captioning spo b newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: gooevening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: a familiar name joins a crowded field. former vice president joe biden jumps into the race for the 2020 democratic presidential nomination. then, a troubling record. newsrooms across the country create the largest database ever of police misconduct. plus the inner lives of chimpanzees. how the emotional experiences of mans and our distant genetic cousins may be closer than we once thought. >> i'm not sure that there are any "uniquely human" emotions. so we may have a wider applicability of these emotions, and they may be more sophisticated, but they are not fundamentally dierent. >> woodruff: all that and more, on tonight's pbs newshour.

>> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> babbel. a language program that teaches real-life conversations in a new language, like spanish, french, itian, german, and more. babbel's ten to 15 minute lessons are available as an app, or online. more information on babbel.com. >> kevin. >> kevin! >> kevin? >> advice for life. life well-planned. learn more at raymondjames.com. >> bnsf railway. c >>sumer cellular. >> and by the alfred p. sloan

foundation. lopporting science, technogy, and improved economic performance and financial litera in the 21st century. >> carnegie corporation of newyo . supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, anthe advancement of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions:s. and individu >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: there is fresh fallout tonight from the russia report. president trump is denying that

he tried to have special counsel robert mueller fired. according to the report, former white house counsel don mcgahn says the president directed him to get rid of mueller, buthat he refused. on twitter today, mr. trumpid "i never told don mcgahn to fire robert mueller, even h though the legal right to do so." g ere is word that president trump approved pay million to north korea to win the release of american student otto warmbier in 2017. the "washington post" reports that the north koreans claimed r was the cost of caring warmbier. he had been comatose since being imprisoned in march 2016, for allegedly destroying a propaganda sign. warmbier died shortly after he was returned to the u.s. it is unclear if the $2 million was ever paid. north korean leader kim jong-un and russian president vladimir putin held their first summit today.

they met as the u.s. maintains a policy of "maximum pressure" on north korea, to force it to give up nuclear weapons. the leaders sat down in the russian pacific port city of vladivostok. terward, putin said kim willing to end his nuclear program, if he gets concrete security guarantees. >> ( translated ): denuclearization is the disarmament of north korea. i can confirm once again, the north korean side talks about this. they need a guarantee of their safety, of the preservation of their sovereignty. and what guarantee could it be except the restoration of international law? >> woodruff: putin did not elaborate on what ki arrangement he meant. but he did say he will discuss the issue with chinese leadersn incoming visit to beijing.ka in sri lthe u.s. embassy is warning americans there towo avoid places ohip this weekend, in the wake of the easter sunday bombings. the country's prime mi said today that would-be attaers are still on the loose.

investigators also searched the home of two of the alleged easter bbers. police arrested their father on suspicion of aiding his sons. meanwhile, authorities lowered the death toll to 253 from 359. they gave no explanation. gunmen in pakistan shot and killed a polio vaccinator today, in a new surge of violence against immunization efforts. it was the third such attack this week, as the taliban and militant clerics preach the vaccine is a foreign ploy to sterilize muslims. france's president emmanuel macron is calling for tax cuts and pension reforms, in a bid to end anti-government protests. macron gave a nationally- levised speech today aft months of sometimes violent demonstrations. >> ( translated ): so in the face of all these worries thatn have beeexpressed, to tell you i whave understood and heard, it seems to me that the

best direction to answer to the needs of fiscal justice is notas to incthe taxes of this person or that. no, it's rather to lower taxes for the maximum number of our fellow citizens. >> woodruff: the so-called yellow vest movement beg, in novemberand organizers say that macron's response today fell short. they promise more pr on saturday. a new tropical cyclone is blasting mozambique tonight, six weeks after another storm killed hundreds in the east african nation. this new srm began coming ashore near the city of pemba, with sustained winds of 136 miles an hour. thousands in northern mozambique and southern tanzania have been ordered to evacuate. in the u.s., a tornado carved a 130-mile path across texas and louisiana early today, killing a woman and her son. they died when a tree fell on their home in northern louisiana.

the storm was part of severe weather that had ripped up roofs, power lines and trees in texaon wednesday, and killed three people in the state. the texas man who organized the notorious "dragging death" of a black man in 1998, has been put n death. john william king,owed racist, was executed by lethal injection last night. the victim, james byrd, wasch ned to a truck and dragged for nearly three miles. a form police officer in ororida was sentenced today to 25 years in prisonatally shooting a black musician in 2015. nouman raja was in plainclothes and in an unmarked car when he confronted and shot corey jones, after jones' car had broken down. after the sentencing today, jones' family and attorneys called it a victory. >> based on the fact that this is the rst time in over 30 years that a police officer

has been convictedor killing a black person in the state of florida, it is a milestone for many black americans, not just in florida but all across the united states. >> woodruff: we will look at a new, nationwide study on police conduct, later in the program. federal agents raided the homes and offices of baltimore mayor catherine pugh today. the f.b.i. and i.r.s. are investigating sales of pugh's children's books to firms that do business wi the city, and whether the sales disguised kickbacks. the mayor faces mounting calls to resign, and the state's governor joined that c today. the pentagon's watchdog agency has cleared acting defense secretary patrick shanahan of ethical violations. he was alleged to have used his official position to favor boeing, where he worked for 31 years. he has been acting secretary since january, wren james mattis

gned the post. and, on wall street, a mixed day of trading. the dow jones industrial average lost nearly 135 points to close at 26,462. the nasdaq rose 16oints, and the s&p 500 slipped one point. still to come on the newshour: what joe biden's announcement means for the 2020 race. the largest database ever compiled of police misconduct. tracking the influence of thec islaate after its territorial losses. and, much mo. dr >> wf: will he or won't he? months of anticipation and hesitation ended today, with the latest democrat to enter the race for the white house. >> we are in the battle for the soul of this nation. >> woodruf setting up a direct clash with president trump over

american ideals and values, former vice president joe biden officially entered the 2020 presidential race this morning. in a video announcement, bidenas lad president trump for his response to the 2017 white nationalist rally in charlottesville, virginia, where a counter-protester was killed. >> he said there were "some very fine people on both " very fine people on both sides? >> woodruff: the 76-year-old rslaware democrat laid out the choice american voace. e>> if we give donald truht years in the white house, he will forever and fundamentally alter the charter of this nation. >> woodruff: with a long poigtical career marked by h and lows, biden became one of the youngest-ever u.s. senator a elected at t of 29 in 1972. but tragedy hit ju weeks later when his wife and one-yearld

daughter were killed in a car accident. biden went on to serve 36 years in the senate, forming fast friendshipwith lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including former arizona senator john mccain.>> y name is joe biden. i'm a democrat. ( laughter ) and i love john mccain. >> woodruff: but now, biden finds himself in a democratic as lately shifted left, favoring policies that counter many of biden's past positions. positions like his integral role in the federal govert's "war on drugs" in the 1980s and '90s that led to mass incarcerations, and his support for expanding gun sales in the 1980s. >> i haven't always been right. i know we haven't always got rn thinht. but i've always tried. l >> woodruff: tg-time onntrist has since taken more progressive posi

but, biden is also guaranteed to face criticism by libeor his role as chairman of the senate judiciary committee in 1991, when attorney anita hill testified that then-supreme court nominee arence thomas had sexually harassed her. lawmakers from both parties then eviscerated hill's testimony. recently, biden has alsoaced allegations of inappropriately touching women and not respecting their personal space. biden didn't apologize, but said he would do better. at times gaffe-prone-- this is biden's third attempt at the presidency. his 1988 bid was marked by allegations of plagiarism. after a short 2008 presidential bid, biden agreed to runs barack obama's vice presidential nominee. and, while biden helped to win over the "obama coalition" of black and northern white voters

that helped win the white house in 2008 and again in 2012, he faces now a serious challenge from vermont senator bernie sanders and a host of rising,r youngeogressive democrats.um president trtook note of biden's announcement today and the bruising primary that awaits wem. mr. trump tweeted,lcome topy the race, slee joe." >> mr. vice president, how do you feel?t! >> i feel grea >> woodruff: today, biden appeared ready for the fight, as leaving a pizza shop later, a reporter asked biden if he had a message for the restthe world. >> america's coming back like it used to be. ethical, straight, telling the trh. supporting our allies. all those good things. >> woodruff: we nt to look now at mr. biden's bid for the race for the nomination, and how democrats may respond, with democratic congresswoman lisa blunt rochester of de. she endorsed joe biden's

candidacy today. and, aimee allison, president of shthe people, a group that advocates for women of color in leadership positions. she is not supporting a specific democratic candidate in the campaign. we welcome both of you to the "newshour". congresswoman blunt-rochester, to you first, right out of the box, you say you eornd joe biden for president. why is he the right person for 2020? joe biden is the right person for such a time as this. i've known joe for 30 years as delaware senator, vice president, but also as a iend, and when i think about his taking this step, i thinke about ast, the present and the future. first of all, just the past, the report of accomplishments that he brings to the table, the w present th are living in a time as his video showed earlier today where incidents like charlottesville are happening and where we are seeing just an

abuse of power, and, so, he's focused on the present, but also because he cares about te future of this country. and, so, i'm exced. many of us not just here in delaware but acrosrythe cou are excited about the campaign and feel that joe biden is the person that eds to be our next president. >> woodruff: aimee allison, hodo you look on joe biden's candidacy? >> it's interesting to talk about past, present and future. joe biden s theenefit of high identity nameyed for s association with president obama which maes him beloved among african-american voters particularly afrmean-american who are the most loyal democrats, but we also need to talkbout thest association with anita hill. you know, i think there's going to be a lot of questions about his relationship to not only black women but women of color in general, associated with howh ndled the anita hill

hearings back then but, alsoof just a coupleeks ago, how he handled the accusations of improper behavior toward former nevada legislator luy flores. i think that's the present. i think the future veally going to depend on you've got ath candidate igh-name i.d. who is entering into a very different world, this is a #metoo era and a "black lives wmatter" era, you know, hs he able to appeal to a broad range of very enthusiastic key democratic voters in the places that he needs to in order to gain the momentum? i think that question is still out. >> wf: let's take two of the things that you've just mentioned, congresswoman blun rochester, how about he handled anita hill in 1991, being a very tough questioner of her when she was raising qestions about sexual harassment by clarence thomas, and what's happened in the last few weeks. >> i think, for joe biden, i had the opportunity to have a nversation with him.

i actually requested 15 minutes. i was granted a half an hour, but we stopped and talked for two and a half hours about a lot of issues because he believes, as well, that this is not feta comcompli. that this is something he has t earn. black women are the active democratic voters, ahave also said we want a seat at the table. so what people need to look at as wo into the next couple of months is a few things -- number lie, hs experience and, number two, what are his es and, number three, who does he hire, who does he bring around the table as well. those are the things -- one to have the things i can acknowledge for him, i want to say this one lasthing, is what he does that is different than our current leader is acknowledges areas he needs to grow and he moves forward and tries to grow. that's something we're not seeing right now in our

president. >> woodruff: coming back to anita hill, the is reporting today, this afternoon, that anita hill is saying she did rceive a call from joe biden, his campaign is saying he called to aologize. she's saying and i'm quoting, she was deeplys unatisfied with what they talked about. is that going to linger as an issue, aimee allison? >> yes. anita hill was a very young and courageous law professor.o when i was inlege and watching the way she was treated for standing up and speing out, he allowed a lot of damage to happen in the decades since by having a cooling and chilling effect on women, black women and women everywhere in the country who dared to have the courage to speak out against harassment that they received at work.th i thinre's an accounting that needs to happen on the part of joe biden to directly address it. so it starts witha simple apology, but needs to have very important plans to go with it. it's good his campaign called,

but if anita hill is not satisfied, i'm telling you, for men of color, we're not satisfied either. >> woodruff: congresoman blunt rochester, what is it you believe joe biden needs to do in order to help people come around to his laption and his apology? >> he has acknowledged that, if he could gdo back and t differently, he would have, but he also made sure that there were women on that judiciary committee so that a person would not have t face an all white male judiciary committee. and i think the voters areoi really to have to decide if the actions -- because he has a long track record of many, many accomplishments, but there aralso things that he has ak-acknowledged he would do differently, and it's going to be really up to the voters to decide, and it's also going to be incumbent ohim, he wants attorney people's votes, he wants to do that. >> woodruff: i just want to ask both of you, finally, in an era whe re there aunger candidates, female candidates,

candidates of color, why ijoe biden the right choice here or not? i mean, how much should it matter that he's older, at he's white and that he's a male? aimee allison? >> that's a question we ask the eight presidential candidates in terday.ple's forum yes we had candidates like elizabeth warren, the senator walked into a lukewarm reti and, 20 minutes later, standing ovation. she won over the hearts and minds of thousands of people in that room. bernie sanders walked in to huge applause and left with a tepid response, and i think what we're going to find as joe biden enters the race that he is really -- that we coulde public opinion, we can see the opinion of tese key democrats, women of color, change as he es into these series of debates and public appearances, and we'll see because women of color ar looking fortrong advocates for gender, racial and

onomic justice, and the question is can joe biden earn his vote in a crowded rich field of strong candidates. >> woodruff: what about this question, congresswoman blunt rochester? >> well, i'm an example thates retation does matter, and it is important that we have a seat at the table. i think whaent joe bidas demonstrated over the course of his career is whether it's on the issues of civil rights, human rights or women's rights, he stood up, and alsohether it's about strengthening our economy, he stood up.ul so what i ask the voters and the american people is to stay open-minde to see his heart, see what kind of message he puts forward and let him earn your vote. he's already earned mine. >> woodruff: all right. we want to thank both of you. comom lisa blunt rochesterf rochester delaware and aimee allison of "she th people." thank you. >> thank you.

woodruff: as we reporte earlier, for the first time in near three decades, a florid police officer was sentenced to prison time today for shooting to death an african amican man whose car had broken down. the killing in florida is getting national attention, as have a number of cases of police conduct and questionable shootings in recent years. but as amna nawaz tells us, most cases of police misconduct are not in the public eye. a new investigation finds tensho ofands of officers have been investigated or disciplined over the last decade. >> nawaz: reporters around the f countrm the "usa today" network and the non-profit invisible institute, spent more than a year compiling the largest database of misconduct records. they found that at least 85,000 officers have been investigated or disciplined for some 200,000 incidents of alleged misconduct, much of previously unreported to the public.

most were minor infractions, but there were still thousands of more serious cases, including e allegations essive force, rape, domestic violence and drug dealing. they also found frequent dishonesty. the database uncovered more than 2,200 instances of per tampering with evidence or witnesses, or falsifying reports. and, 32 people became police chiefs or sheriffs, despite a finding of serious misconduct, usually at another department. james pilcher is one of the reporters for the "usa today" networ he works at the "cincinnati inquirer" and jos me now. james pilcher, welcome to the "newshour". let's start with the records. how hard was it to get access to that information in the first place? >> well, in many cases, it was difficult. had to sue in some cases. the pols ice unind so forth have been able to make it very difficult to access some this

information, and we still feel like we've only scratched the surface. we've covered maybe, you know, a tenth of the total agencies in this country. we've probably got data from about 700 to 800 different partments covering 80,00 officers, while there are 750,00n 750,000 officersis couny at 18,000 different departments. so we're just getting started. >> so you mentioned in some cases unions sto in the way of getting to the information. in a typical police force, in a typical environment, what usually happens to those records of misconduct? >> well, in most cases, th are led in their personnel file, although in some cases theyly actuave a separate file r u might not know as a regular public citizen fscipline as their personnel file. that's sometimes the case in cincinnati, for example. then it stays with their record. but in somthe casese unions have been able to negotiate and have some episodes orpl dise

taken off their record after five or seven years and it sort of cycles. if you're on good behavior for a while, the bad bhiefer falls off, so the bad incident may not be reported or knohwn in teir file after ten years or so. >> we mentioned there were serious caseous uncovered there, but in the range of misbehavior that falls und misconduct, what kind of actions or behavior are we talking abo >> if you look at the data that we accomplished natnally, we accomplished lists from 44 states of all the differentce of who have been decertified, basically lost their license to be a pfiolice r. the majority of those, more thao 10% were drugs and alcohol abuse, but there were another 10% that were for domesti abuse, and there was another good portion of those that wereo dishonesty or perjury.

so it runs the gamut from, you know, insubordination all the way up to excressive fo to a felony coviction. >> you high light this one incredible story, a police officer in one town gets fierdz, then he gets rehired the police chief in another town. how does that happen? well, the mayor of that town openly admits he didn't check very well, and that actually t happens moan you would think. we've found that to be a fairly llmmon occurrence because people in these smaowns are so desperate for police help that sometimes they just take what they can get and don't check very hard. all it would have taken was one phone call from this small-town mayor to this other town less than an hour away, and i all rightly say his personnel file at that's department is this big. i've seen it myself. he was actually fired twice from that department and reinstated by a mediator who s convicted

of a fennely, crashed a police car, the list went on and. >> you highlighted a few cases of officers who were what you called consistently under investigation, almost 2,500 investigated on 10 or more charges, 20 or more face 100 or more allegations, all kept their badges. dingyou have an understanf how that was allowed to happen? >> part of it is the system of police discipline in this country is to so localized is it's a state by state, municipality by municipality endeavor, so it varies from placto place. even from state to state, it varies. so you could actually t decertified in one state and actually go apply and get a badge in another state. so we found that happening quite often as well. >> just e few secondsfore we go, james. this was an enormous undertaking, more than a year's worth of work. why do you think it was so important for this information to be out the? >> because the public doesn't

have a way to have an insight into the people that were supposed to be protecting us and this was a y for us -- you know, there are other agencies that collect as data but theya don't ke it public. this was a way for us to take it to the public and say, okay, especially in this day and age where we're having such a debate over policing andolice tactics that we felt that this was the right time to do this. >> james pilcher of the "u.s.a. today" network, thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newour: "making sense" of corporate tax exemptions in louisiana. research into the emotional experiences of chimpanzees. and, activist gloria steinem gives her "brief but spectacular" take on the evolution of feminism.rr the ic easter sundayin suicide bo that killed

people in three cities acros r sri lanka haocused attention on isis. through its "news" agency, isis claimed that the sophisticated, simultaneous attacks were the work of its fighters. itemains to be seen just h deep the connection was between the trans-national isis,rrnd the local group that conducted the bombings. regardless, the persistent reace and th of isis is a force in many countries, despite the final destruction last month of the grouliphate, spread across syria and iraq. i'm joined now by "new yk times" reporter rukmini callimachi, who has covered the group for years. thank you very much for being with us. is it possiblthe local terror oup that's been identified could have done this on its own? >> it's possible, i suppose, but unlikely. what we have seen in the past is that building explosives asre able as what we saw in sri lanka is quite difficult. if you think to the pris attack

in 2015 which are nsidered thesh flag external operations work of the islamic state, they had ten attackers, almost all suicide bombers, and even amongr thosp from i.s.i.s. that came directly from the caliphate, you had one man who a went in cafe in paris and he made a mistake in the detonation g his charge, killly himself. so even in the paris attacks, you saw fumbles of that nature. here in sri lanka, you had eight suicide ombers, each one of them detonated their charges with deadly effect. >> so i.s.i.s. claims, as we were saying, that these were their fighters, ourighters. >> right. >> woodruff: what does that mean, exactly? >> the islamic state uses the term islamic statethighter to ean their own recruits in iraq and syria who have joined thgroup and trained with them and also to refer to anybody who picks up a weapon of some kind ancarries out volence in their name. however, i do think that the

connection here isr, deend that's because the fellow who carried out this attack was able to get a pledge video to i.s.i.s. before they carriedut their explosions. we have not yet seen a case where that dynamic occurred and there wasn't a real connective tissue to i.s.i.s. i think that the attacks whe we have seen that -- the paris attacks, the berlin car ramming, the bangladesh attack -- all of them in the enhad real connectivity to i.s.i.s. >> woodruff: you're reminding us of all of the. so how do you describe right now what the strength of i.s.i.s. is? >> youn now, i have beewriting stories for months now pulling on data that shows that i.s.i.s. is very defeated.at unfortuny, politicians always want to show more progress in terrorism than is often thcase on the grund. yes, it's true that i.s.i.s. has lost its territory in iraq and syria, that is a blow to the group, however, there is a group

that was incredibly deadly from 2003 to the caliphate of 2014 without holding very much land at all. so they are simply going back to their insurgent groups and already the data is showing that even in iraq and syr attacks are picking up again. >> woodruff: picking up on that, is iraq and syria still the place where they are the strongest, even though they don't hold the territory that they once did? >> yes. i do believe that iraq and syrit is stieir hub. it's the core of their original organization. we have seen estimates anywhere from south of ths e fightft to tens of thousands of fighters left even after the fall of thes last viunder i.s.i.s. control. >> woodruff: and are they ber, youle -- we rem know, a decade ago they were able to recruit large numbers of people from across europe an other parts of the world. do they still have tha recruiting power? >> the fall of the territorial caliphate in iraq and syria has

defittely taken a big dent of the recruitment, but, according to th group, as recently as a couple of months ago, the groilup was pulling in around 15 members a month in iraq and syria. that's muh higher than in 2010 and 2011, which is the las tim the group was considered dead, and at that point they were recruiting around 5 a month, so ten time times more. a big fall from where they are 1 in 201 and 2015 when hundreds of thousands of people were crossing from turkey to syria, but it's not insignificant. >> woodruff: finally, rukmini,ee i.s.i.s. hasknown to have a very powerful media operation, they have been able to get the word out, they have a regular newsletter, where does that stand now? they were claiming success after what haened in sri lanka. how strong are they when it

comes to spreading the word still about what they are able to do? >> to me, one of the strongest indicators of i.s.i.s.'s continued strength is theact that it's the media ministry continues to upgrade at a pre robust level. it's true that their output has fallen off quite a bit. they're no longer putting out the flashy videos all of us saw in 2014 and 2015 which furnished the group's reputation, but every single day they are putting out content. in fact, on easter sunday, the same day we had this horrific attack? sri latwa, the group claimeo other attacks, one in saudi arabiand one in kabul, in afghanistan. for the one in saudi arabia, they sowed a video showing the attackers pledging allegiance before tat attack. but ives you a sense, in three different theaters, thousands of miles apart from each other, they are able to

claim these attacks through their media ministry.>> oodruff: rukmini callimachi, reporting on i.s.i.s. and the islamic state for so many years, thank you so much. >> thanks for having me, judy. uf >> woo it is common for cities and states to provide tax breaks and exemptions in the hope of luring business and jobs. but in some places, there's growing pushback. amazon and new york city is the most high-profile case recently. what is less known are big breaks given in some states to traditional industries that don't quite get as much buzz. welcome to louisiana. our economics correspondent, paul solman, visited there recently, as part of our regular series, "making sense." >> i think there's one thing that we can agree on as citizens of louisiana-- things are not great. >> reporter: one of youtube's unlikelier hits? a slide show asking, how it can

be that a state so rich in natural resources, can also be... >> ...bottom of the list in alla the importangories, when we comes to life indicators. >> reporter: one a claims the advocacy group together louisiana-- subsidies. tax breaks state and local govements give companies to set up shop, or stay in the state. the national average of tax breaks? $291 per resident. louisiana? >> we are spending $2,857 perrp capita in ate subsidies. >> reporter: 80% in the form ofn strial tax exemptions, in caich the state's industries, mostly petro-che are freed from the local property taxes that fund services like police, parks and public schools. >> i'd like to welcome you to the board of commerce and industry. >> reporter: for 80-plus years, a state board has ap nearly all of these tax breaks. >> all in favor of approving these, en globo? indicate with an aye. fo reporter: 100% exemptio

ten years. ( gavel ) >> motion carries. >> reporter: problem is, the local counties, called "parishes" in louisiana, don't get the taxes the companies would otherwise pa >> they're being given billions of dollars in this parish alonen in ives every year. billions. >> reporter: in southwest louisiana's caenasieu parish, ronmentalist mike triticos showedcoal-fired power plant built in the 1950s. >> it produces a lot of electricity and it gets a huge set of tax breaks every year. .> reporter: even though it's been there forev >> yes. >> reporter: but isn't ihedea that it'll keep them here, as opposed to-- ? >> well, they're not going to go anywhere else. how can they pick up that plant and ave? they can't. >> reporter: the hot exemption of the moment is for a new liquefied natural gas company, driftwood l.n.g., planning a terminal in lake charles. >> along this stretch here, between the gulf intra-coastal waterway and the opposite shore mouth of the industrial canal.or

>> rr: for this, says electrician heather ames: >> we gave away potentially the largest tax exemption in the tostory of united states. >> reporter: to treverse the decision, ames joined forces with schoolteacher elizabeth long, a republican, and democrat georgina graves.me >> no nts were provided for the public to see, not online or athe meeting itself. >> and the fact that we were not allowed that informationd and had to r the paper that $2 billion was gone-- people are very upset! >> we've been insulted. >> reporter: insulted how? >> "libtards." like, "you're libtards, you don't know what you're talking abt." we should be thankful for the amount of jobs that these dustries are blessing yo with. >> reporter: but at the cost of as much as $2 billion in taxes. >> taxes that then our schools lose, our roads lose, our children lose. >> reporter: but, says chamber of commerce president george swift, the parish wins, because of the new jobs. and not just jobs at the plant. bout 7,300 construction workers will be in the area

building the plant for fouor five years >> reporter: but how many from the parish itself? >> there are absolutely no s ipulations that anybody come from calcasieu parish, or the state of louisiana. >> reporter: at a trailer park housing construction workers on other projectslicense plates from texas, alabama, south dakota, alaska. >> wherever they're from,ey e going to be buying things locally-- gasoline, food, all of that. and then the permanent jobs are created, and that's where we get the long-term growth for the area.nd >> reporter:ow many long- term jobs? >> their initial application was for 300 permanent, and then the application showed 200 for jobs, permanent jo. >> reporter: which makes the math pretty easy: $2 billion in local property tax relief; 200$1 jobs; million a job. but wait a minute. under louisiana's new governor,r john bel e, three local governing bodies now decide, anh they approve deal. but that's because, says

elizabeth long: >> the chamber of southwest lo governmental entities what they were going to do. >> reporter: to what extent were you involved with the three entities that had to appd ve, d approve this project? >> we are the facilitator for the projects.th we wanprojects to come to our region. >> reporter: the botne, to the chamber's george swift: >> do we grant the tax exemption and get the industries and the jobs, or do we get nothing? >> reporter: but iyou have the ports, the pipelines, the product, natural gas, why didn't you at least try to drive a harder bargain? >> we do have all the resources, but there's a lot of competition all over the uted states. >> reporter: driftwood's texas- based parent company declined our interview request, but did issue a statement-- that thepr ect would generate "more than $700 million in sales taxer the first ten " and then, after the abatement expires, more than $100 million a year in

property taxes. but a key question-- would the company really not have come without the exemptions? surgeon alan hinton, a lifelong republican, doubts it. >> industries want to be in a tha because of the ship channel, the pipelines, the rail system and the interstate system. and people here are willing to accept big, heavy industry inya their ba. >> reporter: bridget hinton, an engineer, manages her husband's practice. >> we ran our own business for er 11 years. we had approximately nine employees, and we didn't get a tax exemption. >> i'm astounded that th program has been going on for 80 years, under the radar. >> no idea that that much money was being given away. it just takes a while for people to open their eyes. >> my eyes were opened!r: >> reporow big is this hrcility? >> approximately miles long and extends back anher mile and a half to the mississippi river. >> reporter: in east baton

rouge, edgar cage is in the business of opening eyes as well. coider exxon mobil, the biggest taxpayer in the parish, and the largest tax break beneficiary, receiving more than 200 exemptions over the past two decades. recently, the companapplied for two more, retroactively, for projects completed in 2017 >> an exemption is the incentive to bring either new business here or for existi company to expand. it is something put in place to change behavior. if the behavior had alread happened, it's then not an exemption. g it'st. >> reporter: moreover, cage's group, together louisiana, found that, despite all those tax exemptions, exxon mobis baton rouge facilities collectively lost more than 2,000 jobs. w re not against exxon mobil. they have fiduciary responsibility to reduce business costs as low as possible. but when they are exempt frompa ng property taxes, i have to pay more, and small business have to pay more.r:

>> reporteeanwhile, just blocks from the refinery... >> this community has been forgotten. t's been neglected. >> reporter: butnk a lot of people driving through here would be thinking, you know, it's the culture of the place. what could exxon mobil do tott make things be? >> if more money is being put into schools, put into workforce velopment, these people would have hope. these people would have opportunity. >> reporter: exxon mobil's response is that it contributes about $4 milli to the community each year through grants and employee matching fts. >> the next item on the agenda: the itep application for exxon mobil corporation. >> reporr: but this january, arguments like cage's carried the day. >> please vote. >> reporter: the local school board, strapped for cash, rejected the tax breaks. ( applause ) >> the motion fails. >> reporter: exxon mobil blamed what it called "confusion among local elected officials, inundated with misinformation from activist groups." >> i think it was a tremendously negative signal not only to

exxon but to other industry. and it just creates doubt as to, is this a good place for industry to locate? >> reporter: the chamber of commerce president doesn't support tax breaks for all energy firms, though. >> there was one project that we did not recommend, but the bo anyway.d up approving it was a solar farm. >> reporter: a solar farm, with 0 construction jobs, but only one permanent one. >> if it doesn't create jobs, we don't think it fits in the industrial tax exemption criteria. >> reporter: heather ames has a different interpretation of thct chamber's obn. >> i think that they're bought and sold by the oil and gas, industd solar has no place in that. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, ecomics correspondent paul solman, reporting from louisiana.

>> woodruff: you oen hear about studies on animal intelligence and behavior. wt tonight, we explore a different questiont can we learn about ourselves from studying the inner lives of chimpanzees? jeffrey brown talked to primatologist frans de waal about his new book exploring the emotions of primates. >> you see the rain face? >> brown: call it the "rain face"-- a look of disgust, i the midst of a downpour. a itexpression of emotional life in animals as well as people, according to primatologist frans de waal. we all had our "rain faces" on during a recent wet visit to the yerkes national primate research center, part of emory university, outside atlanta, georgia, where de waal has worked for nearly three decades,

and helped change the way we think about animals-- and humans. you don't buy the idea that we could say "disgust" is only a human emotion? >> no. i'm not sure that there are any "uniquely human" emotions. we may have a wider applicability of these emotions, and they may be more sophisticate but they are not fundamentally different. i haven't seen anything of a fundamental differce in the emotions. >> brown: de waal is renowned for his work on animal intelligence-- experiments that show the ability to use tools, plan, cooperate, and more. he's author of a dozen books, the last titled, "are we smart enough to know how smart animals are?" now, he's focused on their emotional life. >> all my work has always dealt with emotions, even though i'm trained as a biologist not to

talk explicitly about emotions. >> brown: whoa, whoa, whoa, why? >> well, i was trained by my professors that emotions were taboo as a topic. you could talk about the "motivation" of animals and the "attention to things," but the "emotions" was a sort of taboo topic. >> brown: the change in thinking over the last two decades is reflected in de waal's new boo"s maast hug." mama was an elderly chimp,h. nearing deat in 2016, jan van hooff, a mentor of de waals who'd spent years studying and bonding with mama,e to pay a final visit. mama loc her old friend in her arms-- a rare, physical display of affection between the species.t >> it is alm if she's calming him down. i think seeing jan, who was myso professo know him very well, i think he must have hesitated, because we never go into a cage with a chimp. it's dangerous.

it's just not done. so to go in there, he must have be a bit nervous. and it's almost as if she has sensed that and she calmed him down, instead of him calming her down. >> brown: what's going on here? de waal cautions against speaking of mama's "feelings"-- which he defines as her internal subjective state. but it is possible, he believes, to observe behavior expressing "emotions," such as fear amusement, and empathy. >> the human studies of empathy started with children, where scientists would ask a family member in the home to cry, and then they would see how very young children respond to them. and very young children who can barely walk, they walk up to this person and touch them and stroke them and try to calm them down. and when i heard about that, i said, well, if that is empathy, then i have plenty of empathy in my chimps, because the chimps do is all the time. someone has lost the fight, has

been screaming, sits in a corner. other chimps come over and embrace th and kiss them and calm them down and groom them. >> brown: in an experiment de waal often shows audiences, ain capuonkey is fed cucumbers and seems perfectlhappy-- until seeing a neighbor getting sweet grapes. >> people laugh because they suddenly recognize themselves in the behavior of animal and they're sort of nervous about that. >> brown: monkey number one now emphatically rejects the lesser treat. >> later with chimpanzees, weom find even moreicated-- t find that the one who gets more may also objeit, not just the one who gets less. so we reached the conclusionth the sense of fairness of humans and the sense of fairness of chimpanzees is maybe not that different. >> brown: from his office ovtlooking the chimps' habi at yerkes, de waal has spent years observing personalities. he knows all the individual

ticks of each chimp-- and patterns. what happens after a fight? when does one chimp step in tono tslp ather? what lures them ouide on a rainy day-- or causes them to retrea >> they get upset if there's somebody here who's not me. that happens sometimes. >> brown: i asked de waal what we remain unable to know about the inner life of chimps and dher animals. >> one of the moficult ones is consciousness, and that relates to the issue of "feeling," right? is it possible that an animal shows all these emotional signs in the face and then in the body and in the behavior without associated feelings, without a conscious sortf being conscious of the emotions? i think it's very un. i think that animals like chimpanzees and dolphins a so on, they must have a level of consciousness. but how do we demonstrate that? that is a big puzzle for science. >> brown: are there inevitablel ethisues, as we learn more about how closely we are related

in our emotional life to animals? >> it has obvious moral implications. i think if animals are machines without feelings and nothing, we can do whatever we want with them. if they're not mhines... the point i'm making, and many other scientists are making nowadays, we have to be more careful. we cannot go on treating animals the way we do, if we have this new view of animals. and so, my work is contributing to this change in moral perspective. >> brown: for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown at the yerkes national primate research center. >> woodruff: gloria steinem isit a , author, activist and feminist, who at 85, still travels widely to help raise awareness for the gender equity

issues she helped pioneer. steinem reflects on her life in tonight's "brief but spectacular," and in her updated edition of essay collections, "gloria steinem: outrageous acts of everyday rebellions.">> ntil the women's movement came along and freed our headsou anhearts, i just assumed that you were not supposed to talk about having had an abortion, or even sexual affairs. there was not a tradition that allowed us to tell the truth. and i didn't question i had had an abortion. it allowed me to live my own life, not to marry someone for whom i would have been the wrong wife, anhe would have been the wrong husband. it allowed me to come home, anan become a fre writer. i would different life if i had been sponsible for rearing a child.

( clap ) >> i think i learned that my childhood was not traditional, when i saw other kids going to school. we were living in a house trailer in the wintertime, traveling from michigan tor florida,lifornia. and also, when i went to the invies, and i saw kids going to school and livinouses with picket fences, and i thought, "how great that would be." since then, i've come to really appreciate the way irew up. i just learned by reading and doing what i loved, which i think is a pretty good wayf learning. the stories i'm most interested in telling are stories that aren't being told. it's so much more interesting to write about the unknown that needs to become visible. and because i travel so much, i get to hear a lot of these stories, and to transmit them in writing.te

what frustme the most is the degree and various of violence against females. for the first time thanow of, there are fewer females on eartthan males. but it's also true that violence against females is the biggest indicator of all other violence. not because female life is any i moortant than male life. it is not. but because when we see dominance and violence in our homes and neighborhoods, it makes us assume that one group born to dominate the other, and it's okay. people, at my agwh do ask me, o am i passing the torch to? and i always say, "first of all, i'm keeping my torch, thank you very much. and i'm using it to light other torches." because the problem is the image of one person with the torch. everybody needs a torc

that is a way better revolutionary image than one person with a torch. my name is gloria steinem, and this is my "brief but spectacular" take on right now. >> woodruff: thene and only. and you can find additional "brief but spectacular" episodes on our website, www.pbs.org/newshour/brief. online, a "frontline" investigation has revealed that many more people diagnosed with legionnaires' disease during the flint water crisis have died, most of them from cond commonly associated with the disease. you can find "fronine's" investigation online at g/frontline. and that is the newshour for tonighuf i'm judy woo join us online, and again right here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> babbel. onlanguage program that teaches

real-life conversain a new language, like spanish, french, italian, german, and more. babbel's ten to 15 minute lessons are available as an app, or online. more information on babbel.com. >> bnsf railway. >> consumer cellular. >> financial servicefirm raymond james. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your p station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh ce ou.

>> hello everyone. and welcome to amanpour & company. >> with the mueller report heavy in view, we dig in. they call her a fire cracker, new mexico governor, on voters priorities in her state and what at says about democrats vying to be the 2020 presidential candidate. and dna may soon be as e to alter as computer code. what happens when we tinker w darw