms. >> woodruff: democratic congressional campaign committee raising money. >> yes. >> woodruff: yamiche alcindor, the story continues. thank you. >> thanks. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, a federal judge ordered russian woman jailed without bond, on charges she infiltrated american political groups and aided russian intelligence. maria butina is formally accused of being an unregistered foreign agent. prosecutors argued she's a flight risk. her lawyers called the charges overblown. the european union hite with a record fine of $5 billion today for allegedly abusing its corporate power. regulators said the u.s. tech s giant forcrt phone makers to use its android operatingal system to ingoogle's

search and browser apps. google immediately announced plans to appeal. we'll have a full report, later in the program. in thailand, 12 young soccer players made their first public appearance since they were rescued last week from a flooded cave complex. neil conneryf independent television news has our report. >> reporter: looking happy and strong after all they'vewe endured, the te boys and their coach rescued from the flooded thai caves. the wild boars football team speaking for the first time keadul sam-on, who's 14, sf the moment british divers found them: >> (anslated ): i did not know what to say to him, i said hello, and then he said hello back, it was a miracle, he said, how are you, how many of you?ou >> how many of 13? brilliant. >> reporter: the boys considered swimming out when sudden rains flooded the caves.

they had no food until they were found nine ds later, surviving only on dripping water. >> ( translated ): i tried to go underwater and dig to see if we could get through, but all i could feel was sand and rocks, an couldn't get out that way. >> reporter: titthe youngest member of the team, at 11, talked of how hungry he was.at >> ( tran ): i tried not to think about food, i didn't think of my favorite meals, i just thought of plain normal dishes like fried rice. >> reporter: the boys said they will never forget the thai navy sealho died trying to rescue them. they've itten messages for samarn kunam's family. >> ( translat): please rest in peace, we feel sorry for your family, i want to say thank you for your sacrifice. >> reporter: the boys are now finally heading home, and know there's a bit of explaining to do. >> ( translated ): i want to

apologize to my parents,hen i get home i know i'll get yelled at by my mum. >> reporte but for now there's relief and joy for families reunited. >> woodruff: that report from neil conneryof independent television news. another migrant tragedy today in the mediterranean. 19 people drowned off northern cyprus when their boat capsized. the turkish coast guard rescued more than 100 others, and helicopters airlifted them to turkey. 25 people were still missing. a two-year-long state of emergency in turkey expired tonight. president recep tayyip erdogan imposed it in 2016 after a failed coup against his government. since then, authorities haveta ed 75,000 people and fired about 130,000 public employees. now the government plans new anti-terror laws, and erdogan's opponents charge he'll use them to stifle dissent. back in this country, the state supreme court of california ocked a november ballot

measure to split the state into three parts.su orters argue the state has grown too big and too diverse to govern. t bu court ruled it needs more time to hear questions about the proposal validity. the measure might still appear on some future ballot. republican congresswoman martha roby has won a primary runoff, defeating a democrat-turned- trump loyalist. the four-term incumbent got president trump's endorsement, despite criticizing him as a candidate during the 2016 campgn. the president took credit for roby's win, in a tweet today. and, on wall street, the dow jones industrial average gained 79 points to close at 25,199. the nasdaq was down a fraction of a point, and the s&p 500 added six. still to come on the newshour: the risk russian hackers pose to the midterm elections. u.s. commerce secretary wilbur

ross under fire for his investments. the plant that could reducell poion's effects on the ocean, and much more. >> woodruff: u.s. intelligence agencies are unanimous in their assessment that russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and senior officis warn of ongoing efforts to do it again in the 2018 midterms. to examine the threat and what's being done to stop it, i'm joined by two women with recent and extensive experience focusing on voting infrastructure and russian meddling in the u. juliette kayyem worked in the department of homeland security in the obama administration and led a review of state election system and laura rosenberger is director of e bipartisan project, alliance for securing

democracy, which is based at the german marshall fund and tracks foreign interference in thu.s. and europe. she previously worked in the state department and on the national security council staff during the obama administration. we invited the department of homeland security to be tonight's program but no one was available. i want to welcome both of you to the program i'm going to start with you, laura rosenberger. tell us a little bit about the project. we heard the man who heads intelligence for the cuntry, director of national intelligence dan coats, say last friday, he said russia has been the most aggressive foreign actor, no questio the continue their efforts to undermine our democracy. what is your project on thelo out for? >> that's right, judy. and what we see, actually, istl exconsistent with the kinds of things that director of national intelligence coats was outlining. we're looking at trying to understand and expose the full range of tactics that russia is using to undermine our democracy. one of the things we see

consistently is the kind of engagement on social media, the disions that they're playing, that they're trying to further divide americans against eaceih other,ing in on hot button issues. we're tracking the kinds of messaging they're promoting trying to polarize americans even further. >> woodruff: so social media you're monitoring and what else? we're also looking at the ways that that's intersecting with cyber attacks. one of the things we know that happened in the 2016 ection, course, was the use of hacking, combining that with releasing that information, promoting that on social media, we're looking out for that kind of activity. we're looking at the ways that icit financing and mey laundering may be used.e what you talking about with the maria butina case, an ateresting category in t realm of things, trying to understand the full picture of what's happening. >> woouldruff:tte kayyem, you are looking at ways to prevent this from harming our

electoral system, our democracy. what would you add to what laura said? >> a couple of this, first, we should anticipate that 2018, the attempts to get into stat and local election systems will be more persistent, better souerrc, loerm. so the fight has started now because the election is very soon. i think th other issue is t the failure -- i mean, we need to think about elections as any other type of criintical astructure -- water, the electrical grid, nuclear system, all of them are critical infrastructure that makes our istems work, that help us live. the election syst now part of that, and the sort of lack of focus by theer fed government on this right now, at least from the white house perspective, and even questions about whether it's ongoing as we saw today, really does undermine the tremendous ivty on the state and local level. this is a homeland security issue. this is being fought, you know, on the street street corner, not, youo know -- it'st a war abroad. so we need to empower our

secretaries of sta and local officials in ways that just aren't being done sufficiently right now, given one would anticipate the russians want to do it again. >> woodruff: now, some of the states, juliette kayyem, are being moare vigilant n others. they are beginning working on his. what are doing? >> so there's a couple of things, and i think it's really important ople to understand that putting the word "cyber"before surity doesn't make it different than any other security. essentially you want to avoid the single point of failure. cyou don't want the oneess point to bring the system down. what we've learned over time ise defenses are the same as physical security defenses.nt you layered system you want control control acess to information, you want to isolate information, you want to make sure your vendors artaking security seriously because there is a private sector component. v >> woodrufndors meaning who? >> i'm sorry, third-party vendors. so a lot of these election systems, the ballotoxes, the electrical boxes are actually

owned or actually run and owned and operated by other -- by company, essentially, so there's private sector component to it. so i think if we can just sort of take the sort of mysticism of cyber, you know, sort of out of this and just sa how would you want to set up a security system, this is what states are doing and they're also, e obviouslucating their election personnel to ensure if anything were to happen on election day, that they have a quick response or are able toe protect stem. essentially it gets back to you do not want to have a single point of failure. you need the layered defenses and we know how to build them. >> woodruff: laura rosenberger, clearly the russian knows the u.s. is on guard at. this poi th year they must be trying differenwh things. do you see that is different or better or more sophisticated from them now? >> yeah, that's right. one of theng tdan coats has said is we think they have learned lessons and we th

they're adopting those as they're looking at new ways to divide american so some of the things we see is them weighing in on things like the n.f.l. protests, whether it was, you know, good or bad, appropriate or not for n.f.l. players to be taking a knee during the nationa national ant. we saw accounts on twi have now been identified as ones created by the internet researc agency but were pretending to be americans, a council that had -- counts that had tens of thousands of followers, weighing in on both sides of that issue. 've seen social media accounts that we now know were operated by the internet research agency in st. petersburg weighing in on issues like the #metoo movent, things like roseanne bar's racist comments. so we see these kinds of activities trying to stoke tensions with w america. odruff: you mentioned a minute ago, juliette scwiewlt, that you're still waiting for the federal government to dol more to this together. the white hou, e department

of homeland security says they're working on this, what more needs to be done from washinheon and in state? >> so i think we need to view this as a tthreat to any critical infrastructure. we do not leave transportatio security te states and locals. we distribute money. we have actually oversight from the fedsperal pertive, and off focus from the federal -- and you have a focus fr the federal government. that may be true from the agency side of department of homeland security is clearly working with states and locals in thi regard, but until we begin from the white house and president's statements to understand that this battle to protect our systems has begun, already, as dan coats has said, you're not going to get the focus you need to on the state and local level, and we need to trat it that way. we need to treat this as a critical infrastructure threat, just like we wod if a foreign entity went after our electrical grid. we would notay it's nebraska's problem, it's, you know,o washington's pem. we would say, you know, this is

a national security problem. >> woodruff: and do you seest uickly, laura rosenberger, the federal government weighing in -- monitoring this as it needs to? >> i think there is activity being done to monitor this. it's not as it needs to. similar to what juliette just described on theec cyberurity side, on the disinformation, information side, this ia challenge that requires working across different parts of theme federal gove, with the private sector, the tech sector. this is a complex problem that b requires a whonch of people coming together. that requires political leadership from the top and that, unfortunately, is whatwe e missing now. >> woodruff: and the alarm bells couldn't get any louder than they, are given what dan coats the director tional intelligence has been saying. >> that's right. >> woodruff: thank both both of you. clearly, we'll continue to watch this story, as important as it is. ura rosenberger, juliette kayyem, thank you both. >> thank you. s, judy.

>> woodruff:he president promised to "drain the swamp," as he put it, when he was running for office and since he was inaugurated, but several top officials in his cabinet and administration have come under sharp scrutiny. one cabinet head that's getting more attention of late is theme secretary of ce, wilbur ross. amna nawaz has a look at the ethics concern aboutfir. ross's ownces and meetings while in office. >> nawaz: judy, last week, the acting director of the u.s. office of government ethics sent a letter to secretary ross criticizing the commerce secretary for failing to fully divest stocks by january 15, 2017, 18 months after ross reed to do so. the letter stated "your failure to divescreated the potential for a serious criminal violation on your part and undermined public confidence." ross has since admitted to "inadvertent errors" and announced he has finally sold

all equity holdings but questions about the timing of ross's actions as secretaryte reto his personal wealth remain. dan alexander of "forbes" has been covering the story and his reporting was cited by the office of government ethics in that letter last week. he joins me now. dan alexander, welcome to the "newshour". i want to ask you about some of your latest reporting. you looked specifically at secretary ross' calendar, specifically between february and november of 2017. those were his first few months in office. what about that time raised red flags for yo >> we started looking through it and, immediately, you can see there are dozens of meetingom withnies in which secretary ross that did financial interests or ties to the company. there are also meetings with foreign leaders that have oversight over businesses that he owned at the timhee, and are also meetings with sovereign wealth funds that previously mped millions of dollars into secretary ross' private eqitu funds.

>> so look specifically at one day, for example, may you detail in your reporting, it's a busy day for the secretary, has meetiith foreign officials, a trade hearing, some calls. there's one lunch you hone in on, one that lasts in longer than any other meeting, a lunch with the c.e.o. of a railcar manufacturer called greenbriar companies. why is that significant? >> it's shocking when we saw it on the calendar. you can see it's listed ans luch with wendy and bill fuhrman. if you look at seeo bill fuhrman is, you can see he is the c.e.o. of greenbriar companies and wendy appears to be wilbur ross' secretary of staff. so one's the c.e.o. of greenbriar, one is wilbur ross and the thrd appears to be wendy teramoto. at the time wilbur ross had a secret interest in greenbriar ich he never disclosed ethics officials and had this interest while having thisal meeting, went had a financial interest in greenbriar.

three the meeting, tw have undisclosed to the public interests in the company that the third person is running. out ishey discussed going to be a question a lot of people are wondering. the commerce deptmt says it was all friendly, but it's hard to imagine they didn't get into any business topics at all. >> as part of your reporting, you mentioned you found out greenbriar had been lobbying for renegotiations of nafta and saw action from secretary ross' office that same da ty. t right? >> yeah, the meeting starts at 12 noon and, at 11:59 a.m., secretary ross puts out a statementhat he's going be renegotiating nafta on behalf of donald trump and, as you said, teenbriar had been lobbying other parts to hae federal government to make changes to nafta at that point for months. >> so he didn't disclose the interest in that one compa. he did disclose, however, interest he held in a private equity front, one whose single biggest investment is a company at builds ship in china. what's the ethical conflict

there? >> so this is a copany you're referring to called nautil bulk holding, another one that he did not divest originally excuse me -- did not disclose originally. he just disclosed he had the fund, but you have to disclose all thenderlying holdings of the fund, and that biggest interest, as you said, was sto maps in china and, at the time, bisho wibur ross is one of donald trump's leaed liutenants in what is now the ongoing trade tradar between the united states and china. sowf a guy whose financial interests are positioned to benett from trade in china the same time he's negotiating over trade in china. >> let me ask you this, bekecaue we secretary ross' office for comment and they pointed us back to the july 12th letter we cited in the introfnlgtz they basically cited a part thato said, though this is a office of govs,ernment ethis actions could have run him oul

of common interest law but found he wasn't in any such violation of that law. they also pointed us to a part of their de department statement, the commerce department statement, in which they said, "the vast majority of the holdings described in this story have been told by secretary ross, and he has committed to sell the remainder." so does that solve the problem? >> no, it does not solve the problem. there are a couple of things there. first of all, the letter was looking at the interests he hel ter he said he was going to divest them, companies like greenbriar which we mentioned earlier. it does not y they looked at all his meetings overall, and rhere are other meetings with companies in whicss and his wife had interests at the time of those meetings. so those sortof metings are the thing the federal investigators would want to look at as well. anthe fact that he's now saying that he's in the process of divesting some of them, or that he's divested some of them, already, that does not absolve him of the fact of what he did at the time he owned those

companies. so this is not, you know, a source-based story. you can just look at the calendar and his disclosures.se you ca what he owns, what his meetings were and see there's clear overlap. people will be looking at that, whether or not he's out of those companies at th point or not. >> there's a line between something that lks bad and is bad, right, between unethical tad illegal. where does sec ross seem to be on the line and if there is some larger concern, who holds him accountable? >> so there are several different legal issues here, but with many of the legl issues, the line is whether he wasa sloppy andde mistakes in not divesting of these things orhe whhe intentionally lied to federal officials, saying that he had divested them. it's very difficult to believe that a guy who's known as one of the smartest investors in the united states could have simply forgotten about a $10 million-plus stake he still

ployer, bis former em that's what ross says and says that of several other as well.ts it's hard to get inside people's heads, but that's what people will be trying to do to figure out whether those were lies or series of mistakes. >> dan alexander of forbes, thanks for your time. >> thank you. >> woodruff: an increase in carbon emissions are showing up not only in the air, but alsin water. as oregon public broadcasting's jeburns reports, researche and shellfish farmers are teaming up to see homarine plants can help stave off the effects of "ocean acidification." this report was producedn collaboration with the public media partnership earthfix and is part of this week's "leading edge" series, which focuses on science, tech and medicine. >> reporter: tide is money at

baywater shellfish farm west of seattle. >> these geoducks are so big. >> reporter: the te flat is exposed for only a few hours a day, and there's work to be done in the geoduck clam patch: "pullin' tube." >> these guys are really hard to pull out. t >> reporte tubes kept the clams safe the first two years of their lives. avis owns baywater, part of the pacific northwest's $200 million shellfish industry. he grows geoduck for export and other ams and oysters forlo l markets on the west coast but both his business, and the industry, e in trouble. >> it's just more difficert to raise oyarvae these days than it used to be. they used to be kind of weedy and you could grow oyster larvae easily. now that's not the case. >> reporter: that's because the ocean's chemistry is changing. it's called ocean acidification. and it's in part caused by people pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at unprecedented rates.

the ocean acts like a giant carbon sponge. and all that extra co2 causes the ph of the seawater to decrease. but it's not really the acid that's hurting shellsh. baby oysters use certain compounds to build their shells. the same chemical reaction that lowers the ph of the water, transforms those building-blocks into something the oysters can't use. and the more carbon there is, the more difficult it could become for any sea creature a shell to survive. 250 miles south, along oregon's coast, scientists like george waldbusser are discovering a common aquatic plant called eel grass coke a big difference. sil grass is like other plants that use photosynts-- it gets energy by absorbing n dioxide.nd car and that could lessen the effects of ocean acidification. >> they're t same species of oysters. on this shell what we have are pacific oyster larvae or

juveniles.he so all dark areas are individual oysters. these have been grown in the eel grass bed. and then on this shell, we have again small oysters, fewer of them, and much smaller twnt have been got in the eel grass bed. >> reporter: fellow oregon state university researcher caitlin magel, has been stopping at estuaries in oregon and washington, taking random samples from the flats. she's trying to get a handle on just how much carbon these shallow eel grasbeds are pulling out of the water by sampling the plants' shoots and roots. >> they have this below-ground carbon storage that can lead to long-term sequestration of carbon. >> reporter: eel grass could benefit shellfish growers inys different wa >> it could be grown in and amongst, for instance, an oyster aquaculture bed. or in the case of a shellfish hatchery, they could pinpoint where they drawing their water infrom so they are drawing from within an eel grass bed.

>> reporter: and that water would have more of those shell building compounds needed by the , sters to grow. back at baywaterjoth davis wants to take the idea of usings ocean plano sequester carbon to a new, deeper and tastier vel. >> we got some fresh sugar kelp it's a litugh, but it's definitely edible. and yummy. >> reporter: a team organized by davis and puget soundfu restoratio director betsy peabody has been tracking kelp growth at a nearby test plot. >> what we're trying to do is deliberately grow kelp within a specific area and thereby remove co2 and measure whether or not at improves conditions locally. you could create, in theory, a kind of seaweed filter, you know a curtain, around where you're

growing shellfish. >> reporter: much of the kelp is more than six feet long and that mass of algae is evidence of carbon pulled from the water. >> i'm looking at interspersing shellfish in baskets, hanging below buoys and then every other line would be kelp. between the two of them we'll bv able to hat kelp and shellfish. >> reporter: marine plants aren't likely to provide relief from carbon emissions on a broad scale. s but for shellfish growerd ensearchers in the pacific northwest, the greer grass on the other side of ocean acidification is beginning to look more like tide-swept eelgrass and towering forests of kelp. for pbs newshour, i'm jes burns on washington's hood canal. t >> woodruf european union has been taking a tough stance

against u.s. tech giants and today it announced its most aggressive fine yet against google for anti-trust concerns. the u. has given the company 90 days to make changes. google says it will appeal the decision. but as johyang tells us, the e.u.'s decision was made with an eye toward getting changes that twould affect the future mobile phone market, search and advertising. >> yang: judy, european officials say google has abud the dominance of its android operating system to entrench its apps and services on smartphones. about 80% of the world's devices run on android. we asked google for someone to talk to, but they declined. instead, they provided a video in which company c.e.o. sundarch said android gives consumers more choice. all of those choices have encouraged innovation and mpetition, which in turn lowers cost so that even more people havaccesso all the

world's r yang: earlier, i spoke with european commissior competition margrethe vestager. i began by asking her about europe's case against google. >> this is a case where we find google has put in place three illegal strictions to cement its dominance in search. to say, for instance, if you want to have an android operating system, well, then, of course, your users would like to have the playbe storecause they want to have apps. then google will say, you chaan the play store, but then you have to take google search, you have to take google chrome, and not only do you have to take them, but we will also make you -- we will also pay you soth google search is there exclusively, no competition. and last but not least, if you something else, if you have a line of phones where you will do another android version or

something else, well, then, you cannot use any of our products on any of your phones. and this, of course, limits innovation, limits cho makes it more difficult for rivals to present new things to us as consumers. >> in addition to the fine, you're asking for changes to google's business practices. what are they? >> they have the -- they have to pay a fine of. 434 billion euros and they have to stop their illegal behaviorut they have to stop to the instriment in an effective manner, and i have to go so in 90 das. at a minimum, they have to change the contracts because you find these contractual restrictions there. now it is google's le responsibility to make choices to make this happen.oo >>e says its android operating system expanded the

choice of phones avaable around the world and also say that some of the phones come pre-loaded with co competing apps, apps that compete with google's apps and users can download other rival apps. whawhat do you say to that? >> we all download a lot of apps, that's why if you have an android phone you want the play store beuse you want to download games, weather apps, rraffic apps or whatever is you liking, but there are some very fundamental apps that we all like, and when it cmes to search, and when it comes to the browser, well, we might do something else but the fact we don't. only 1% of users havdownloaded another search app and only 10% of users hasw dooaded another browser app. so, you see, even though we might do it, we don't, because when it's there out of the boxes expe, we just start using it and we don't think about that

we could do something else. and this is why competition is very far away, if you first have done something illegal to make t sut the out-of-the-box experience is the google. experien >> android is already so dominant with the smartphones,io are these ac going to make a dent in that? >> that, of cose, remains to be seen because google, now, will have to make sure that they stop the infringement in an effective manner, and that will mean that those who prduce the phone for us now have a freeto choice ahat apps to put on the phone when we have the out-of-the-box experience and open it and find a new phone that we have bought and lo forward to so that we have more choices when it comes to searchi apps, wh comes to browsers, when it comes to what version of an operating system would be the new and better version of an operating system. i think thayou find a lot of gifted people out there, people

with sills, with ideas, of course, to challenge our idea of search, to challenge our idea of what is a brwser, how should an operating system work. because this is why google became so big, because they challenged the way things werth. 's, of course, the point in competition. >> the fine e.u. impose as record for theni european but amounts to less than 1% ofle go annual revenues. is that really going to make any difference? >> we have a set of guidelines to help us calculate the fine so that the fine is the reflection of the duration of the illegal behavior and the seriousness and, of course, also, to some degree, the size of the company. we always, of course, try to be proportional, so that you have the illegal behavior and then iu have the level of thee to reflect that.

>> i have seen you referred to as the person that silicon valley fears the most. there is a sense there that you are taking a very aggressive stance toward the digital companies in silicon valley. is that fairr accurate? >> i'm here on a very simple mission, and that is to make sureeahat eurconsumers, they can enjoy the benefits of m fairtition, competition on the merits, choice, own violation, affordable prices, and if you see a lot of u.s. companies are doing great usiness within the european union because theve great products, on consumers like them, and that i very ch encourage because success is a good thing, only you shouldn't misuse your success and start doing something illegal because, then, consumers lose trust. >> of course, this comes at time of heightened tensions, trade tensions between the unit states ande european union.

the president of the united states even called the european union one of t ee topnemies of america. how do your actions fit into c thatontext? >> well, we live in a world that seems to be more and more unpredictable, and the thing is that i think it's important also to do the predictable things, and it is predictable because we have done this for decades that if you the european market, and you're doing something illegal, and we can prove it, well, then we will come and we will take a decision and impose a fine on you and say you have to stop this. this is a predictable thing. t we have dot for 60 years by now, and we will, course, continue doing that. >> european commissioner for competition margrethe vestager, thank you very much. >> it was a pleasure to be with fou. thank you very muchaving me.

>> woodruff: this week marks 100 years since nelson mandela's birth. ed was a giant of the 20th century, a man who struggle against apartheid and brought his country to a newde cratic future. he set a political and moral example recognized around thegl e. mandela seed five years as esident and died in 2013 at the age of 9 jeffrey brown has more on a new abok that offers insight into mandela's remark story.nd >> nelson a told much of his own story in the 1994 memoir "long walk tore fedom." a follow-up volume published last year. now "the prison letters of nelson mandela." 255 letters written over the more 27 years he spent as al politiisoner from 1962 to 1990.

my colague charlayne hunter-gault was there the day mandela was released and covered him in the epic making events in south africa in the years thatow fo and joins me now. first of all, nice to see you again. >>to be here again. you know, what emerges from these letters thst we perh didn't know, this man who was both private and public? >> actually,eff, i think that we get into the interior man, some of the paithat he went through, some of the principles that he continued to sta,nd for no matter the terrible conditions under which hend the fellow prisoners lived, and then the love of his family, starting with winnie and his children, and the larger family. so it's things we never heard before. >> let's start with that par pulled excerpts from some of these letters. i want to start with one that is very personal. this is from after he got a photfrom winnie. >> april 2, 1969.

l i wish to sayow is that the pictures has aroused all the tender feelings in me and softened the grimness that is all aroun it's sharpened my long for you and our sweet and peaceful home. all of these have come back again as i examine the portrait. >> so the grimness, but also the tender feeling. >> it is so clear throughout that his love for winnie wasd undiminished is caring for her and the children, in way s thu didn't see particularly in "long walk to." freed these are very intimate moments when he's writing to her. >> you talked to him in 1990, and i want to show you a video cerpt of that where he's talking about how he coped with that. >> we decided to fight back right from the beinning. nobody would order us to run. we refuse to do that. and we said that the war has regulatidos and we would no

anything outside the regulations. e resistance to at the he and other prisoners, their acts of resistance whilei in pn, that comes through in the letters, too. there is another excerpt i wao listen to now which goes to that. .> july 12, 19 it's futile to think that any form of persecution will ever change our views. your government and department have a notorious reputation fori thr hatred, contempt and persecution of the black man. >> that's from a lett to mminister of justice, keeping up the resistance. >> absolutely. what was amazing was he would write these long letters t the minister of justice, to the head of the prisons, and it would be very legalistic almost, you know, because he had studied to become a lawyer, although it tookany years in pn for him to finally earn his degree, but he would write these long letters that were legalistic but, at the same time, they were passioned by th things that he was complaining about.

like he demanded that e prisoners be released and that they stop being treat in terrible ways that they were. one man was once put into a hole, and you could only see his head like this. and mandela was often put in solitary confinement himself. but he let the prison authorities know that their odyds were, in effect, blo but unbowed in terms of why they we t there. re is that. there is that strength, but also coming through is a kind of painful, powerlessness, right,g of hav deal with -- of not being able to be there. >> sure, because this comes out, again, most forcefully and poignantly when he was not able to go to his mother's funeral and he talked from his heart about how pained he was that they would noallow hi to go. >> we have another excerpt i want to listen to, which is,

again, to winnie, ashe was about to go on trial. >> november 16, 1969. you're engaged in a contest with an adversary who possesses vast resources and wealth and means of prooganda and wh will be able to give facts any twist he considers expedient ." >> so here he is offering advise, prisoner to prisoner, in a sense. >> well, he s actually demanding that he be allowed to come help reprent her >> and to erand everyone else, the eye on th goal never wavered, right? this future that he envneis >> what's amazing is -- what i found amazing about the letters is from time to time, he talked about, when i see you or when we get together again, and i asked max, a son of one of the prisoners with mandela, walter, was he just psyching himself tthat he would ge out? and he said, look, those guys

ofcused on their visio the future, and they were prepared to die, an, so, this helped to keep the vision alive. it wasn't that he thought he might get it, but hs vision imr the country was something rhat kept going. >> here's one moexcerpt that goes to that.t >> aug 1970. one day we may have on our side the genuine and firm support of an upright and straightforwardig man holding h office who will consider it improper to shirk his duty of proteing the pights and privileges of even his bitter oponents in the battle of ideas that is being fought in our curayrent tod >> so he's saying one day we may have such a man, and he turned out to be, of course, that man. >>ell, you know, its hard to know whether he thought he would ever be, et hertainly laid down the principles that he believed in as a person who was fighting for a free south africa. i mean, he talked abo hw he visualized a world where there would be no famin no war, no

racism. >> you know, we think about this long arc. he was, of course, released, he became the president of a democratic south africa. uou and i have talked about. this i was theret last year looking at that legacy, and that legacy, by a younger generation, as still questioned, right? how much change there really been? how much change did he and his rdneration really affect? >> well, i've hehe younger generation are, you know, complaining about what he did and didn't d and it reminds me of a point in the book where he talks about a younger group of prisoners wererought in after these older guys had been there for a while, and they were all up in the aiabout hocome you didn't do this and why aren't you doing this, and he entually won them over. and i'm sure that someone with th principles of nelson mandela and the cooitment todayuld address some of the lingering problems in the country. >> because they do exist. they exist and as martin

luther king said and i'm sure mandela believed this, the arc the moral universe is long and involves a lot of struggle. but in the end, it ben toward justice. >> the new collection is "the ison letters of nelson mandela." charlayne hunter-gault. nice to talk to you. >> jeff, it's great being with you. e>> woodruff: and that's newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs h newshour been provided by: >> consumer cellular understands that not everyone needs an unlimited wireless plan. our u.s.-based customer service reps can help you choose a plan based on how much yoe your phone, nothing more, nothing less. to learn more, go to consumercellular.tv

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