captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: tea party favorite ted cruz trounced his establishment opponent in the texas senate runoff, clinching the republican nomination. good evening. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. on the "newshour" tonight, we assess what the upset means for the party in the lone star state and beyond. >> ifill: then, jeffrey brown examines the pressures on the federal reserve to jumpstart the still faltering economy. >> woodruff: we look at a new pew research study showing a spike in neighborhoods segregated by income. >> ifill: from chicago, elizabeth brackett reports on the city's struggle to combat a sharp increase in homicides. >> on june 24, a 13-year-old was gunned down on this block. his was the 21st death since january 1.

>> woodruff: margaret warner updates health care reform law, as the new benefits for women kick in today. >> ifill: and we remember the prolific and provocative man of letters author gore vidal. >> i would apologize if it hurts your feelings, of course i would. >> no, it hurts my sense of intellectual pollution >> well, i must say, as an expert you should know about it. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years.

bnsf, the engine that connects us. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... 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: the tea party had a new champion today and texas republicans had their nominee for the u.s. senate. the results in tuesday's runoff sent a shock wave through republican ranks nationwide. >> when we started, they said

this was impossible. we were at 2% in the polls. >> woodruff: but last night, former texas solicitor general ted cruz captured the republican nomination for a u.s. senate seat. >> and they said i couldn't do it. and you know what? they were right. i couldn't do it, but you could. ( cheers ) >> woodruff: cruz trounced texas' lieutenant governor of nine years, david dewhurst, by 13 points. he did it with the backing of such tea party favorites as sarah palin and rick santorum, and with a fiery brand of conservative populism. >> tonight is a victory for the grassroots... ( long cheer ) it is a testament to republican women, to tea party leaders and to grassroots conservatives. ( cheers ) >> woodruff: dewhurst had been the republican establishment favorite with the backing of

texas governor rick perry and other party leaders. he finished first in the may primary, but failed to avoid a runoff, and then faded badly. >> i just got off the phone with ted cruz and i offered him my congratulations and his supporters on a hard-fought victory and my support. >> woodruff: the 41-year-old cruz is making his first bid for elected office. he's a one-time ivy league debating champion, whose father left cuba during the castro revolution. now, the son has scored the latest in a string of tea party triumphs in u.s. senate primaries this year. in indiana, longtime senator richard lugar lost to tea party favorite richard mourdock in may's republican primary. and in nebraska, deb ficsher beat the state's attorney general for the republican senate nomination there. they've become major factors in a year when senate races in at least eight states are considered tossups and

republicans are bidding to win control of the senate. in texas, cruz is favored to win in november, and succeed retiring republican senator kay bailey hutchison. the lone star state has not sent a democrat to the senate since 1988. so, how did ted cruz do it? and what does his win mean for the tea party, the g.o.p. and the overall senate landscape this fall? we turn to ross ramsey of the "texas tribune" and nathan gonzales of the rothenberg political report. he is also a contributor to "roll call." thank you

he had strong grass roots support >> woodruff: when you say small electorate, how samll? >> we have 18 million adults >> woodruff: what did voters see in cruz >> they were trying to devote him into forums and debates and that sort of thing. i guess he got the grassroots

people stirred up with those. he consequenced them dewhurst wasn't listening to them and he was ignoring them by going to the debates. by the time they got to the runoff, it was too late. the public was already there and the populist thing had already taken off. >> how much difference in their positions on the issues, how much distance between these two men? >> there wasn't a lot. it gets analyzed as the tea party race. if it was a straight tea party race you would expect issues differences. i was one of the questions and i asked how senator cruz would be different from dewtursst. if it was the classic tea party race we have seen before in texas, he would take the other side. he stuck with david dewtursst in this thing. >> so nathan gonzalez from the prospective of someone looking

at races across the country, how does this win in texas mean to you. >> it's establishment versus anti-establishment which is what we're seeing in texas. what we're seeing in texas is a public primary electorate that doesn't want smaller government or good government. they want no government. so in the past we have seen these politicians who thrive on experience, longest, statesmanship, those have gone from a valued asset to a liability, and that's something that david dewhurst wouldn't overcome. >> so being lt. governor for nine years, whatever other experience he had worked against him. >> right. he couldn't talk about good things he may have done to reform government or within government because these primary voters, they don't want government involved in their life at all. >> so when folks look at this and they ask, what does this say about the tea party, how do you answer that. >> i think this is a tea party

victory and i think this is different from smaller scale like when they defeated paul bennett, this is a large state, very expensive and they got their preferred candidate but it's not just a tea party conservative ideological. it is this anti-establishment and it all came together for ted cruz. >> ross ramsey does that sound like what you're hearing there and people wanting small government and no government, what were you hearing about that from the voters. well, texas is in a place where the republican party is like a one party state and the two parties are in the republican party. and the establishment sort of the organization al candidates have had had hard time but the tea party candidates were on both sides. some candidates lost, some won. but in any case where you could identify an establishment character and nonestablishment character the nonestablishment character one.

i think this small electorate and the summer election and a candidate who kind of caught their imaginations, they just ran with it. >> and ross ramsy, what does had cruz say he wants to do. >> it's not all complete del like the tea party was in the beginning but it's more of we want the government limited, we we want to defend our liberties, we're against obamacare and he and dewhurst were saving the same thing. he was running against washington and all of that but did it more effectively. >> if ted cruz were to one, as we reported, odds are he is favored in the state of texas, how did that change the makeup of the senate? >> i think we have to see what kind of senator ted cruz wants to be. he is 41 years old. he will be a senator to the

second largest state in the union and has an opportunity to be a major player within the republican caucus. it look like through his rhetoric and the county campaign he ising if to align with someone like demint or mike lee of utah who are concerned with a ideological impurity and if he chooses that, it will embolden that section of the caucus. going ford, if runs were to gain the senate majority, i think that governing would be difficult for republicans because you have this faction that is going to be against what some of the more moderate or main freedom republicans will be for. >> so are you talking about government even more divided than it is today? >> it's like what ross was saying, that there are divisions within the republican party in washington as well as texas, that republicans may have senate majority in 2013 bust it's going to be hard to get major

legislative passed because it will be tough to decide what needs to be done going forward. >> it's tough to keep an eye on on. we will do that. nathan and ross ramsy, thank you both. >> thank you. still to >> ifill: still to come on the "newshour": the federal reserve and the weakening economy; the rich living alongside the rich; the murder rate in chicago; new health care benefits for women and remembering a keen observer of the american scene. but first, with the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: the u.s. house voted late today to extend all of the bush-era tax cuts, again, for one year. democrats objected, but majority republicans argued that allowing any taxes to increase would hit the country at a moment of economic weakness. at a briefing, speaker john boehner noted that president obama and democrats supported extending all of the cuts back in 2010. >> the president said two years ago that raising taxes in a weak economy was the wrong thing to do. 119 democrats voted with us to

extend all of the current rates. there's no reason that we shouldn't be doing the same thing again. >> this time the >> sreenivasan: this time, the president has endorsed the bill that senate democrats passed. it extends the tax cuts for all but the wealthiest income brackets. campaigning in ohio today, mr. obama said again it's about rebuilding the economy and the middle class. >> we will not get there in we adopt these ideas that somehow spending more tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires that don't need them and aren't even asking for them is going to improve the economy. we tried >> sreenivasan: so far, there is no sign that the republican or democratic versions of tax cut extensions can clear congress. if neither does, taxes will go up across the board on january first. for the first time, the u.s. postal service has defaulted on a financial obligation. the agency failed today to pay $5.5 billion for future retiree heath benefits. the default won't affect mail

service, and current retirees will still receive health benefits. the postal service is running huge losses as mail volume drops, and reform efforts are stalled in congress. u.s. auto sales surged in july, as japanese car makers scored huge gains. honda sales were up 45 percent, and toyota ran 26% ahead of its pace a year ago, after the japanese earthquake and tsunami. chrysler also had a double-digit increase in july, but general motors and ford saw single-digit losses. despite the auto industry's performance, u.s. manufacturing activity was down in july, for the second month in a row. that news did little to help the mood on wall street. and, investors were also disappointed in the latest outlook from the federal reserve. the dow jones industrial average lost 32 points to close at 12,976. the nasdaq fell 19 points to close at 2,920. evidence of a new atrocity in syria emerged today. this time, apparently, by rebel fighters. it came amid the battle for control of aleppo, the country's commercial hub.

we have a report narrated by inigo gilmore of "independent television news." a warning: some of the images may be disturbing. >> reporter: with the fighting growing ever more ferocious, so too disturbing signs that atrocities are being committed by both sides in aleppo. among this group of captured men-- allegedly assad loyalists --a bloodied man appears bewildered and terrified. rebel fighters angrily accuse the local man of doing assad's dirty work, including killing many of their comrades. in this video which we cannot verify, the men are led outside. the men are lined up against a wall by fighters apparently from the free syrian army. amid angry denunciations, some of the fighters step forward eager it seems to take their revenge. what happens next is disturbing, as the men kneel before the fighters suddenly there's an explosion of gunfire.

we can't show the pictures but the video showed the men dead, apparently executed. the video showing the killing of unarmed prisoners has caused a storm with the rebels now being accused of committing the sort of atrocities they've routinely condemned assad's regime for. >> ( inaudible ) is wrong but finally they are killed because happening against the background of 18 months of absolutely relentless daily very serious human rights abuses being committed by the syrian regime and through it's forces including millish aprils, with the international community effectively standing by and watching. >> there's increasingly a wall where both sides are prepared to expect no rules and these horrific pictures of an aprocess tee committed by rebels can only under mine their claims to be

victims of a brute al >> sreenivasan: in a written message today, syrian president bashar al-assad urged the military to step up its efforts. assad has not been seen since a july 18 bombing in damascus that killed four of his top aides. this was the fifth day of competition at the summer olympics in london and we have some of the major results. spoiler alert: if you don't want to know the results just yet, tune out for a moment. in swimming, american nathan adrian won the 100 meter freestyle race by just a single one-hundredth of a second. and the u.s. women captured the gold medal in the 4x200 meter freestyle relay. meanwhile, eight badminton players were disqualified. the world badminton federation ruled that the eight women-- from china, south korea, and indonesia-- intentionally tried to lose matches to get weaker opponents in a later round. spokesman mark adams addressed the issue for the international olympic committee. >> a very clear message has been sent to other athletes in other sports, that we expect sporting behavior and we expect proper competition. that's what people pay for.

that's what the spectators want. that's what everybody wants, and i think this decision will go a long way to making sure that happens. >> sreenivasan: the disqualified chinese women are the reigning world champions in badminton. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: we turn to two different economic stories. first, the federal reserve says the economy slowed down in the first half of the year, but stops short of taking new action. jeffrey brown picks up that story. >> brown: how bad? and what to do? as pressure in some quarters has grown on the federal reserve to act, the fed today gave its latest answers. jon hilsenrath, chief economic correspondent for the "wall street journal," tells us more. john, first, another gloomy portrait of the state of the economy, right? what is the fed seeing? >> the fed is seeing an economy that slowed down in the first half of the year which we all knew about but what is important is what the fed is signaling which is that it's response running out and that it's

preparing to take new actions to bolster growth if it doesn't see a pick up soon. that use pretty blunt language, blunt as for as signal bankers go to show they will take new steps to try to accelerate the economy is bring down unemployment if they don't see some improvement fairly gloon well, blunt as in central bankers, that language there was fed speak that you could interpret for us. they said it will provide additional accommodation as needed. that's great fed speak. what does that mean? >> what is important there is that they said they will provide. in the past they used more wishy washy terms like they're prepared to act and more conditional statements. by saying they will provide, i mean there was some conditionality there but they were signaling to the public very clearly that they're moving towards action. they also used the term, again this is central banker speak. they use the term "closely

monitor" which kind of suggests they're on the edge of their seat. they have used that phrase in the past when they were moving towards action and they took it out of their record books today and put it back in their statement. it had not been in there for a while. you know, i think where they're going with all of this is a new program to go out and buy bonds, mortgage back securities potentially in september. it's going to be very controversial thing because if it happens and it look like it will, it's going to happen in the heat of a political election and republicans and democrats have very different opinions about whether the fed should do anything. >> well that's what i wanted to get to. i mean a lot of talk about what ammunition does the fed still have? first you're suggesting that's more of what we called the quantitative easing. that's the kind of action you're talking about? >> yes. so what happens here is the fed prints money it has the capacity to print money. it uses the money to go out and buy mortgage backed securities from investors in the private

sector. the hope is that when they buy these mortgage backed securities they're going to drive up the price of the securities and try down the interest rate. so mortgage rates right now on a 30 year conventional mortgage are about 3 and 3/4 percent the fed hopes to get it down to 3.5 or lower and hope it could spur more refinancing to help households that haven't been able to refinance yet and get some people often the fence to go could you tell and buy new homes. they seize a housing sector that is actually improving a little bit so maybe they think if they below had a little extra wind in that sail it will get the economy going. >> but this comes amidst a political campaign to pressures on the fed from both sides really to act or not to act. >> and we saw lawmakers today putting out their competing statements. basically the democrats are pushing bernanke to move.

republicans are urging him to be cautious. each set has its own agenda. in some way it's a favor for bernanke because he knows nose matter what hing to to do he will be criticized by one side or the other. he is also an country who only has 18 months maybe left in his own term as fed chairman. his terms ends january 2014. at the end of the day i think he is more worried about what the history books are going to say and he's going to go out having tried to make the best decisions before he is done. and i think he is basically sent the signal today that he is going to do what he needs to do regardless of the election. >> john? >> but it's not going to be complete pretty for him completely. >> account i wanted to ask you quickly before i let you go about the other strange event of the day on the market, the new york stock exchange called irregular trading this morning that sent the markets into real volatility. do we know what happened?

>> well it look like there was had a software glitch among brokerage firm called knight trading which caused trading to happen based on -- when no orders were placed for actual trades. it looks like there was a software glitch that caused unusuallynist and some of these trades will have to be unwound. i think the big story here -- this is happening after the unusually activity with the facebook ipo and what was known as the flash crash a couple years ago where the market just kind of collapsed inspickably. the problem here is that this undermines the public's confidence that the stock market is behaving in a way that people can count on ask you know, it undermines people's willingness to go into equities which holds down the value of stocks and makes capital more expensive basically. >> more signs of vulnerability

on the stock market. john hillsonwrath of "the wall street journal." thank you very much. >> sure thing. now >> ifill: now to our second economic story, a new report showing how cities have become increasingly segregated not by race, but by income. the pew research center found that the percentage of higher- income households living in wealthier neighborhoods doubled in the last three decades from 9% to 18%. that's in 27 of the 30 largest metropolitan areas. at the same time, a greater percentage of lower-income americans live in poorer neighborhoods. census data show that number jumped from 23% to 28%. paul taylor is the executive vice president of the center and a co-author of the report. welcome back, paul. >> thanks. >> let's start with definitions. what do you mean when you say economic segregation? >> for the purpose of this analysis, we divided all house olds in the country into three groups, lower, middle and upper. we define the lower group has

having less than 2/3 of the medium and the upper group has having dribbled doubled the median. in real dollars that works out to $34,000. if you have less you're in the lower group. $134,000. more than that upper group. in between, you're in the middle what happened is that the middle has shrunk. there are fewer people in the middle segment than there used to be. that's a large reason we see nor norfolk segregation. we nose that from falling census data over decades now and the question is, because there were fewer people in the middle has it affect med where we live and whom we live and what our neighborhoods looks like and the answer is yes. >> the middle has shrunk or disappeared or is shrinking. >> no, it has not disappeared. just smaller. >> are those people going up or dismown. >> a little bit of both. there's actually more movement

up than down, at least when we you dot rates the way we did. and increasing liz there's not just a smaller middle but an increasing tendency of people at the upper end to live among themselves and the lower end to live among themselves. >> is it possible there's any good in this and the middle shrank but people went up and there are already there were therefore no rich people. >> no, the income, there's not had a lot of good news. i would say there is some. first, despite this income segregation, the vast majority of people still live in either mixed or middle income. just not as many as before. it used to be 85% of the criticize lived in a middle class neighborhood or economically mixed neighborhood. that is now down to 75%. but the other good news is what you noted at the begin, even has income has increased, racial

segregation which is hour longest standing cleavage in terms of where we live and other dive mentions in our society, racial segregation has come down pretty significantly over the last several decades. we have to think of the term selling greggation differently going forward. so where does this happen? where does this play out the most? >> while it has happened all across the country there are pretty stark differences by metro areas and by regions. the three cities that have seen by far the greatest growth in income segregation are all in texas. hues, dallas

you have some retirees you have low end low skill to mow lawn service jobs >> ifill: we are redifing migration >> it's not just a black white country we have hispanics

he focused on 5 % are drifting away it is still the case we are mixed than before e pluribus unmum e pluribus unmum how do we make it one it raises a question

>> ifill: income inequality >> it's people of the same partisanship, and ibcreasingly living among ourselves, and that has delivered us a congress that is more polarized than at any time in modern history, and you know from the public opinion surveys, the public is not particularly thrilled with what that kind of congress is doing. >> i like that line, paul, from one thing to the other. everything affects t. >> paul taylor from the peace center. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> on our website, you can use

an interactive map to see the rise of economic segregation in 10 u.s. cities. >> woodruff: next, a soaring homicide rate in chicago prompts alarm, mourning and changes. it's been a bloody year in the city: nearly 300 people have been killed in the first seven months of the year. that's 31% higher than it was a year ago. residents are angry. special correspondent elizabeth brackett of wttw reports on how police are changing their approach in a hard-hit district. >> today, as always, we're going to concentrate on our violence zones. >> reporter: comm lynette helm gives the afternoon shift their orders before they head out to their beats. officers once in specialized units and desk jobs now all are being moved to the street. it's part of a new strategy to combat violence that deputy chief eddie johnson says is working. >> these guys are assigned to the district. they get to know the community people, they get to know the gang members. there's difference between a 16-

year-old kid going out to play basketball and a 16-year-old kid going gangbanging. >> reporter: some chicago alderman think the old strategy of deploying specialized rapid response units to saturate an area once violence broke out was more effective. >> from the community stand point, that worked. we would like to see that back because we knew that's something >> reporter: but chicago police superintendent garry mccarthy says the saturation strategy brought only short term results. >> the principle of saturation is like putting a band aid on a gun shot wound. you're not repairing anything by doing it. >> reporter: since this new method has been tried, most crime statistics are down.

but the murder rate has soared. in the third police district it is up 91% over last year. >> it's like a war zone. and it's not just in one spot. the shooting can be anywhere. >> reporter: the third district encompasses gritty street corners, vacant land, and boarded up buildings. but it also has quiet tree lined streets. michelle obama's childhood home is in the 3rd district. police say 75 to 80% of the murders and shooting here are gang related. >> one of things we did early on was conduct a gang audit in all 23 districts in city. that information is given to

district commander. one of things we focused on it is difficult to stop first shooting but we focus on subsequent shootings. one shootings can result in five or six additional shootings. >> reporter: when officers barbara jenkins and ameen mustfa are on patrol, they have all the information from the gang audit at their finger tips. the audit lists information on more 100,000 gang members, tracing their affiliations, listing past arrests. all the material is cross referenced so entering one name brings forth a wealth of material. that way, when trouble starts, police can figure who's involved and what will happen next. >> the gang audit has been an extremely important tool for field officers before we didn't have portable data terminals, now officer can put a name in computer and come up with a gang members name and come up with associates that can help them with their crime fighting. >> reporter: the homicide rate slowed slightly in the

month of june. but on june 24, a 13-year-old was gunned down on this block. his was the 21st death since january 1. the 13-year-old's murder is under investigation with no suspects in custody. after that killing, and a big spike in the number of shootings, commander helms again adjusted the crime fighting strategy. >> what we did was we identified violence zones in our district where we put officers in our area to do these missions. but we also did more contact with the community. we had the officers doing foot patrols. we did a whole lot of holistic approaches, we got our churches involved. >> reporter: there are 175 churches in the 3rd police district ranging from huge institutions to small storefronts and many have responded to the crisis of violence. charles matthews takes his churches message to the streets.

>> a positive model so things won't happen like the 13-year- old who got killed over here. >> reporter: matthews tells the kids about several summer programs offered by the church and urges them to give the programs a try. he became a parent volunteer for the church after getting fed up with the neighborhood violence. >> i got involved because i'm hurting for the community. >> reporter: the parkway gardens christian church kept its safe haven program running in the summer even though it lost its funding from the chicago public schools. it's a second job for director jennifer maddox. a chicago police officer, maddox is assigned to the third district. >> it's frustrating to see the kids out here involved in violence, and they're getting shot at running from the violence. that's why it's so important for them to have some activities to do so they won't be hanging on the corner. >> reporter: pastor edward morris keeps a watchful eye on a

group of older boys as they play a hot game of basketball. >> for every kid we can get off the street, teenagers particularly african american males, if they can have a place like this so they have a safe place to come during the time of the shootings we feel were making a dent in it. while it may appear to be a band aid if there's just one life saved, one making a difference. >> reporter: a safe haven is important for kids like 16-year- old antwan barner, a program counselor. >> it's unsafe. i'm actually afraid to walk out my front door. >> have gangs ever tried to recruit you? >> no, they know i'm not that type of person so they never try. >> reporter: also in the district is the gary comer youth center and charter school whose summer programs include a gardening class.

the center serves more than 1,200 kids each year and pours $16 million into third district programs. executive director greg mooney is frustrated by the violence. >> of course it's frustrating, i don't know anybody who isn't frustrated by the violence in chicago. but really without places like gary comer youth center and gary comer college prep our young pie are more vulnerable to the violence that's around them. >> reporter: and despite the opportunities comer college prep students like dominique jones are still strongly impacted by the neighborhood violence. >> i'm afraid of dying at a young age, not being able to fulfill my dreams. >> reporter: those fighting against the violence in the third district all agree on one point. the effort must involve the entire community. >> the police cant do it alone. there's no way were gong to

arrest our way out of this situation. we absolutely need community input to make it happen. >> reporter: the community, says reverend morris, is ready to respond. >> these are our neighborhoods. it doesn't belong to the gang bangers and the drug dealers and the drug pushers it belongs to us, and i believe with the efforts so many of the churches and community organizations are making, we're going to take it back. we just can't stop. >> reporter: the third district has just gotten some help in battling the high homicide rate. the city is bringing in 20 members of operation ceasefire a group that works to cool down street violence.

>> ifill: next, an update on new benefits taking effect today under the federal health reform law. margaret warner has the story. >> warner: two new provisions in the affordable care act kicked in today. new or renewing health insurance plans must cover eight preventive services to women at no of-pocket cost, including annual ob-gyn exams, birth control, breast-feeding counseling and screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and h.i.v. and today was the deadline for insurance companies to distribute some $1.1 billion in rebates to some individuals and companies. the rebates had to be paid by insurers who didn't spend at least 80% of the premiums they'd charged on medical care. to walk us through this is julie rovner of n.p.r. >> julie, welcome back. >> nice to >> first on the womens

services. all of these services must be provided to any woman with health insurance will pay nothing. >> she'll pay in the premiums. she'll pay in the premiums. the money will be included in the premium that is men and women pay, but women will not have to pay a deductible or a co-pay at the time much the services. people talk about it being free. it's just no upfront cost. and it includes birth control. >> and how many women are potentially affected and when will they start to see the changes? >> they will start to see the changes right away when they get new policies or when the policy renews. for some it will be in the fall, for some in january, for some it be could be as long as a career. and the department of public health and human services estimate as many at 47 million people will be affected by the changes. >> so 47 million pay now upfront costs for an obgyn.

>> who pay ?s >> the everybody pays. the costs are diminimus. preventative care isn't that expensive. in the case of birth control, for instance, the mon they gets saved by not saying for women who get pregnantd is vastly less expensive than to pay for a pregnancy. so generally, that's occur considered a cost saver. most preventive care is not particularly expensive. >> what was the objective here to having these services sf,s? >> the trend is to move towards the employer. and trying to make it easier for people to get prevent ifr care by making it -- by making it less of a cost up front,

and indeed, they found when there is less cost up front, people tend to get preventive care more. >> so the contraception, you mentioned it a couple of times. >> despite the partial exemptions that the president and the administration put in for religious institutions this remains very controversial. what's the status? it does remain controversial. there's several lawsuits pending. the status is that churches -- houses of worship themselves are exempt from these rules. religious organizations like hospitals, universities, social service agencies are not exempt, but they've been given an extra year while the administration trying to work out a compromise or the insurance company would have to pay u many have sued, and it's deemed premature. >> there's a third saying i'm a private for profit company but i don't want to offer it, because i don't believe in

that. there's one federal judge in one company in denver that's been stayed for that one company. we're waiting >> now the insurance rebate is a separate development. how many individuals and how many employers have health plans that are going to share in this 1.1 billion. >> they think it's 12.8 million people will have a share in some rebate. this is for companies who failed to meet the riermentd >> 85 septs of every dollar on actual medical care as opposed to administrative costs or profit. >> and so if you're an employer, in it is employer plan, you may not necessarily get a check. >> that's right. but you will have gotten a letter, and the employer has to decide whether to refund it to you in the way of a check

or offer it in the increaseso give you some other way to make a benefit available to you. if you paid in, you'll receive a letter that says we're giving you monly back. >> the impact is it too soon to say, or do you see impact? >> it's a billion dollars coming back to policy holders. so there's been that impact. it's too soon to say if there's any real change of behavior on the part of insurance, but there's a political impact. people who have insurance are seeing that this law is doing something for me in the sense that it's holding insurance feet to the fierp. at least that's the intent. >> and it's before an election. >> that's not an -- >> julie rovner, thank you. >> you're welcome.

>> woodruff: finally tonight, remembering gore vidal. and once again to jeffrey brown for our look back at the noted writer, commentator and prominent persona. >> i would apologize if it hurts your feelings, of course i would. >> no, it hurts my sense of intellectual pollution. >> well, i must say, as an expert you should know about it. >> brown: provocateur-- here going at it with norman mailer on the dick cavett show-- wit, polemicist, celebrity: gore vidal was all those things and more. but first and foremost, he was a writer. author of numberous essays, two memoirs, and some 25 novels-- from historical fiction on the likes of "burr" and "lincoln" to "myra breckenridge", his black comedy about a transexual. an early work, "the city and the pillar", about a young man discovering his homosexuality, caused a scandal when it came out in 1948. in a 2006 interview, vidal had this to say. >> it was a book about the

absolute normality of same- sexuality, as it was sometimes called. remember, i spent all my life not only in boys' schools, but here i am stuck in three years of the army. i knew exactly what went on in the real world. it was walt whitman who said, "no one will ever know what goes on in armies." everybody thought it was the bloodshed and so on. whitman was after different game. i knew what went on in the real world, and i thought, well, nobody would write about it. >> brown: he also wrote for films-- helping script the 1959 epic "ben hur"-- for television and for the theater. his 1960 political drama "the best man" is even now back on broadway in its second revival. >> you are not the ideal candidate for the women, you do know that i suppose? >> well, hmm, what women do you

have in mind? >> the women don't like you trying to be funny all the time. >> ah, sorry. well, abraham lincoln was a bit of a humorist. >> yeah, well women weren't voting in 1860. ( audience laughter ) >> reporter: vidal, in fact, grew up in washington and had politics in his blood. the grandson of thomas pryor gore, a democractic senator from oklahoma. he traveled in the highest circles, in politics and in hollywood. and he had made himself into a most public man of letters and opinions, regularly appearing with johnny carson. famously sparring with william f. buckely in a series of televised debates. >> i should say to that first to correct mr. buckley's spontaneous inaccuracy, you have almost a stalinist desire to revise history. >> it wasn't spontaneous, it was planned. >> ha. your calculated desire. >> reporter: into his later life, in essays and on television he offered barbed commentary on the state of american politics and life, here in 2000.

>> i see the world having been raised in a political family, i know the mixture that people are. harry truman did more harm to the united states than any president in our history and was one of the nicest and most honorable of men. but he replaced the old republic with a national security state, with a cold war, as charles beard the historian said we are now set for perpetual war for perpetual peace and we've had 50 years of that. >> brown: at times, his quips offended, as here on oklahoma city bomber timothy mcveigh. >> he was trying to balance what he considered one terrible act by a government that he disliked, and he had been a highly decorated veteran in the gulf war, and this was sending a message. now, was it the right one? no. >> brown: most of all, vidal the writer lamented the state of the novel in american culture today. >> people have stopped reading novels.

tv and video games have taken the place where novels were once. when i was young, everybody read them. now it seems hardly anybody does. publishers are screaming, but they've contributed a great deal to the collapse of the novel as a popular art form. they publish too many bad books. >> brown: gore vidal died of pneumonia yesterday at his los angeles home. he was 86 years old. this afternoon i spoke with jay parini, himself a novelist, poet and critic who teaches literature at middlebury college. he was a close friend of gore vidal and is the executor of his literary estate. whai. drove the style? >> gore vidal was the last american of letters. at least on a scale of someone

like edmund wilson. gore did it all. gore primarily was -- you hated to hear this, but he was a great essayist. he was a man who perfected the postwar american essay with a unique style and voice of clarity and wit that was energy in the writing. he saw america fresh and pure in a way that no one else has. so i think he was a master of the essay. >> now speaking of energy, there was a personality, the public persona the world came to know. you knew him well. where did that come from? was that who he was? >> gore had this internal engine that drove him. it was always cool and calm and collected. he had a wonderfully clear eyed vision. but he was a passionate man who never stopped reading, writing, thinking. i met him three decades ago when i was living in southern italy. we became very good friends and remained friends for years. i talked to him on the phone

once a week for the last three decades and often traveled with him and stayed with him. he was a man of relentless intelligence, probing wit, a person who never lost interest in the world, ine to the very last minute. he was always reading the news, reading history books. he had hflt at his finger tips. the past was present and accessible. >> and he didn't shy from outrage and polemic, and he didn't shy fromonding. >> gore vidal was a scold. i can see that finger pointing at me. he pointed the his finger at the nation. if he saw a pot hole. he would say there's a pot hole. and he said things in his own fashion. he said famous things like there's really only one political party in america. the party of propertied, and it has two wings, the republicans and the democrats. he once said to me -- i asked

if he had advice. he said never lose an opportunity to have sex or be on television. >> so he was always there with a witty remark. he was a skoal. he was furious at what had become of this country. he was an enlightened intellectual, and believed in the ideals of the american republic as put forward by the founding fathers. he saw nothing but a steady decline from 1778 onward. he was in despair in the last few years. he always talked to me about the way our politics had been so corrupted by the influence of money. >> the private man wasn't so different from the public one? >> there was a private man. in the long hours, i would sit with him over a drink until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning talking. what was revealed was a kind individual. gore was generous. i could call him at any hour

of the day or night with a problem and listen and respond. and he was like this with all of his friends. he was a very kind man who enjoyed a public battle, and so he was feuded with truman capote and william f. buckley and loveed to raise the dust. he just enjoyed it. i would see a grin on his lips, and he would love it to cause trouble. he was a kind man with a very big and generous heart. >> all right. jay parini on the life and work of gore vidal. thanks so much. >> you're very welcomed, jeff. >> brown: we have additional remembrances of gore vidal online, including more with jay parini, and some personal stories from writer gay talese and "newshour" correspondent spencer michels. plus, you can watch a 2006 interview in which vidal reflects on his life and work. that's all on our web site: newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: again, the other major developments of the day:

runoff results from texas set republicans buzzing, after tea party favorite ted cruz easily won a u.s. senate nomination. and the federal reserve said the approved a bill that extend all of the bush tax cuts for another year. why are some world war ii veterans still waiting for recognition? hari sreenevasan has more on our online story. >> sreenivasan: they were filipino soldiers conscripted by president franklin roosevelt. about 4,000 of them-- some now in their '90s-- are seeking compensation for their service. find that story on the rundown. that and more is on our web site: newshour.pbs.org. gwen? >> ifill: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. on thursday, we'll have the latest on the olympic games and the presidential campaign. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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