♪ california's top law enforcement officials seeks to block ther mger of two wirelessroviders as the government investigates the dominhce of big t companies. also we'll talk with a ceo whose dcagitaldemy has revolutionized online education for kids and life long learners. and we'll hear how a innovative lab is pioneering new ways to improve the health and well-being of teens and young adults. hell welcome toom "kqed news." i'm thuy vu. we beg with the growing battles of tech against government. california attorney general becra is leading an effort to block the telecom giants

t-mobile and sprint and they said it would hurt the consumers special for tose in local income and minorities. it would cut the wireless providers from four to three and meanwhile, the number of antitrust invests against google, facebook and apple and amazon are growing. here to discuss are law professor kathlynal sandand tech editor and san francisco bureau chief, jeremy owens. nice to have both of you. >> thanks for having me. >> on the proposed mergerr of t and t-mobile there are ten states led byor newand california filing suit to block it. professor sandoval, you're a former commissioner of the ic california pu utilities commission. what are your concerns about the proposed merger and how would it affectum cos? >> right. i'm not -- thank you so much for the invitation. i'm an antitrusw professor. so both as a former regulator and as an antitrust professor, a couple of thingsou jumped at

me. first of all, the complaint alleges that t-mobile and sprint already have over half of the market share in both los angeles and new york city. in the first and second largest ets in america they have over half of the market share. >> it is huge. >> it is huge and there are a number ofs markhere they have very large market shares. and as you mentioned especially these are both marketed as value brands so they have been especially important for lower income consumers for value conscious consumers bece se they comp price. so the concern is that as you have two head to head competitors who already ha uge portions of the market, who compete on pric if they merge which they're going to lessen the incentives or exemptions from data caps that ar important f people to be able to watch content like yours or to be able to watch contemy like some o videos that i use for my law classes. >> and jeremy, sprint and

t-mobile did agree to a set of essions, they agree not raising prices for three years and improving service especially in rural areas and this emed to satisfy the fcc chair ajit pai. why does becerra differently though? >> this is one area that you can come down on either side these guys cannot compete against at&t and verizon very well on their own. those are two companies with so much behind them. and in terms of other things they can offer consumers, deals they can make with other services beyond wireless and telecom. so if you want to look at what they're competing against, putting them together makes as onger competitor against the two stronger competitors that are already there. you can say, well, these two compete against each other if we combine them we're not getting that competition and that's a problem. so i can see th sidesf this from a consumer point of view. that there's a reason toiike there's a reason not to like it. so it'sa nory easy issue.

>> well, what the telecom companies say they need to invest in the 5g technology to ward off competitions from chinese is that a legitimate argument? >> there's a way we look at this through the antitrust lens and regulatory lens. through the antitrust lens the concentrion is already incredibly high. and it makes it wayhigher. so in terms of antitrust analysis by the books this is presumptively anti-competitive. and so what they need to do is actual show that there are enough of what we callcierger spc benefits so that the benefits outweigh the harms and the concern is that especially in places like los angeles and new york as well as in places ke el centro and, you know, throughout where the clapanies havge market shares that their promises of for example low prices for three years, three years expires pretty soon.

my law schools will graduate in three years. >> y don't know what will happen after three years with the prices. jeremy, what is interesting about all of th is ifu look at europe it's been so much more aggressive on cracking down ones tech compand issuing major fines. why is it -- why is it so much more aggresse than the u.s. d how h that approach helped the consumers in europe in which ese other tec companies compete like google, for example? >> you have to ask u.s. politicians why the eu has been tougher on these tech companies than others than they have. and i think that's a really rong question to ask as we roll into the 2020 elections is why have we allowed europe to take that claim of we are the ones establishing rules. they have been le to pass data privacy regulations that the u.s. is trying to get to. >> and huge fines. >> and huge fines the u.s. is saying that europe is doing it. in fact, donald trump said,pe eus going after it. why are we following europe?

these are our companies. this should be our issue. but because we have been slow on it, because we have been looking at other issues we have fallen ehind. now we're getting there, but we take so long to do everything. willec the market still be the same when we do? there ams some real prob starting this late. >> i think the difference is really apr jurence and not simply a political difference. the major difference is in the united states in order to have monopoly power, that's no magic n'rber but w generally looking for certainly somebody who has over 90% of there marke shn the relevant market and that's a whole debate about how do you define the relevant market. for example, is it all advertising or online advertising? s it is a segment of onli advertising? >> none of the companies seem to have 90% market share. >> right. is 80%or enough monopoly

power? maybe. is 50% enough for monopoly power? wheas in europe the legal standard is dominance. you can have 35%, maybe even 30% market share and have market dominance in europe. this is -- >> lower threshold. >> yes. yes. so this is a legal difference and this is why europe was able to reach things like the fine they did against google. because their legal stdard is different. >> yeah, they put three fines agait google. the android fine they levied wouldot certainly happen here. >> let me ask you something about on a related front. lots of anti-competitive talk around tig tech companies, like google, apple. facebook andamazon. he justice committee is looking at antitrust compl antsinst the companies. what kind of potential regulations are they looking at? it seems like they talk a lot

about it, but nothing really happens. >> we'll spen years on the inquiries probably and absolutely nothing might happen. right? don't think they're going to be able to bring charges. i don't think there's going to be an antitrust trial for any of the companies but what might happen ispp what ed with microsoft. they eventually settled with miharosoft but in the time they fought microsoft over five years in the late 90s and 2000s it gave breath to yahoo and the younger services that microsoft may have tried to strangle but they government and that gave them the breath to get through. >> what about breaking up the companies? presidential candidates like warren is calling for that. >> you can answer this, ri kat, to go after the companies yes i would love to see youtube have aht spotl shown on it because alphabet hides it under ogle and says it's advertising. no, google is one of the most important things and kids are addicted to youtube. we need more light shown on that. we need to

property but google just hides it within everything else. >> you put your law lessons on outube when there's a power outage or another situation where you can't actually teach them in class. >> yeah. so last year when we had the terrible fires and the ancampfi, we all had terrible pollution in the bay area santa clara university the president closed it because the air pollution was so bad. and so i was able to use youtube and to upload on -- you can do a private youtube channel to upload videos for my class. d you deliver the content. absolutely it's important for educational content. >> let me ask you about thepr vacy issues as well. wcause our lawmakers are missing the man they only target the tech companies because phone companies have lots of data on where you have been, what you have been doing. so if they're just focused on facebook for example with stricter laws on youtube with aren't phone but

companies what does that mean? >> i think that's a real problem. so i worked for the fc as a regulator, i directed their department there. i teach communications law.ve and i don't facebook account. but i can'tescape my internet service provider, so if my internet service provider can sell my data including my location data, then that would be a huge loophole if you only put privacy protection on facebook or amazon or some of -- ultimately what are the that ride on the platforms. so that's why it's important to also look atwhat the internet service providers are doing when we look at privacy because actually they have arguably far more data thany one of these other companies do. >> i don't see any legal mechanism for them saying you have to break >> so katherine s there a legal mechanism where they can breakh up companies? >> meeting the legal standard is tough because you have tofi the relevant market.

you have to find that tlyre is monopower and there's abuse and monopoly power or they could change the laws and look at whether or not a shift ithe law is more important -- is more appropriate for the shift in technasogy. >> andou pointed out that monopoly standard is very high. thank you. professor katherine sandoval and thank you both. >> thank you. now to education., today practically nyonen hop online to get help mastering an a academic subject and this is one of the pioneers. it uses technology to make are quality education available to anyone, everywhere. each month 18 million people t he site to take free 40 courses in languages on subjects ranging from algebra to world history. last june they included free test help for the law school entrance exam and joining me now is the ceo and founder of cannes

academy. >> good to be here. >> first, i would like to ask you about the nationwide college cheating stand scandal. because a coach was the first to be sentenced, he avoided prison time. he was ordered to spend six months in home confinement and that was far lighr than the 13 months that the prosecutors had sought. what do you make of the whole scandal? >>well, it's unfortunate, but in some ways i have to look at the silver linicl of the dark d. it does put a light on how much inequity there's been around the proce and how strange a press it's been. and so the scandal has a lot of extreme behavior that i think all are shocked to know it was going on. but i think there's a lot of other area in the gray area where people hire consultants to help their kids write esss. at the end of the day, the children should be themselves and should repsent themselves authentically in order for it to

really be >> but it also ignited a national conversation about the s.a.t. test anshwhether we ld have it at all. because there are some -- you know, inequities baked into that whole process. the cannes academy offers a prep course. what do you think about it? >> my view on testing i there's nothing inherently good or evil about a test. it's a matt of howt is used. if someone uses an s.a.t. score to be the defining number of who they are, then that is a very bad use of an s.a.t. but if it's used as a dimension of -- you look at wholistically, the student grades, extracurricular, essays they write it could be interesting for folks to look at and the value it provides to colleges- i'm not an admissions officer and i talk but kids go to high schools around the world and they might -- that's aou rig place so if they have a high gp i can knowhat it means.

for other places i don't know how hard it is to achieve the things so things li s.a.t. give a signal -- not a perfect signal. no assessment -- in fact no dimension, none of the things are perfect but in aggregate they could help indicate what a ent -- how ready they might be. >> all right. let's talk more specifical about the academy because you have more than 100 million uge worldwide and that's an astonishing number. congratulations on that. lots of companies offer online tools and where do you fit into that? >> well, we started off as a nonprofit because there's a lot of things that for profits can do well. but there's certain parts of our life where there's market failure and education is one of them. where the buyers, the beneficiaries, all different peopce. there areain values that we have, hey, if someone wants to learn something there should be no friction for them to do it. they shouldn't have to get out the credit card. >> be more democratic, available to everyone?

>> we ma that a hundred years ago by introducing free pass public education. can we empower anyone and say it's something like s.a.t. playingto level the field and the law schooled a administrations test. just your core workrom pre-k up to college, one, for people to learn, to have access and then prove what they know to the worl t i see that core role. that's why you see so many users coming to it. >> what do you see as the biggest problems in education in the way it's taught today? >> we are trying to tackle two head on. ll, there are more, but there are social and wealth issues but one big issue is access. even in the united states, the majity of minority majority schools, they don't offer things that we would take for granted for your ory children, li an

algebra ii class or biology class. and even in areas there's not someone who can teach a proper algebra class. so youisave the accesse. not just access to something that's called class x, but is a world class level. then the other is traditional schools have been built on a fixed pe model. this is a be made to practically educate most folks but as you get moved into the model, even though gaps are identified which then build on top of the gaps and eventually kids hit walls. 70% of kids who go to community college in america have to take remedial math. which is a euphemism or seventh grade math. >> so you call it the swiss cheese model. there are all the lit and a personal passion of you is to try to build a customized learni model. you have a new partnership now with the northwest evaluation association. tell us what you hope to accomplish through tthat. newa is not a household name for a lot of people

watching this. but if they talked to their school or the kids, they're probably taking this assessment. 25% of all kids in grades through 8 take this three times a year. u's called an interim assessment to juserstand where they are and how much they're growing relative to their peers. what we saw in our s.a.t. world now that the p sat which is taken by the kids in america it's a practice f entry into the cannes academy. so the other assessmentap growth assessment now when the students take that in the past the test is like, okay, you grew by this much or you didn't, what do you dow with that? so teachers have asked us, can we have an actionable path based on this? what we have launched is as soon as they take that test the next day the teachersre able to give personalized learning planning on cannesacademy. call it the map accelerator and then the principal, the district and the teachers can understand how that work is driving growth on the map. >> and i want to also ask you

about charter schoolscause there's a lot of push back against charter schools for not only public schoolteachers but from politicians. like governor gavin newsom, he wants them more accountable. is there a role for charter schools here? >> i think there's a role for anyone helping the stisents whichmoving the dial. >> how do you think they're doing right now? >> i think charter schools are almost l ae other -- i'm not an expert at charter schools but my view is i have seen traditional public schools that are doing amazing things. actually think the majority of them -- sometimes the lens goes on some of the places they're struggling but the majority of ghools are do really good work. the same thing is the charter. there are some charters doing some excellent work and there are some like yeah -- so i n any industry in an space i always like more transparency and accountabilityd that's a thing. i don't think there is anything

par positive about charters in general. there are specific cases in either case. >> then 20 seconds if you can, the current generation of young people, they grow up with mobile phones, faceboth and do you nk their attention spans are horter? how do you addrethat? >> that's true but i think their expectations are now dif and the good thing is we can now give things to tho in a -- but there are research studies we have only a ten minute attention span. i don't want to blame the millennials. >> that's the challeghe. all rit, founder of the cannes academy, so good to have you here. >rning now to health. hope lab is a san francisco based nonprofit that's using technology and scientific resech to improve the lives of teens and young ulad. one of their creations is the computer generated chat program tostress and anxiety experienced by young cancer survivors. it was created more than a decade ago that's helped tse with cancer stick to their

treatment plans and they're working on an app to tackle loneliness among college students, two-thirds who reported feelthg lonely in past year. joining me now is the reseatch directorhope lab, danielle ramo. >> thank you. to be here. >> well, hope lab has an interesting model where it tackles health challenges facing teens a young adults, whether it's loneliness or recoring from cancer. can you walk us through that? >> sure. it helps people with a whole host of mental and physical problems but we don't know how to transte that to the digital environment. so at hope lab w pair behavioral science and human centered design to hlp change eir lives and feel meaningful and engaging. specifically to gen-z today.

>> why is it promoting on the young children, and not the other issues like bullying and weobesity? >>, we started off as a mission to support young people who had a key problem with sticking to chemotherapy, medication. it's really tough tyke a pill that has extreme side effects every single day. that's what's needed to undergo thchemotherapy. e was a real need there to support something that wasa ecting deeply the lives of young people. now, we're flycused more broa on mental health as well as other physical health conditions that are really undersupported by other apps in the market. mental health is unprecedentedly problematic among young people compared to older other generations of young people. >> it is such a big isd one of the groups hope lab has been working with since theea launchy 20 years ago is the cancer survivors, you have talked about that.

and youratest work involves a computerenerated chat program and how does that work? >> well, we generated viv abot ith the idea that there's a particular risky time for teens who have undergone cancer treatment. as they come back into the world after the eatment. they're at risk for depression, anxiety. mien suicide. because c back to the theynity is not as easy as would hope or they might expect. so viv abot delivers positiveol psygy skills things like expressing gratitude, mindfulness. looking at the positive side of situations. all delivered through facebook messenger in bot format. a text program. we work with teen canceriv sus to put content in there that would be meaningful to the population we aim to serve and we have ed data collection on a randomized clinical trial thatws s that engaging with viv abot is supporting anxiety reduction among young people after cancer

treatment. >> how do you get a chatbot to sound like a teen or something anthat young people wouldto engage with? >> we went directly to the young cancer survivors themselves. our model at hope lab is to cocreate a theroducts with the young people we aim to serve so we invited those who had cancer to come to the office, spend a day with us, recording video, sharing their lived ndexperience. reading and sourcing content for how they talk about cancer. how they talk about comingack into the world. how they talk about anxiety and depression and all of that directly lives within the bot. >> you know, with all this work that you do and then especially a lot of work you do withn generat z, the young adults who were born between the mid 90s and early 2000s what are the t people have? t with. >> i work at the intersection of digital and emental health and there are some real problems with experiences of mental

health among gen-z today. it is higher than in previous generations and a misconception that social media is entirely to blame f that. we conducted a national survey at hope lab last year with over 1,400 younadults where we undse of cou that social media is quite widely used almost entirely ubiquitous among gen-z but you can address thems probike depression and anxiety directly using technology. so wouldn't say it's necessarily only the cause of the problem but also really can be part of the solution. >> on the one hand, you're seeingn increase, right, in some of the anxiety and emotional problems that they're experiencing but you're saying that social media isn't entirely to blame. so then what is the cause of this increase in what they're feeling? >> i wish i could give you a direct simple answer to that. i spend my career studying things like that. there's no doubt that

information that is negative and that can be assocested with deon and suicidality, things like bullyi is perpetuated over social media. but i wouldn't say it's clearly a cause that we know. there re certainly in some ways people are moraware of mental health problems. parents are more aware of autism and adhd. health the menta problems that we have seen before are quite similar than they were in the past. depression, utanxiety. awareness is one thing and we're focused on trying to make a real clear impact. >> what are your current rojects -- one of your current projects is building an app to help first year college studente ome loneliness. you would think that college offers lots of opportunities to have social interaction. you can pledge for fraternities, sororities, dorm life. why do you think they're feeling so lonely? nt> actually, college stu are also unecedentedly lonely in the united states today and in the past two weeks a third oe

col students say they felt very lonely. two-thirds say they felt very lonely in the past year. and we think it might be in part because theyave realistic expectations of what the college experience will be like. they think they'll come, meetes the friends of their life and everything they have heard about college that will happes . so our applping people to develop the skills to actually meet their social goals when college isn't necessarily the ha experience they expected once they get there. >> so then what skills or exercises do yco encourage ege students to engage in to help them ease the loneliness? >> we have created a set of social challenges and that is going out into the world and trying to support making social connections. something -- things like dare to leave your dare room door open for a week or walk down the campus, look five people in the eye and say hello. but we also have the internal piece, that part that makes it easier for them to process if

things don't go as gll. so ask them things like what would you tell a friend if they tried something and it didn't work out? >> thank you so much for being here. >> thank you. my pleasure. and that is our show for tonight. but before we go, we'd like to belovede passing of a friend and colleague linda keyny. she worked here for more than 40 years in muiple roles including as a assistant director on our show. and other productions. she was also the chair of the national emmy awards committ and had served as president of theci san frao northern california chapter of the national academy of television arts and sciences. we will forever miss her generosity, her warmnd remarkable dedication to her craft. fa

robertout over foreign intelligence. i'm robert costa. welcome to "washington week." tensions betwe the united states and i ran, followingn explosionswo oil tankers. >> i ran should meet displomesi not with terro and extortion. robert: backtrack. president trump now says he would alert the f.b.i. if a we political r offered him political dirt, one day after he scoffed at the idea. while pelosi holds the line on impeachment. >> you have to handle it with great care. robert: we cover it all next. ♪ announcer: