captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> brangham: good evening, i'm williadybrangham. oodruff is on vacation. on the newshour tonight, in ohio and kansas, it's too close to call in two closely-watched races. we breakdown what the latest election results reveal about what's to come in november. then, an exclusive club-- a new port sheds light on how members at mar-a-lago are influencing how president trump runs the department of veterans affairs. and, an inside look at a new earthquake warning system and what it could mean for people living in high-risk areas. >> we believe we can prevent half the injuries. we can reduce losses. we think it's a great cost- effective measure. >> brangham: all that more on tonight's pbs newshour

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>> brangham: a mber of the u.s. house, and his son, are under indictment tonight for alleged insider stock trading. new york republican chris collins serves on the board of a drug company. prosecutors say he learned last summer that an experimental drug had failed, and alerted his son, who quickly dumped hck. then, they allegedly lied about it to federal agents. >>tongressman collins could keep his crime a secret forever. the f.b.i. asked to interview him, and instead of telling the truth he lied. by lying to the f.b.i. they compounded their insidding crime with the crime of criminal coverup. >> brangham: collins represents part of western new york between buffalo and rochester. the star witness in the trial of former trump campaigr paul manafort finished his testimony today. under a plea agreetent, rick gateified that he helped

manafort file false income taxce returns, and c millions in foreign income. defense lawyers painted him as a liar.s the char bank and tax fraud stem from the years before manafort joined the trump campaign. in the russia investigation, president trump's legal team rejected special counsel robt mueller's conditions for interviewing the president. reports today say the president's lawyers objected to any questions about whether he obstructed justice. instead, they called for the probe to wrap up by september first. it's been another long day for 14,000 firefighters battling 18 wildfires across california. the so-called holy fire rched through a national forest today, south of los angeles. it's just 5% contained. but in the north, crew progress against the mendocino complex fire, the state's largest ever. hundreds of evacuees were allowed to go home, after waiting since the weekend. >> everything just seems kind of surreal. you know, it's just last couple

of days really start settling in.kn yo, i'm just it's uncertainty is all a lot of uncertainty, a lot of a lot of uncertainty,t's all i know a lot of stress. >> brangham: fire managers say smoke from the big blaze has actually cooled the air a bit, and helped slow its advance. in indonesia, officials say the death toll has rsuched 131 after ay's powerful earthquake. the search for survivors ntinues, and the military says the final number could be much higher.wh mee, some 13,000 homes were damaged on the resort island of bali., which is east thousands of the displaced ares. living in te a'crippling drought is now threatening austramost populous state, which is experiencing the driest conditions in 50 years. officials say 100% of new south waleis affected, all 300,000 square miles. farmers arbeing promised aid, and they've been authorized to shoot more kangaroos, so the

animals don't eat the sparse grass that livestock nd. >> you've got to remember that some of our farmers haven't really recovered from the last drought. so, it is biting. every farming business is different, some are doing better than others. but regardless, we're going to stand by all of them to get all of them to get everyone through this challenging period. >> brangham: forecasters warn the drought may last another three months. the u.s. today slapped new sanctions on russia over a nerve agent attack in britain. the targets were former russian spy sergei skripal and his daughter. a state department spokeswoman said it agrees with british findings that moscowhind the attack. the kremlin has denied any volvement. there's new pushback against president trump's threat that those who do business with iran, will not do business with the u.s. the president re-imposed sanctions on iran yesterday, after pulling out of the 2015 nuclear deal. but chinsaid today that its business with iran is "open andn transp reasonable, fair and lawful, not violating any united nations security council

resolutions." and, turkey said it will continue to buy natural gas from stan, no matter what. immigration and s enforcement officials today led a federal raid of about 12 businesses in minnesota and nebraska. ths arrested 14 company own and managers suspected of hiring and mistreating immigrants who i entered the u.egally. more than 130 workers were also arrested. the new york city council voted today to freeze new censes for drivers working for uber and other ride-hailing companies. it's the first major american city to take that step. taxi drivers argued for the 12- month freeze, citing growing traffic and falling salaries. and, on wall street, the dow jones industrial average fell 45 points to close at 25,583. r the nasde four points, and the s&p 500 slipped a fraction of a point. still to come on the newshour: what last night's primaries meao for the vember election.

reports that three men are influencing the veterans affairs department from mar-a-lago.e st coast tries out an early warning system for rthquakes, and much more >> brangham: lesthan 100 days out from the november election, primar four states plus a special election in ohio. we take a look at esw those cont played out and what they signal for both parties in the fall. last night, ohio republican troy balderson carried on as if he was a winner. he said 'd work hard for his columbus-area house district, even sent a gesture of thanks to the head of his party. >> i'd like to thank president trump. >> brangham: b while balderson leads in the current tally for s as special election, i razor-thin lead-- over democrat danny o'connor in this traditionally republican

district-- 50.2% for balderson, 49.3 for o'connor, still too close to call. last night, democrat o'connor matched the energy of his supporters, and there was no talk of conceding defeat. >> we're not stopping now. tomorrow we rest and then we keep fighting through to! novemb >> brangham: his performance encouraged state democrats. >> at the end of the day to have it be close ultimately is a big sign of momentum going into november. >> brangham: meanwhile, the white house said today that president trump, who campaigned for balderson, will continue supporting candidates who back his agenda. the president supported several other candidates competing on tuesday in republican primaries. michigan gubernatorial candidate bill schuette and missouri michigan gubernatorial candidate bill schuette, michigan senate cand missouri senate candidate josh hawley all won the g.o.p. nominations in their races. lid in neighboring kansas, the trump-backed repn

gubernatorial candidate, kris kobach, has the smallest of leads-- less than 200 votes, over the state's incumbent republican governor, jeff colyer the associated press is not projecting a winner in that race, either. colyer has been in state government for a decade, but has only been governor for hf a year. while kobach, kansas's current secretary of state, has ined a national profile with hardline conservative stances on immigration and voting rights. in michigan, gretchen whitmer clinched the democratic nomination for governor over abdul el-sayed, in a contest that tested the staying power of liberal candidates like el- sayed, who were backed by independensenator bernie sanders. michigan will also almost certainly send the first-ever muslim woman to congress, rashida tlaib, won the democratic primary to fill the detroit-area seat vacated by congressman john conyeer he was accused of sexual epsconduct. tlaib will have nolican opposition in the fall, smoothr

sailing e of the record 185 women who are major-party nominees for house seats this midterm year. and here for more oneshose electionts is kyle kondik. he analyzes elections at the university of virginiater for politics and is also the author of "the bellwether: why ohio picks the president." thank for being here. >> thanks for having >> brangham: last night lots of primaries, lots of different states. what stood out to you overall? >> i think thei big pcture takeaway is a lot of election results since president truma got electede suggested a democratic bounce-back and the potential for the democrats to have a good electn in november. nothing that happened last night would make you think differently i mean, i know that democrats did not win the ohio 12 special election but they came pretty allye in a district that should be very difficult for a democrat. and so the environment i think remains good for democrats, particularly as you look at the battle for the u.se . ho representatives. >> woodruff:. >> brangham: let's talk more

abct that ohio rae in particular. it's still too close to call as we were reporting, but ayou said, we should not have been talking about this race at all. this should be a clear red victory. >> this is a bedrock republican district. ohio governor john kasich used toold it. then pat teaberry, the most icent representative het for a long time. donald trump won the district by about 11 points. to me that 11-point margin sort of understates how republican this district is, se if you look at results down the ballot in recent history in this district, it's redder than that. it look likely tory to, the republican, is going twin, troy balderson, but by less than a percentage point. that means danny o'coor, the democrat, is going to perform ryout ten points better on margin than hillinton did there in 2016. that's about in keeping with what the average ch wan've seen in the special elections have been both at the federal level and also at the state level. >> woodruff:>> brangha so as yoe saying, not too much to change

our opinion about the national picture. >> i don't know if it's a slam dunk that democrats will win the house, but i think if you're the democrats, you look at last night and feel pretty good about what you saw. npublicans can come backd say, hey, we won, and they have won most of these ecial elections, but they've all taken places in places that are more republican than the national average, certainly ohio 12 is to the right of the national average, too. >> bra seats will be up for grabs in washington state. they have a particularly unusua way of do. what were you looking at there? >> so washington, like california, they have a top-two primary, meaning all the candidatesompete on the same ballot. the top two finishers advance to november. sometimes the two-party vote totals in that state and i california can sort of be predictive of the fall, and the democratic vote totals in some key districts out there really seem quite good. they're still counting votes out there. but it leads one to think that democrats might be able to pick up a seat or more out of

washington state,nd again, when you're only picking up 23 nationally, those seats add up quickly. democrats were also encouraged by washington state, but vote totals are not totally fil yet. >> brangham: missouri had some junior labor issues on the ballot. this obviously comes when the t nationends for unions are not great. membership is down. the supreme court had just taen a little bit of wind out of their sails, as well. what happe?d there last nig >> there was a right-to-work referendum on the ballot. it failed by more than 2-1, which is a great result for labor, even in a state like missouri, which used to be kind of a national bellwether state and really has trended republican ov the last ten to 15 years. you know, it also speaks to a larger phenomenon in american political life, which is that when you hava conservative president, the public all of a sudden starts to act a little bimore liberal, li when there is a liberal, the public starts to be more conservative.o we see tha public opinion

for instance on the affordable care act, it's become moe popular since president trump got elected. and you can maybe see it in these right-to-work results in that that's a liberal enda item fighting right to work, and democrfs succeeded in eating it by a big margin last night in missouri.ak >> brangham: sg of the president, how do you see his influence having played out last night? >> i think the president really took credit basically for balderson apparently win but at the same time, if hillary clinton were in the white house, ohio 12 probaey wouldn't hav been that much of a contest. we know from american history that holding the white house, you pay a toll for that down the ballot in special elections and mid-terms often, particularly when the president's approval rating is poor, as this president's approval rating is. so mt be trump's vi ho 12 on saturday moved the needle a little bit, but if he were more popular, the race probably wouldn't have been so close to begin with. >> brangham: what about on the flip s ae? there's beot of talk about

the bernie sanders, cortez slice of the democratic party. how did last night look for them? >> they did no succeed in the michigan governor's race and also a house primary iksas' third district, the morehm establt-oriented candidates, one particularly in the michigan race. it just goes to show that as impolice evidence as ocasio cor tends's win against joe crowley was in new york state, it was more the exception than the rule. i would say these t so-called democratic establishment is generally getting thndeir ates through these primaries, although she is a major exception given that she beat a top-ranking house democrat. >> brangham: kyle kdik, thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. >> brangham: president trump has promised to improve how the department of veterans affairs cares for our former serce-men and women. but a new report out today

estions how the department is being run, and whether outside influence affects the treatment that veterans are receiving. nick schifrin has the story. >> schifrin: when former veterans affairs secretary david shulken closed the stock hchange last november, he an unusual helper. that's shulken in the middle. on the right, captain america, a character in the marvel universe. and it just so happens that shulken's most powerful and most informal advisor was this man, ike perlmutter, the chairman of marvel entertainment and a longtime friend of president trump. perlmutter became the leader of what the investigative news-site pro-publica calls the v.a.'s shadow rulers. perlmutter, bruce moskowitz, a doctor, and marc sherman, a lawyer. none of the three have served in the u.s. military or government, but they have outsize influencea ov v.a. decisions, according to the story written by propublica reporter isaac arnsdorf, who joins us in the studio. also here, melissa bryant, a former army intelligence officer

and the chief policy officer of the iraq and afghanistan veterans of america. thank you to your both. >> thank you. >> schifrin: isaac, let me start with you. what has been the relationship between these three men and the rall? ove >> you basically have thee these guys down in mar-a-lago who for the past year and a half have been acting as a shaipdow leaderor the department of veterans and foign affairs and weighing in on all manner of personnel decision despite officially having no role in government, never having served in the militaryr government previously, and not really having any direct experience that's relevant to ths. they've been kind of hovering over the officials who are actually in the government and telling them how they think things should be done. >> schifrin: so a president's cabinet, they all have informal advisers, right? everyby gets advice m outside of government. why is this a big deal? why is this unusual? >> it's definitely different the

way they've been assigned a particular agency their purview. we've never really seen something like that where they're so directly assigned to outside advisers, demanding that officials fly down to mar-a-lagy at ta expense to meet with them and run things by them. and very quickly it became clear within the department that people who didn't get along wi them were pretty quickly out of a job. >> schifrin: the relationship was quite interesting. let me read an e-mail between bruce bruce moskowitz and david hulken. bruce moskowitz writes, we only neat to meet face to face when necessar we will set phone conference calls at a convenient time. david schulken wites, "i know how busy all of you are, and having you be there in person and so present after we met was truly a gift." what does that say about the relationship? o what it says is they're clearly trying ttablish that schulken needs to come to them

to do his joba, and yousee from the very beginning, there is this friction that would grow over the time that schulken was serving as secretary and ultimately contributed to him being fired, that they begane feel like he wasn't listening to them. >> schifrin: so cer atainly we haot of turmoil in the leadership of the veterans affairs, as we're talking about this outside influence. we should just read the statement from perlmutter, moskowitz, and sherman. th said, "we were always willing to share our thoughts. we did not make or implement any type of popossess any authority over agency decisions or direct government officials to take any actions." t did they influence policy, especially the efforts towprard atization? >> there's no question that they had vast influence.al and techn they're not making the decisions themselves, but when everyone knows that ike will just pick up the phone and call the president if he doesn't get his way, it's very clear to

everyone at the v. a. it has to be their way. the big debate about the v. a. over the past yr and a half is about the extent to which it should be using i-house government-run medical care versus private care. last yr there was a point where perlmutter weighed in on the side of the private care. his idea wasalas to bring private providers into the v. a. to have a look around and see what services they thought should be outsourced to providers like themselves, and at obviously is a conflict of interest. >> schifrin: explain that more. what is wrong with that? some people believe there should be more privatization in the va. what's wrong with people arguing for more privatization? >> this because big part oftr presidenmp's campaign, but most veterans oppose that. and the major veterans groups oppose that, because their view is that they get better care in the va and it would be much more expensive and serve veterans worse to have them out in the private sector. >> schifrin: melissa bryant, let me turn to you i want to ask about your notion

of privatization, but this tion of outside influence from the outside and formal adviss and also turmoil at the top of the veterans affairs, that influence the care? >> it absolutely does. what we see from theeterans service organizations and my colleagues across the veterans space is that we've seen fits and starts for a program and for policies throughout the last particularly eight months since dr. hulken has faced his ethics challenges and then he was ousted.en but ollowing that we saw a lot of challges to contrac such as healthcare, a contract, a $10 billion contract that we saw start and then fall back and at was eventually restarted again. something that will be implemented over the next ten years. we've seen a document in care for suicide prevention, even though there are major plans and there is a joint plan of action between the department of defensand the va to eure

that there is no veteran that's left behind. the care for mental health care. so we're concerned that we're not eing the absute best the va can do because they're so distractedith the turmoil within leadership and the outside influencers who are able to distract civil servants and others who are trying to do's whatest for the va. >> schifrin: why do you and your organization oppose efforts that president trump has talked about that, these outside advisers have talked aboutpr towardvatization? >> we oppose privatization in that it would, as isaac spokeo to, it wuld cost upwards of trillions by our best estimates. could possibly lead to poor healthcare and poor healthcare f outcomr veterans. under e va's infrastructure, its facilities and the providers thathey have, they best understand the military community. they understand healthcare and the cllenges of the invisible

nounds of war such as p.t.s.d., traumatic brain iry, they understand things like amputation and the dvances that they made in prosthetics in veterans. these are the types that are healthcare advances that the va does best. we would love to see ininfrastructure beinvested in within the va to continue to serve the miitary community and particularly for the wounds of war that we know are germain to our poulation. >> schifrin: quickly, in the time we have left, we have a new secretary, his first full week to be job. what are you looking for in his decision-making this week to know whether the va can fix some of these problems going for >> we would like the see secretary wilkey have the autonomy and autrity to be able to do what's right for veterans. we know this is near and dear to his heart. he talks about how this is a part of his family legacy. i get that to. this is family business for many of us. my father was a vietnam vet. i'm an iraq war vet.

so we want to enshure that tat commitment to service translates into commitment to care forho those are born to battle, our survivors and our dependents. we hope secretary wilkey has the latitude the make the right decisions and not be influenced by outside money and outside influencers who may not have the best care or inerest veterans at heart. >> schifrin: melissa bryant, isaac arnsdorf, thank you to you both. >> brangham: stay with us, coming up on the newshour: hee head of twitter defends not banning conspiracyist alex jones. n from tshour bookshelf, a journalist seeks answers to her father's mental illness. and, what's leading to rampant elephantoaching in myanmar. but first, on week when a series of powerful earthquakes in indonesia killed more than es0 and left thousands hom special correspondent cat wise has this update on efforts in

the u.s. to establish an earthquake early warning system the pacific northwest. that's where cat lives and works, and she first reported on the system four years ago. it's part of our weekly series on science, medicine and technology, the leading edge >> reporter: we west cs go about daily life knowing there are seismic threats lurking below us that could hit at any moment, there's not much we can do about that. but when the next big one hits, if we had even a few seconds of warning, there's a lot we could do: get students undks, stop before bridges, halt surgeries, head to higher ground. >> keep it going! >> reporter: and put down dangerous objects. owin the midst of happy cr at the base of seattle's space needle, a small, nondescript building is part of a big effore to prohose precious seconds of warning. doug gibbons is a field engineer

with the pacific northwest seismic network. on a recent day, he was checking on the highly sensitive equipment housed here which measures vibrations in the eart >> these instruments can feel motion that is far smaller than what people can feel. onm about 10 feet away and even just a good stomhe ground is enough for that sensor to record. >> reporter: the space needle sensor is just one of abt 850 throughout washington, oregon and calirnia sending real-timeis sec data into an early warning system called" shakealert." it's been developed over the past 12 years by the u.s. geological survey and several west coast universities. last year, the northwest sensors became fully integrateth california's network. information streaming in from the sensors is processed at three shakeale data centers, including this one on the universityf washington campus. within just seconds, complex algorithms determine where an earthquake occurred, and the

likely shaking intensity and magnite. the system picks-up small seismic events multiple times a day, but if a more significa earthquake is detected, an alert utomatically generated. currently those alerts are going out to several dozen authorized pilot users throughout the west coast, including the bay area rapid transit system and a fire station in universal city. the speed of the technology is critical but a unique feature of earthqua alerts possible: there are two waves of energy emitted deep underground: pbuaves are fast weak. they cause the initial m id shaking seblue in this animation. s waves arslower but generate the strongest shaking, seen in yellow and red. the sensors detect the initial a , giving those further away, more time to react.e earthquake in the cascadia subduction zone near the olympie nsula. >> reporter: bill steele, who directs communication and outreach for the northwestsh

networed me a simulation of an alert for olympia, washington, where i grew up. >> so here's the p wave and s wave radiating from the earthquake and here's your house in olympia. you can see there's still 30 seconds before that earthquake wave is going to arrive. that's a lot of time to get and cover and take preventative action. >> reporter: how much of a heads-up one gets depends on proximity to the epicenter. there may be no warning or more than a minute. in 2014, after a 6.0 earthque hit napa, the bay area had about five seconds of warning, and earlier this year l.a. had a bio time following a 5.3 near the channel islands. still, the system is far from complete. more sensors are needed,n especiallye northwest. and despite congress' $2op million appration earlier this year, shakealert is underfunded. the u.s.g.s and its collaborators recently estimated it will cost nearly $60 million

to fully build-out and $38 million each year to maintain. that's more than double previous yearly estimates, though some costs may be shared with public and private partners. >> that's a tinytiny percentage of the annualized evsses from earthquakes. we believe we can t half the injuries. we can reduce losses.we hink it's a great cost- effective measure. >> reporter: so far, thelerts have not been accessible to the general public. but there's been a big push this year to distribute them more widely, especially to schools, hospitals, and first responders. y we still have a long wato go to educate people. >> reporter: maximilian dixon is earthquake program manager for washington state's emergency management division. he says he's eager for everyone to have access, but he wants to be very careful about the implementation. >> when you have an unreinforced masonry buildi like this one, rtat we don't want people to do is get the shake a earthquake early warning and

then to run outside building d then have the bricks from this facade collapse on them and either injure them or killing them. we want them to drop, cover, pnd hold on ce in the building and ride out the shaking in the building so they are as safe as they can be. >> reporter: but even if people are safe, there's a lot of infrastructure that needs protecting too. the northeast sammamish water and sewer district near seattle rently became the first utility in the state to pilot an automated shutdown system connected shakealert. the warnings come in via the internet to a w piece of embedded hardware designed by local engineering firm rh2. standing over a half million gallon tank of clean water she doesn't want to drain during an earthquake, utility general manager laura keough explained what happens next. >> we've received the signal. you can hear the pumps shutting down already. there's valves on each of those

it preserves all the water in the tank.r: >> repor also connected, workers at the utility who now prtice drills to take protective actions. >> earthquake brian, vacate the space. earthquake. >> reporter: while the pacific northwest has made progress developing shake alert, the region lags behind california where there are big expectations for a public rollout. >> by the end of 2018, we wi deploy an earthquake early warning system to every corner of this city. >> reporter: l.a. mayor ericga etti has made earthquake warnings a priority. the city is developing an alert app with at&t which will be assted by 48,000 city employees. but there is at one privately developed app already out there. >> the biggest impule to say when i do see the alerts coming is to get on twitter. >> reporter: l.a. journalist, and mom, alissa walker is one of a small group of beta testers for an app called "quake alert""

>> i've gotten a few where it said don't expect shaking and i did feel some weak shaking so it doesn't always know where you are, but the fact that i'm getting alerts and have at least a few seconds to figure out what to do makes a big difference. >> reporter: entrepreneur josh bashioum partnered with the u.s.g.s. to create the app andha automateware. when triggered, this device leopens elevator doors ands residents over an intercom in a marina del-ray high rise condo. bashioum is making money on the hardware, but he says the app will be free when its launched and there are more than 100,000 on a waitlist. >> t mobile application can support millions of people. really the bottleneck is the ish notifications. we have challengn relation to sending out, you know, a million push notifications for residents in los angeles. >> reporter: but what about an emergency notification, like an amber alert used when a child is missing?g. u.s bob degroot, who works

with the shakealert technicals teams, gked that a lot. >> the current amber alert b system is grea it's not built for speed. currently it takes sre between three to seven seconds to get and moving through the system. and fema has actually talked to us about shortening the time. then on the other end, the cellphone carriers also have significant time delays associated with their delivery. we're working with the phone industry and they've been very receptive to help us get those times down. >> reporter: the general public may start to receive earthquake warnings in some areas laterr, this yeaut shakealert officials say there won't be a countdown and the message will be fairly simple: drop, cover, and hold on. for the pbs newshour, i'm cat wise in seattle.

>> brangham: he may be america's best known conspacy theorist, but this week, alex jones' content will be a little harder to find. that's because itunes, facebook, spotify and youtub his audio and video broadcasts from their platforms, sayingjo s violated their policies on hate-speech . the newshour's p.j. tobia has more. >> reporter: for more than 20 years, jones has screamed... >> what is hitler? what is stalin? at is mao? >> reporter: and shouted... >> you'll never, never defeat the human spirit! you'll never defeat god! you'll never win! >> reporter: ...on the way toil winning over mlions of fans to his nationally syndicated radio program, online video broadcasts and "infowars" w ssite. with hgan, "there's a war on for your mind," jones specializes inonspiracy theories. perhaps his most infamous claim: that the school shooting in c sandy honecticut was a hoax perpetrated by the government.

>> sandy hook is synthetic,te comp fake, with actors, in my view manufactured. >> reporter: victis families have sued jones for defamation. he's long supported president trump, who appeared on his radio program in december of 2015. >> your reputation is g. i will not let you down. you'll be very, very impressed, i hope. and i think we'll be speaking a lot. >> reporter: jones' media operation is funded in partat through saleis infowars store. >> i'm doing free shipping on everything, whether it's a hillary for prison shirt or a bill clinton rape shirt. >> reporter: he combin his sales pitch for nutritional supplements with political ideology. >> are on record to be some of the best shots we've got at countering and blocking theal glt operations. am i a beach body, no, am i tarzan, no.om am iolympic swimmer, no. the point is i'm a big guy. >> reporter: this morning, jone broadcasteriscope message in response to his being kicked off of the social media platforms.

>> they dissapeared me, like i've been aithrushed out of e old soviet photos with stalin, and as he killed each person he had 'em airbrushed out. if this isn't 1984 baby, i don't know what is. >> reporter: jones has spawned hundreds of imitators. mostly right-wing, anti government conspiracy theoristsg pedderchandise and the "real story" the government doesn't want you to know about.i >> lovor hate him, alex is like the canary in the coal mine and these big tech companies conspiring together to deplatform him on the same day,e cheverything. >> reporter: aside from his website, jones' radio show iso syndicateder 160 stations nationwide. despite jones' ban from youtube and the resulting loss of over two million subscribers on the platform, infowars reporters remain a presence on youtube and facebook. there are still many platforms for alex jones to wage what he sees as a war for american , nds. for the pbs newshom p.j. tobia. >> brangham: we take a closer look now at the growing pushback

against alex jones with lyrissa lidsky. e's the dean of the university of missouri school of law, and ons been following these moves and other legal acagainst alex jones. lyrissa lidsky, thank you for being here. all of these social media platforms are taking alex jones off their sites. they're arguing that he visplats wonder what your reaction to that is? >> there are two things that need to be understood. one is the flrst amendment y protects citizens against restrictions on their speech by the government and government actors. and platforms like facoreboo google are not government actors. th the first amendment simply does not speak tir conduct. the other thing that peoplemi sometimeunderstand is that hate speech itself is not aca legalegory, although it may overlap with things like true threats or defamation that are legal categories. so the government cannot broadly

at it mightything label hate speech, but platforms can if they wish to. >> brangham: twitter's c.e.o. as we saw, jack dorsey, the c.e.o. of the company, said he's taking the opposite of the proach. they're not banning alex jones. he wrote, "we didn't suspend alex jones or info wars yesterday. we know that's hard for many, but the reason is simple: he hasn't violated our rules. we'll enforce if he does. s you'ing that's within twitter's rights. >> it is absolutely within twitter's rights. it's also within user rights ton put pressurewitter for that. but jack dorsey this morning in a tweet said that what he expects to happen is for journalists and others to counteract alex jones' fallshoods with true, factualt information andrown out his hateful and distortedeesp with the true, factual information they find.o >> brangham:hen alex jones and his supporters argue that this is just outright

censorship, u say they might feel they're being censored, but there is no standings that hegu has to alegally that he's being censored. >> censorship is a legal termen for he governmentre ricts your speech. he's not balancing censored. there are a lot of peopleg callr the platforms to take him down, but that doesn't count as legal censorship.ra >>ham: what do you make of the slippery slope argument that some people have been arguing that, yes, these social media sites have become such peimportant disers of news and information in our world, but once they start picking and choosing, that that is a problematic move for society. >> wel, it's complicated. i am an ardent defender of free speech. i am concerned about the ability of facebook, forxample, to pick and choose what speech is on its network, but'm not

concerned when they make a reasonable determination as thet have to the kind of fabricated lies that are causing harm to individuals need to be taken down from their site. i don't think alex jones is a hard case, per se, but would hope for free expressionl purposes thatatforms would go case by case. >> brangham: alex jones is c also facing soallenges in the legal realm. he's being sued for a lied defamation, one by the parents ledsome of the children kil at sandy hook, and another by man who filmed the video of te car hitting the counterprotestor at the charlottesville white supremacist rally last year. what do those individuals need to prove in orer to win their case in court? >> okay. so in order to win, they need to prove that alex jones made a defamatory statement, ich is a statement that would tend to harm reputations.

clin both cases heaimed they were crisis actors who in oneve instance ied the death of their children and then in another instance he claimed that the person whome filthe car driving into the protester in charlottesville had himself been part of, you know, te incidents, had been somewhatbl responfor her death and had fabricated it. so those are clearly statements that tend toharm reputations, identifying these people that are published to an audience of millions. and then after that there is a question. there is a novel legal que tion what the plaintiff must move in additione and that stion hinges on whether thparents of the murdered children are called public figures or they're private figures, and whether the eyewitness who filmed the charlottesville killing was a public figure or a private figure. we have more leeway to criticize

people who have thrust themselves into the frefront of public controversy, celebrities and our government officials, our public ofs.fici we have less leeway with regard people who arst living their lives, private individuals, and let me ad that even if the parents and mr. gilmore are determined to be puble figures, they ar likely to win lawsuits against mr. jones, because he fabricated lies that tarnished their retations and cased them tangible harm. >> brangham: those are certainly cases we'll follow quite closely. lyrissa lidsky, dean of the university of mssouri school of law. thank you. >> brangham: now, the story of a daughter in search of herself, as she comes to grips with her own mentally ill fazher. amna nas the latest

selection on the newshour bookshelf. >> nawaz: there is a fluidity to lives lived along the southern borderith mexico that at times has had few boundaries. that's the life jean guerrero has lived. her memoir, t "cruxlls stories from both sides of the border, which jean is intimately familiar with as a fultime reporter for kcbs in san diego. jean, we've talked remotely, but it's nice to have you here in the studio. >> i'm so hapy to be here. thank you. >> nawaz: congratulations on the book. it's a beautiful read. you talked aout your philosophy, the truth and nothing but the truth, but when you're talking about your own family, it's hard to disentangle fact from emotion. what was that like for you? p> for me, the reason i chose to do this very sonal story as a journalist was because i felt i

needed the fact-based tools msat i developed as a journalist to disentangle mrom my father. it because story about my quest to understand my father, fo who a long time believed the c.i.a. was after him and that it was very difficult for him to tell what was fact and fiction. he sort of got me into that as e littirl, because he had such a strong influence ason me child, because he was my primare ker for the first few years, and i spent so much time with him, so i felt like i needed to use journalism to disentangle myself from myfa er to figure out what of the things that he is telling me were trueatnd whasn't true. so i myself could sort of sta ft low my own path. >> nawaz: this is your story ostensibly, but it's your father.nt why do you pret that way? >> nawaz: the change he underwent when he became depressed and then became convinced that the c.i.a. was beaming voices into his head anl

doing thinke wrapping up in aluminum foil to block out the voices allegedly, at one point he destroyed theo cndominium he was living in. that drastic change between the playful, loving, doting father that i'd had as a ch tld andhis sort of lost father that he became was very traumatic for me and i had this obsession with trying to recapture the father that he oce was. as a teenage their manifested in really self-destructive behavior where i was experimenting with iugs and i was goito mexico and doing these very irresponsible things. so i saw mexico as this way ofep ring my father. he instilled in me my journalistic curiosity, because i beeve that curiosity is driven by the sort ofam s impulse that drives madness in a sense. it's this sort of reesstles of intellect. >> nawaz: you talk a lot about

how you're perceived g up, how people see you. but as a lot of people with hyphenated identitiesnow, it' also about how you self-identify some after this journey, how do you self-identify? >> i don't feel like i have this fixed identity. like for me, discovering who i was is always about navigating lines between the united states d mexico. my mother is from puerto rico, so there's that. bunot just in terms o crossing the border between countries and also navigthing line between my mother and my father. because my mother, she's a doctor. she is always this very by the book, by the rules person. and then you have my father, who is this very anti-establishment, anti-reality figure. so my identity is very much about trying to findline between extremes. >> naw: in your professional life as a reporter, you have been doing some incredible performing along the southern u.s. borcar and speciy on separated families. he's been able to feature you

work on the newshour, too. how has this story that you've uncovered about your own family, how your ancestors cross borders. how has that influenced or informed how you report on this story now? i think there is this feeling that once these families are reunited, that the story is over. that finally justice has been done, theamilies that wre separated are together again, and it's happy ending, but these children have been separated from their parents in some cases for months. some of them under the age of five. and that's a trauma that is long lasting and it's something that i know from talking to these families they really want access to menl health services. the struggle for them is not over because the children are acting out. they're having nightmares, night terror, crying all the time. they think their parents are going to be taken away from them again.

>> nawaz: what is yourla onship like with your fur r father today? >> he was initially very concerned because he thought it would bring the attentn of the c.i.a. and because of the things that he believed, but when he realized what was driving me to write it, it was just this thing that i hd to do since i was a teenager really, he became very supportive and he actually showed up to my launch party in san waiego and i very surprised to see him there. he just asked me not to tell anybody that he was th because he didn't want people turning around and looking at him and saying, that's the father in theook. but he showed up on his motorcycle and sat in the front row. it just mend the world to me. n az: it's a beautiful story, both his story, yours, your entire family going bac generation. the book is "crux: a cross-border meoir." jean guerrero, thank you for

being here. >> thank you so muh for having me. >> brangham: there's a new crisis unfolding in myan poaching of asian elephants. as newshour producer nsikan pan reports, this fragil species, distinct from their more numerous african cousins, are facing a growing threat.he >> reporter: t poaching of african elephants, where they are murdered for their ivory tusks, is well documented. but halfway around world in myanmar, their cousins, asian elephants, are 10 times more endangered and facing a new seous threat. here, poachers are taking theel hant's skin and turning it into ruby red jewelry. sh>> it actually was a hugk. so we were following these elephants with the with our collars and we started noticing that they disappear if the caller stopped working and theya disad. >> reporter: peter leimgruber is nsad of conservation ecology at the smithsonian vation biology institute at the i national zoowashington, d.c.

his team stumbled upon this poaching crisis, during a routine tracking study with gps collars that started in late 2014.e >> wd 19 collared and five of them we knew were poached we found them poached. and then there were two that disappeared in the way their movement changed right before they dappeared indicated that they were probably poached. >>eporter: this led the researchers and myanmar officials to collect reports of poachi from local villagers. >> in the end we found about 45 elephants kill. >> reporter: this poaching was b surprisiause unlike their african cousins on the open savanna, asian elephants prefer the seclusion of the jungle, making them hard to hunt. jo researchers in the field. >> even our trackers have to spend hours and hours in the bush fighting through vines and otler vegetation to even be to see the elephants. >> reporter: prior to 2014, asian elephant poaching had been relatively uncommon because only males have ivory tusks, and even then, it's a small percentage.

>> now that the females and calves are being affected this will be a very significant impact on the population it's the surest way to drive the species intoxtinction. >> reporter: a separate survey by the myanmar government reported 25 poached elephants 2016. combined with the smithsonian tally, that's 70 poached elephants over the last three years, or more than double what the country witnesd from 2010 2014. due to habitat los0 roughly 2,ld elephants remain in myanmar. so at its current rate, skin c poachingld wipe out this population in just over 50 years. >> reporter: belinda stewart-cox is the executive director of elephant family, a britishup conservation ghat specializes in protecting asian elephants. since late 2014, elephant family has been investigating this skin poaching and the black market trade surrounding it.

they found illegal traders in china are the main customers for myanmar's poached elephants. this matched similar findingsma by the smithsonian. the skin, which can be up to an inch thick when its removed, is sold in two ways. >> some of those pieces are being cut into cubes and those cubes dried and then turned into beads. those beads look ruby red because they contain blood. and they're being turned into prayer beads or bracelets or necklaces. >> reporter: the elephant skin is also ground into powder for m pharmaceuticicine. both beads and powder are marketed on social media siteske liaidu and wechat. chinese officials denied elephant family's report, responding via state media that "the amount of elephant skin imported into china is very limited." under international law, countries are allowed to import elephant skin from four african nations. but trading of asian elephant in any form is prohibited, except in rare cases.

to thwart potential sales of these new products in the u.s. japan or other popular destinations for elephant parts, the smithsonian, u.s. fish and wildlife and groups r rking in myane making public service announcements. >> most people that purchase these products have no idea what they're doing. we need to go to the places where the markets are and educate consumers about how whdamaging the impact is o they're doing. >> reporter: if this killing spreads, it could threaten the 50,000 asi elephants left in the wild overall. liemgruber said the key is reducing market demand for these products, before these animals are all gone. nsfor the pbs newshour, i'an akpan. >> brangham: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm william brangham. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbsyo newshour, thanand good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

>> consumer cellular believes that wireless plans should reflect the amount of talk, text and data tfft you use. we a variety of no- contract wireless plans for learn more, go toything ina consumercellular.tv >> babbel. a language app that teaches real-life conversations in a new language, like spanish, french,a german, it and more. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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>> there was sometng about john f. nnedy from the very beginning. the way he came across, his rhetoric, the notes of idealism that he struck. with a most profound impression vital people can accomh. >> there was substance there, but it was much more than substance. it was reaching the public, and especially young people, emotionally, in a way that's lasted for a lifetime. >> i don't think you can separate the emotional tie that the public had. you have an intellectual tie, you admire his vision, his h knowledg judgment, his strategy, his eloquence. but themotional tie to the mi