measures. good evening. i'm jeffrey brown. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, we get the latest on the weekend's elections, and what's at stake across the continent. >> brown: then we turn to the presidential contest here in the u.s., as vice president biden stirs new questions over the politics of same-sex marriage. >> ifill: spencer michaels reports on a trendy gourmet treat of the crunchy, crawly variety. >> these are huge. they're usually super abundant and very good to eat. i can put it in barbecue. >> brown: and margaret warner examines the trial of five 9-11 suspects arraigned in a military courtroom on saturday. that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> this is the at&t network-- a living, breathing intelligence bringing people together to bring new ideas to life. >> look, it's so simple. >> in a year, the bright minds from inside and outside the company come together to work on

an idea. adding to it from the road, improving it in the cloud, all in real time. >> good idea. >> it's the at&t network. providing new ways to work together, so business works better. >> citi turns 200 this year. in that time, there have been some good days and some difficult ones. but through it all, we persevered. supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. so why should our anniversary matter to you? because for 200 years, we've been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement. and the next great idea co >> by nordic naturals.

>> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. 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. >> brown: two more european governments are gone, swept away by a wave of anti-austerity sentiment. the outcome of sunday's elections raised the prospect today of major policy shifts on debt and economic recovery. a beaming francois hollande, the french president-elect waved to reporters this morning from socialist party headquarters in paris. having promised a new direction for france and europe. the man he unseated, president

nicolas sarkozy, had joined the german-led drive to implement fiscal austerity throughout the indebted nations of the european union. but hollande's win directly challenged that effort as he made clear in his victory speech last night. >> finally, austerity can no longer be a fate. you are much more than a people who want change. you already a part of a movement that is rising across all of europe and maybe the world. >> brown: german chancellor angela merkel had taken the unusual step of publicly endorsing sarkozy. she congratulated hollande today. >> i can say that francois hollande will be welcomed by me with open open arms here in germany. we will conduct intensive discussions because cooperation is essential for europe. as we all want success for

europe, this cooperation will begin very quickly. >> brown: to that end, hollande will visit berlin shortly after his may 15 swearing-in. he says he wants changes in a european union treaty that limits national debt to allow for economic stimulus measures, but merckel today maintained her determination to enforce belt tightening. >> we in germany and i personally believe the fiscal pact is not up for negotiation. >> brown: one of the principal targets of that fiscal pact is greece where voters yesterday sent an enraged message against austerity. repudiating the approach of the government of prime minister papandreou. >> the greek people made their choice. i believe it is of great importance to maintain the stable, the confidence and the solidarity to rectify the economy. >> brown: greece has received pail bailouts from the e.u. and the imf with double digit

unemployment tax increases and sweeping spending cuts have brought the country to plit chaos. yesterday greek voters gave no party enough seats in parliament to form a government and carry out the cuts demanded under the bailout deals. conservative leader antonis samaras whose party won the most seats backs the austerity measures but he said today he is unable to form a coalition and the stalemate means greece could face another election next month. election turmoil swept through the greek financial markets today where key stocks fell 7%. correspondent has been watching the situation in athens. >> the message to the conservatives and socialists who lost more than half their popular support relative to two years ago was that they are no longer trusted to run public finances or to save the country from its current predicament. it was also a time for french parties and more extreme parties and therefore people

are looking for more radical solutions than simply borrowing more money in order to solve greece's problems which include making the country more competitive, making the economy more dynamic. >> brown: the upheavals the greece and france with the latest to cross europe. a left-leaning prime minister today was approved, the third change in that position this year in romania. the dutch government fell several weeks ago and since february 2011 spain, italy, portugal, denmark, finland and ireland all have new governments. moreover british prime minister david cameron's conservatives lost local elections on thursday as voters blamed austerity for renewed recession. and even german chancellor merckel's christian democrats lost in the northern state of hol design. >> brown: for a closer look at all this, we turn to stephan richter, publisher and editor-

in-chief of the "globalist," a daily online magazine covering global economics, politics, and culture. elaine sciolino is the paris correspondent for the "new york times" and author of "la seduction: how the french play the game of life." and charles kupchan. he's an expert on the european union as well as us foreign policy at the council on foreign relations. elaine, i wasn't sure how to pronounce the seduction part o f your book but hopefully i got it right. help us first understand what's happened in france. how much of this was a repudiation of sarkozy and how much about austerity? >> well, there were three reasons why sarkozy lost. first he was swept up in this anti-incumbent mood that has overturned so many governments in europe, sort of "kick the bums out." he had come into office promising a rupture, promising change, promising if you work harder you're going to earn more. it obviously didn't happen. so he was a victim of the same ten onnon-that has hit the rest of europe. but the other thing is that

the right has been in power in france for 17 years. and so he suffered because his party had just been seated for so long. but the main reason was nobody liked sarkozy. he never learned how to seduce. he didn't like the french people. he didn't like going out into the country and touching voters. you know, petting cows, shooting the fat with the electorate, with farmers, with workers. he insulted everyone. he also ran the government in a way that he was also very frenetic. people didn't trust him. they voted for the guy who said i'm mr. normal. >> brown: you take what happened in france, you look at what happened in greece. you see what's happening in other countries. the question now is, to what extent this whole austerity

model is now under siege, behind us? where are we? >> it would be nice if you have an election and that fixes it. the aspiration of the people in democracies is a very important thing but no confidence votes in the modern democracy of today in the world of globalization are no longer coming from national parliaments as much as we've seen electoral turnovers but from financial markets. that really limits also what francois hollande can do. he has a new bond issue that he needs to sell coming up very soon. that's the new normal that you either sell it at a good rate or sell it at higher interest which means you have even less money available for social measures to protect the weak and so on. money doesn't grow on trees anymore in europe you have to get it from financial markets, governments are tapped out. to say that we need a growth plan in addition to austerity i think the german government would totally agree with that.

i think it's a misnomer because under the previous chancellor who did as a social democrat very much like hollande, he added labor market reforms. he did it in time. that's why the german economy stands in pretty good shape. they had the wind of the global economy in their back. like the canadians who are in good shape. just because hollande comes in, he can say whatever he wants. he needs to change things surgically in france that still need to be improved. every nation around the world has to improve. the indians do it. the chinese do it. we all have to do it. >> brown: yet, charles kupchan, the voters have spoken in many countries now rejecting austerity. to the extent the bond market speaks, then there are voters. where do you see this whole austerity movement? >> i think hollande has to move more than he suggests. he doesn't have a whole amount of room for maneuver because

he has the germans saying, no, we're going the austerity route. he has the market say bring down the debt, reduce government spending. but you had a shift in the center of gravity in europe toward governments that want more growth. it's not just because you have a center left government in france. it's because you have lots of governments that have fallen. and so my expectation is that hollande is going to have to go to his electorate and say, i'm going to do x, y and z. that will stimulate the economy. that will create jobs. and he really has to walk a tight rope because he can't go so far as to cause the credit markets to devalue french debt because then he'll have a problem with solvency. and he can't go too far with merckel because angela merkel has essentially weded her legitimacy as chancellor to running a tight ship. fiscal responsibility. so what i expect is some work- around. keep the fiscal pact intact

but let's use the financial bailout mechanism or the european investment bank to get some new funding, prime the pump. >> brown: elaine, when hollande has been saying he wants to give a new direction to france and to europe, in fact, is it clear what he means and how much pressure will he be under in france to abide by some of these campaign promises? >> he ran a brilliant campaign because he got away with promising growth and less austerity. he never laid out a concrete, detailed economic plan. except basically to tax the rich. when he said, for example, that he wants to tax anyone who makes more than a million euros a year at a 75% tax rate. well, you know, does this mean that the whole french soccer team moves to monaco and monaco wins the world cup? people are already starting to talk about leaving france the

way they did when francois mitterand was first elected president. this is a guy who is anti-rich. he doesn't own his own apartment. he probably made no more than $100,000 a year in 2010 in income. he has actually said, "i don't like the rich." i has also said that, you know, every country has a soul. the soul of france is equality. he is really dedicated equalizing the wealth base in france. i mean this is quite revolutionary after so many years of rightist rule. and he's got a lot of different things to balance. he doesn't even have his cabinet in yet. we'll have to see whether he goes the route of naming someone like martino bries his prime minister who is very much to the left who talks

about militants and combat, who brought in the 35-hour week. >> brown: okay. >> which has wreaked havoc with the workplace. >> brown: you're saying the bond market is ruling and politics aside? >> i don't care about the bochbd market personally. in the end i care about that we as a society, no matter where we live, we have to make sure that we make our own books balance. we need to finance retirement. we need to provide health care and all these things. we had a 40-year economic model where we always thought the politicians were going to promise us something. we kind of knew that it wouldn't add up. but we said, okay, you're the politicians. you're the leaders. you must know. that's the jig that's up. hollande overpromised. he has a very tight margin of maneuver. because if he goes one way, the financial markets are going to snuff him out in no time and we're going to have a repeat of 1981 and francois mitterand where the rosey life for the french in keeping with

a big turnover away from the conservatives we can understand all that against inequality and so on. a year-and-a-half later he had to completely reverse course. it's not a german thing. it's just fixing france and making sure that france finds its own future. >> brown: and finally, what does the u.s. watch for now? and the implications of this possible new direction? >> well, i think that obama has always wanted on the other side of the atlantic more stimulus and less austerity. he may get that in hollande. but he also has a down side risk. that is that hollande's policies lead either to paralysis because he disagrees with merckel. or you get the french in the bond market. you get a new fiscal crisis. just as obama heads into re-election, that downturn starts washing over here. i think there is the bigger issue at stake. that is where are we in the european project of immigration? and these elections suggest

that europe is in a very fragile and in a very vulnerable state not just economically but the whole question of whether europe is coming together as a union and projects its power in the world.... >> brown: or not. >> ...or not. the u.s. needs that partner. right now it doesn't look like it's going to get it. >> brown: big questions for the future. thank you all three very much. >> ifill: still to come >> reporter: when you pick a restaurant for a special >> ifill: still to come on the newshour, the politics of same- sex marriage; insects on the menu; and 9-11 suspects on trial at guantanamo bay. but first, the other news of the day. here's kwame holman. >> holman: the political shocks in europe spooked world markets for a time, but they mostly recovered as the day wore on. on wall street, stocks swung back and forth. the dow jones industrial average ended with a loss of more than 29 points to close at 13,008. the nasdaq rose one point to close at 2957. there was word today that the c.i.a. disrupted a plot to bomb an airliner around the one-year anniversary of osama bin laden's death.

the associated press reported an al-qaeda operative in yemen planned to explode an "underwear bomb." the report said the c.i.a. seized the device before the suspect had picked a target. adam, what exactly about the c.i.a. unravel here? >> thanks for having me. well, the c.i.a. unraveled a plot that originated with al qaeda in arabian peninsula. a.q.a.p.had intended to stash a bomb in the underwear of a suicide bomber and try to bring down a u.s.-bound plane. >> adam, this all took place in yemen? >> well, the plot did originate in yemen and unfolded, we believe, in the last two weeks. >> adam, you and your colleagues reporting indicates this was an underwear bomb, as you say. but different from the 2009 attempt to bomb the jetliner in-bound to detroit? >> yeah, that's right.

the one used in 2009 malfunctioned most likely from moisture. this was an upgrade on that model and had an improved ignition system. >> explain what you learned about that. would it have gotten past... you talked in your reporting about whether it might have gotten past security check point. >> well, the bomb right now is being taken apart by f.b.i. explosive experts in quantico, virginia. i think they're trying to determine that. i think the u.s. is uncertain whether it would have in fact gotten past u.s. security and how much explosive force the bomb contained and whether it could have brought down a plane. >> adam, you and your colleagues reporting indicates that you had been in discussions with the u.s. government about holding this story. decided to go with it today. the government did not want this story reported. >> well, this is what i can say about why we decided to

publish and why we didn't. last week my colleague and i learned about this plot as it was unfolding. we agreed for national security reasons that we would not publish. once those concerns had passed, we decided today that the public had a right to know that the u.s. had thwarted what we considered to be a very serious plot against aviation. >> do you expect an announcement shortly from the government? >> i think the white house has ready acknowledged that in fact they did thwart a plot and the f.b.i. too has put out a public statement saying they have a bomb in their hands. >> adam goldman of the associated press, thank you very much. >> holman: a c.i.a. drone strike killed a top al-qaeda leader in yemen on sunday. fahd al-quso was linked to the bombing of the u.s.s. "cole" that killed 17 u.s. sailors in 2000. he'd been on the f.b.i.'s most wanted list. hours later, militants in southern yemen killed 22 government soldiers and captured 25.

the key suspect in the 2002 nightclub bombings in bali apologized today in a courtroom in indonesia. umar patek is a leading member of jemaah islamiyah, a network linked to al-qaeda. he told the victims' families he'd been against the bombings from the start. patek allegedly built the bombs that killed more than 200 people at bali. he was arrested last year in pakistan. amid the political upheavals in europe, vladimir putin was sworn in as president of russia today. he has been in power since 2000, first as president and then as prime minister. putin took the oath of office in a brief and lavish ceremony at the kremlin in moscow. he swore to uphold democracy. >> we want to live and we will live in a democratic country where everyone has the freedom and opportunity to apply one's talent, labor and efforts. we want to and we will live in a successful russia that is

respected in the world in a reliable, open, honest and predictable partner. i believe in the force of our common goals and ideals. >> holman: but outside, in the streets of moscow, thousands of opposition protesters lined the route putin's motorcade took to the kremlin. many were arrested. on sunday, tens of thousands took part in a rally against putin. violence broke out, and hundreds were arrested. today, some of those activists were released. >> what happened yesterday was a provocation by the authorities who initiated this arrests and clashes and are now trying to accuse us of it. we know it is not true. they disrupted a legal rally. today i know many people were coming out to the streets against the illegitimate inauguration. i believe we should continue the activity. >> holman: putin's new six-year presidential term will keep him in power until 2018, with the option to run for a fourth term. syrians went to the polls today to vote in parliamentary elections.

for the first time in decades, they cast ballots under a new constitution that allows other political parties to run against the ruling ba'ath party. opposition activists boycotted, charging the vote was a sham. a bombing in eastern afghanistan has killed three nato troops. the announcement brought to 142 the number of coalition deaths this year. meanwhile, afghan president hamid karzai warned a new security deal with the u.s. will be meaningless if civilian deaths continue. he said nato air strikes killed dozens of afghans in recent days. the alliance said it's investigating. a major copyright infringement fight led to a deadlocked jury today in san francisco. oracle wanted up to $1 billion in damages, alleging that google's android phone software uses stolen code. the jury agreed that google infringed on oracle's patents, but it could not agree on whether it was "fair use." that means any damages will be far smaller. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to gwen.

>> ifill: the political culture wars staged a comeback this weekend, this time over whether gay and lesbian couples should be permitted to marry. vice president joe biden touched off a political fire storm sunday when he said he now believes same sex marriages should be protected under law. >> i am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men and women marrying women and heterosexual men and women are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties and quite frankly i don't see much of a distinction beyond that. >> ifill: the statement was a marked shift from what candidate biden said during the 2008 vice presidential debate. >> let's try to avoid nuance, senator. do you support gay marriage? >> no. barack obama nor i support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage. we do not support that.

>> ifill: biden's remarks yesterday went a step farther than president obama has been willing to go. >> as i've said, my feelings about this are constantly evolving. i struggle with this. >> the vice president's office said later yesterday that he did not overstep but fuel was added to the fire today when education secretary arnie duncan was questioned about the topic on ms-nbc. >> do you believe that same sex men and women should be able to get legally married in the united states? >> yes, i do. >> ifill: and housing secretary sean donovan in a magazine last november had already expressed support for gay marriage. white house press secretary jay carney was pressed repeatedly on the issue today. >> the president's position is well known. he's spoken to this. it's gotten a great deal of coverage. i don't have an update to provide you on the president's position. it is what it was. >> ifill: will obama's republican opponent mitt romney has said he would back a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage. he repeated that today in an

interview. >> my view is that marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman. that's the position i've had for some time. i don't intend to make any adjustments at this point. >> ifill: same sex marriage is now allowed in six states and the district of columbia. and the issue is also up for debate in minnesota, washington state, maryland, maine, and tomorrow in north carolina. for more on the state of the same-sex marriage debate, we are joined by brian brown, president of the national organization for marriage, which opposes same sex unions. and richard socarides, an attorney and gay rights advocate who once served in the clinton white house. mr. socarides, how has this debate changed or evolved, to use the president's term, from where to where shall. >> well, we've seen a remarkable shift in public opinion and understanding on this issue. it really is a remarkable shift in the polls over a very short period of time. what we see from vice

president biden and from other members of the cabinet just recently a willingness to articulate that all americans ought to be treated the same. everybody ought to be treated equally. it ought to be about who you love and whether or not you're willing to make a commitment. whether or not you're willing to take on the same responsibilities for your partner. everybody ought to be treated the same in this country. it's fundamental to our understanding of the way our constitution works. >> ifill: brian brown, do you see this evolving in the direction that richard socarides or maybe in the opposite direction? >> i don't think so at all. i mean, if you look at the facts, every state that's been able to vote on this issue, 30 of 30 states-- and states that aren't red states by any stretch of the imagination. you have california. you have maine. in every single state, the people of this country have said they know there is something unique and special about men and women coming together in marriage. i expect that you're going to again see that tomorrow when north carolina votes. we've heard a lot of the talk that richard just said that mehow the people have

changed on this issue. the "new york times" recently went so far as to say they think there's going to be a big upset in north carolina with the people rejecting an amendment to protect marriage. the polls show that that simply is not the case. i'm expecting a big win tomorrow. i wonder how folks are going to attempt to spin that who somehow think that 30 of 30 doesn't equal a pretty... a very, very strong consensus on the american people that marriage is by definition the union of one man and one woman. >> ifill: let moo ask mr. socarides about the politics of this. you mentioned north carolina which is one of the states that is in con tension in the fall. why is it that everybody in the administration or so many people in the administration absent the president seems to be willing to speak out on this. what do you think? >> because i think it's what we stand for as democrats. i think what we stand for as progressive americans. you know, the president is a progressive president. and somehow whose views on civil rights issues have always led the country, always

been in a leadership position. so i think that this is where the trend is. the president has himself said that. i think.... >> ifill: let me interrupt you. if that's where the trend is, why doesn't the president just say he's completed his evolution? >> unfortunately some of his advisors have made a political calculation that this position where easy involving, whether he neither supports it nor is against it, is somehow politically advantageous. between now and if election. but i think there's no question based upon all the things that the president has done to advance the cause of gay and lesbian civil rights that, you know, he believes in equality. you can't have, you know, you have to have fully quality and fully quality means equal rights. >> ifill: brian brown, we just heard richard socarides criticize the administration about not making this full evolution, at least the president. i'm curious whether on the republican side mitt romney last week or his campaign at

least was forced to accept the resignation of an openly gay foreign policy advisor who felt pressure from people on the right as maybe the president feels pressure on the left about his orientation, about his being gay. do you think that maybe republicans are feeling the same kind of pressure coming from the opposite direction in the political sense? >> well, i think that the republican party is very clear, if you look at polling and republican voters, an overwhelming majority believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. i do agree with richard on one thing. it's definitely a political calculation on the part of president obama. to not support same sex marriage right now. if you look at the administration, what it does rather than what it says, refusing to defend the defense of marriage act. opposing the marriage protection amendment in north carolina. posing prop pigs 8 time after time the administration has refused to do anything to protect marriage while at the same time president obama continues to say that he

believes marriage is the union of a man and woman. clearly that's because of the political reality that strong numbers of democrats oppose redefining marriage. in north carolina the number is somewhere around 48% that are going to vote for the marriage protection amendment so it's very bad politically for the administration or for the democratic party to endorse redefining marriage. >> ifill: let me ask mr. socarides. do you think this ought to be a litmus test issue say on the party platform this summer? we've heard some people, some prominent democrats like the mayor of los angeles say it should be. >> well, i don't think it should be a litmus test. i do think that it should be in the party platform because i think the democratic party should stand for full equality. but i think when you compare the two parties and when you compare president obama with mr. romney, there is no doubt where gay and lesbian americans will be voting and where people who care about equal rights for all of our citizens will be voting. i mean, you know, mr. romney would take us very, very far

back. as we saw with mr. g grinal. this was a gentleman who was hired and frozen out because some conservatives objected to his sexual orientation. that's not what we stand for in this country. >> ifill: mr. brown, is this become ago state fight or a federal fight? so many hot button issues have moved from federal fights and constitutional amendments to fights in individual legislatures. >> well, i think it continues to be a state fight. the question is really whether with all these state fights what the u.s. supreme court is going to do. it's important to remember that we have the perry case working its way up the united states supreme court which could be the roe versus wade on marriage. and the fact is that the people of this country time after time have opposed redefining marriage. it's important for the people to continue to protect marriage on the state level, to ensure that the u.s. supreme court doesn't do... make some sort of radical decision imposing same sex marriage on an electorate that doesn't want it. >> ifill: i want to ask you a

final question which is when you look at this issue as it comes back periodically, do you believe, mr. socarides, starting with you, do you believe that this helps or hurts at a time when people are thinking about the economy, thinking about their pocketbooks that it helps or hurts in your case a democratic candidate to get drawn into this debate? >> i think this is a national discussion we are having. it's an important national discussion. people need to be sharing their views and our political leaders need to lead on thisish you a. i think that this issue helps democrats because i think that democrats want to stand for equality and basic protections. i think it will help the president when he takes a clear stand like vice president biden did. >> ifill: prior to the election? >> i hope he does it prior to the election. we're going to support him even if he doesn't and hope that we get him to do it after the election. >> ifill: mr. brown, what you do you think? does it help or hurt to have these discussions at this point? >> i think it helps from point of view to have the discussion

right now. i think it's a basic truth. the people of this country don't oppose redefining marriage because they don't believe in equality. they oppose it because it's wrong. they understand there's something unique and special about men and women coming together in marriage. that's in the best interest of society. i don't think they're doing that from some sort of bad perspective. they're doing it because they think it's in the best interest of the state. the fact of the matter is exposing the reality that the present administration has with its actions undermined marriage it's important for people to see that while at the same time i don't think it's a good idea. i think it's very bad for the democratic party to put same-sex marriage in the platform simply because there are many many democrats who stand with us, that our organization has endorsed, that believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. this should not be a partisan issue. >> ifill: brian brown of the national.... >> many republicans believe in basic fairness for all americans. >> ifill: didn't mean to step on you.

brian brown and richard socarides form he were clinton administration official, thank you both very much. >> thank you for having us. >> brown: next, just in time for dinner, something new on the menu. it's a source of food that's readily available and sustainable: insects. the very thought might make you squeamish, but newshour correspondent spencer michels has tried them, and produced this story, together with the "quest" science program at kqed- san francisco. >> reporter: when you pick a restaurant for a special occasion, the last thing you anticipate is bugs. but here at trendy mosto in san francisco's hip mission district, that's just what's on the menu tonight. monica martinez, an artist and a cook, has pioneered the gourmet preparation of mealworms and crickets and the occasional grasshopper, which she prepares

in the restaurant's kitchen and serves up to an upscale clientele. >> a lot of people run away; some people have been waiting for it. they don't even ask questions; they are just ready to eat. >> reporter: on her menu are wax moth larvae tacos and salted crickets tostadita. why didn't you want to have one at first? >> it's the idea; it's just kind of gross. >> reporter: but you finally succumbed, right? >> peer pressure. >> reporter: and? >> not bad. not much substance; it doesn't really taste like anything unique. >> not too much flavor in these, but they were fun to try. i think americans are not quite ready for it, but it's mind over matter. once you start getting used to it, it's not that bad. these little ones. >> reporter: martinez may be a little early, but she is on to something. 80% of the world's population

regularly eats insects, though in the u.s. and many developed countries, they haven't quite caught on yet. martinez premiered her creations from a food truck at san francisco's street food festival, trying to turn a fad into a habit, the eating of the most abundant animals on earth. and that's also the goal of brian fisher, of the california academy of sciences. >> i'm not only an entomologist; i'm an entomophagist. what is that? that's somebody who eats insects. in fact, i want everybody to eat insects. i want mcdonald's to sell the mccricket, you know, where you go in there and you just crunch into a nice juicy cricket sandwich. >> reporter: the supplies shouldn't be too hard to procure, fisher says. >> scientists have documented about 1.1 million species of insects. insects run the gamut from cockroaches all the way to butterflies to termites to ants. we know there's about 1,700

species that are edible. that means they-re being eaten by local cultures around the world. in madagascar, these are the most common insects eaten; these are the locusts. they're huge. they're usually super abundant, and they're very good to eat. i prefer them barbecued. >> reporter: martinez hasn't yet put locusts on her menus. some of the bugs, maybe not the meal worms, but some of the others look kind of scary. are you comfortable with that? >> (laughing) you know what? i'm not saying it's an easy thing, the psychology of it is definitely... it has a lot to do with culture. some look scary. to pee crickets look scary but for other people crickets are more scary than worms and lar va. come on. you look at a cow or a pig, they can look scary too. >> reporter: the most used argument for increased insect

consumption the health. they're loaded with protein. in fact, gram for gram, pound for pound there's as much or more protein in insects than in a comparable amount o hafa. a six-ounce serving of crickets has 60% less saturated fat than the same amount of ground beef.chu m an ase much vitamin b-12. a six-ounce serving of meal worms has more protein than ground pork and half the fat. in addition, argues the cal academy's fisher, the need for protein is increasing, while producing it is becoming more difficult. >> now the problem is, can we have all seven billion people on earth going shopping and buying hamburger? that's not going to happen. there's not enough land to produce the soy or to graze the cattle on earth. >> reporter: insects, he and others say, could be the answer. for years-- in class, at food fairs like this, and at conferences around the world--

florence dunkel has been singing the praises of eating insects. she is associate professor of entomology at montana state university, and editor-in-chief of the "food insects" newsletter. >> you get more for your efforts because you can eat almost 90% of the insect, if not 100%. and in a cow you're only able to eat 44% of the cow. reproduction is very rapid, very very rapid. one month and you have an adult insect, starting with an egg. with a cow you have nine months gestation and a couple of years before you can harvest the cow. >> reporter: dunkel says insects will save money, land, water, energy, and more. >> it also makes sense to use insects as high-quality feed instead of going into the oceans and harvesting fish, or using very difficult-to-produce

alfalfa. >> reporter: and there's another advantage, especially with recent outbreaks of mad cow disease, contends brian fisher. >> we do have concerns about disease jumping from animals, like pigs and cows, to humans. but there are no worries about a disease jumping from an insect to humans. the more evolutionarily distant we are from our food source, the less danger there is. insects share very little d.n.a. with humans, so it's much safer in terms of diseases than eating cows or a pig, for example. >> reporter: one challenge for edible insect advocates is getting them. unlike markets in asia, you can't usually buy bugs at american grocery stores. there are no federal rules on inspection and approval for human consumption, which makes mass distribution questionable.

so people like monica martinez use a variety of sources. she orders insects from suppliers, or raises her own farm of mealworms. they hatch from eggs laid by darkling beetles, and fatten up on an all veggie, organic diet. >> i clean them once a week. they don't need much attention. i can raise 500 meal worms in like three months. >> reporter: cooking them is not complicated. martinez first freezes her crickets which kills them and then pops them into the oven. >> i like to make them get a little crunchy. >> today i'm making seered figs with sauteed grass hoppers and bee larva which are the bacon of the insect world. >> reporter: this woman is another edible insect advocate. she tries to combat the biggest problem: getting the

public to embrace or at least eat them. >> how many people here think it's weird to eat bugs? >> reporter: kids are taught from an early age that bugs are not only dirty but dangerous. she tries to combat that and sometimes it works. >> here's an example of something that looks really really scary but is in fact harmless. we're going to put this bug on hannah. how old are you? four and three quarters. no big deal. all right. insects are not necessarily just our enemies. >> reporter: martin uses the environmental arguments as well. >> how many gallons of water does a cow need in order to produce one pound of beef? 1,000 gallons of water. guess how many gallons you need for the same pound of protein from crickets? >> one? >> one is correct. >> reporter: but >> reporter: but science doesn't always prevail when it comes to eating bugs.

most americans will have to be persuaded one by one that what you eat won't eat you back. >> i didn't expect it to be like this. it's pretty good. >> once you get over the fact that they're actually bugs. no one knows how many americans are eating bugs or how many bugs but the topic is creating quite a buzz. >> brown: that's a tough story to follow. >> brown: online, we've posted more about insects you can eat. spencer tackles the "yuck" factor in a blog titled "bugs for dinner." and one of our colleagues at kqed-san francisco offers another called "finger-lickin' grub." enjoy. >> ifill: a legal proceeding against the master mind of the 9/11 attacks and four others. margaret warner has the story. >> warner: saturday marked the first court eye peerns in more than three years for khalid sheik mohammed the self

professed master mind of the 9/11 attacks and four co-defendants were arraigned before a military court at guantanamo bay, cuba. the men made a concerted attempt to disrupt the session which ran 13 hours. james canal, one of the defense attorneys, said sunday they are victims of an unjust system. >> these men have endured years of inuwe main treatment and torture. this treatment has had serious long-term effects and will ultimately infect every aspect of this military commission tribunal. >> warner: khalid sheik mohammed referred to as ksm was captured in pakistan in march of 2003 and was held in secret c.i.a. prisons for three years before being transferred to guantanamo in 2006. the government has acknowledged he was water boarded 183 time in 2003 before the practice was banned. on friday the lead prosecutor brigadier general mark martins insisted whatever came of such

sessions won't find its way into court. >> the law prohibits the use of any statement obtained as the result of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and we will implement the law. >> reporter: mohammed's co-defendantss charged with finding flight schools and helping the hijackers enter the u.s. another alleged ran a camp where two of the 9/11 hijackers trained. and another are accused of providing the 9/11 attackers with money, clothing credit cards and travel arrangements. each man is charged with 2,976 counts of murder and terrorism and potentially faces the death penalty. six family members of 9/11 victims were chosen by lottery to attend saturday's proceedings at guantanamo, seated behind glass. >> i want to see the people that killed my sister face to face. that's what you do in america.

you go and you face your fight. that's what we do. you know, we bring people to justice. >> warner: the bush administration began prosecuting the men in the military justice system in 2008. but a year later, president obama's attorney general eric holder announced they'd be tried in federal court in lower manhattan, just blocks from the world trade center. that plan was scrapped amid security fears and a political uproar. for more on saturday's proceeding and the wider case we go arun rath who has been reporting military justice stories for our ppbs partner front line and josh meyer co-author of the new book the hunt for ksm. he now teaches and directs a program at a journalism school national security initiative. both attended the session at guantanamo. so, gentlemen, starting with you. arun, take us inside that room. what was it like for this marathon session? >> the gallery room which is where the journalists who were

in the pool went in as well as the 9/11 family members and some representatives from n.g.o.s, it's actually part of the courtroom but it's separated by a double paned supposedly soundproof glass. for security reasons and also so that what we hear is we heard the court loud speaker played on a 40-second delay, sort of like what a shock jock would use. just so they can stop, you know, the proceedings and people won't hear if something comes up for security reasons. >> warner: josh meyer it sounded from reading the accounts it sounded as if ksm, khalid sheik mohammed was very much in the lead among the defendants in his behavior. >> yeah. i mean he stayed true to form. he's the leader of the group. he's a very disruptive presence in the courtroom but what's different about this from the last time i was there in 2008 and the last time we saw him publicly is in that case i was very defiant, very loud. had a lot of outbursts. in this case he was basically showing his opposition by not

saying anything, not doing anything and telling the others to do the same. >> what? some of them took out prayer rugs and started praying? >> yeah. one of them removed his shirt in the middle of the proceedings to show his alleged scars from torture that the judge obviously told him to knock it off. another one stood up to play at an unscheduled time in the middle of the proceedings. then there was another one who shouted out in the middle of the proceedings saying that he was worried that they were going to kill him and make it look like a suicide. that he wouldn't be back again. >> warner: the defense attorneys raised a lot of objections too. >> yeah. i mean it's pretty clear from their objections that this is going to go on forever. one of the attorneys told me that it could be years, maybe four years before there's a trial. what they were doing and what they said that their clients was doing just protesting, a silent protest for what they said was the unfairness of the whole system from front to back. >> warner: we saw that defense attorney say. to what end? i mean, to lay the ground work

for a future appeal? >> i think there was a lot of that. they can appeal to federal court. >> right. there was a lot of questioning of the judge bringing up issues. one attorney basically questioned his qualifications. others questioneded his objectivity. there were a lot of laying the ground work for appeals in the future. >> now the torture issue. how is it... i mean, some of the objections, again, as we heard from canal, had to do with trying to introduce the idea that their clients had been tortured or mistreated. what is the... will they be allowed to testify about that? what is does the defense want to do with that in terms of strategy? >> that's one of the big question s is so much thf process is top secret and classified that we don't even know whether they're going to be allowed to do that. the lawyers for the, you know, for the five men say they're not allowed to discuss this with their clients. their time in captivity, what the c.i.a. did to them whether they're going to be able to

entry deuce into court. of course that's extremely upon. there's an assumption that they're going to get con vikteded but whether they get the death penalty, the torture issue i think will be extremely important in terms of a mitigating factor. >> as we've heard they're not going to be using evidence in court that was derived from the harsh interrogation techniques but the defense is contending that these guys were tortured right from the get-go. anything that came out of their mouth since then even thol it was obtained by what they called the clean team went in and obtained interviews without using these techniques it's still tainted by the torture. they'll have it thrown out for that reason. >> warner: remind us about the role ksm played in al qaeda in the years when it was most effectively, you know, operational. >> well, it's interesting. that's a good question. there's a big disconnect there. i think most of the american public thinks that osama bin laden is the guy who did 9/11. when you really look at it khalid sheik mohammed is.

he was the guy who brought the plot to bin laden in '96 had to spend two years talking him into it. he got the green light to do and got a little bit of manpower and money from bin laden. he did it himself as an independent contractor. he kept his independence from al qaeda so he could run it his way. during that whole time he was also plotting as many as a few dozen other attacks. after 9/11 he personally decapitated daniel pearl the wall street journal reporter. when people think of bin laden, he actually was the guy sitting up in a corporate office not doing much in terms of actual operational stuff. ksm is the guy that was out there traveling around the world and getting things done. >> warner: about four years ago i think at a hearing khalid sheik mohammed proclaimed he was behind 9/11. does the way the attorneys acted suggest now they have a different strategy? >> well,.... >> warner: in other words he's sometimes described as the confessed or self professed master mind. >> i think what they would say again is that that statement

was made even though that same thing that's where he admitted to killing daniel pearl. but this was made after he spent all his time on the sites and after the torture. i think they will say again that still is tainted. >> warner: there's been the huge debate about whether this should be in a military or civilian court. how different are the procedures in this proceeding than they would be? >> i think they're very different. i covered at least part of the embassy bombings in 2001 of the guys that were charged with blowing up two american embassies in africa. it was a much more transparent system. you had family members of the victims in court with them so they could stair them down. you had witnessed being brought in. tons of evidence being read. a lot of cross-examination. it remains to be seen if that's going to happen here but i think that the difference is that this proceeding is being done in a military base in the middle of nowhere so people can't even get there. >> warner: the jury of course is going to be military also. >> right. >> this is much closer to the universal code of military justice. even more so than the bush

military commissions were. one of the interesting things though is that while there are issues with transparency and there are other ways in which, for instance, saturday one. reasons it was could so conson shus was the questioning of a judge. in some ways the proceedings are more empowered in the military system than they are in the civilian. >> warner: how long will it be before they actually get to the substance of these charges? >> i think starting next month they're going to start looking at the motions. the lawyers told me they're going to file literally hundreds of motions from their discovery, from their ability to talk to their clients in confidence, from the resources they've been provided. you have to remember the u.s. government has spent ten years now investigating 9/11. and there's a presumption in a case like this that the defense is supposed to have at least some parity in terms of defending their clients. there's a lot of issues that have to be add jude yated. >> warner: years to go. thank you both. >> you're welcome. >> thank you.

>> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. europe faced a potential new direction after voters in france and greece rejected harsh austerity measures. the associated press reported the c.i.a. disrupted an al-qaeda plot to blow up an airliner with an underwear bomb around the anniversary of osama bin laden's death. and white house officials said president obama is not ready to endorse gay marriage. questions arose after vice president biden said sunday that he is "absolutely comfortable" with the idea. online, we report on a new presidential poll. kwame holman explains. >> holman: it's the latest "u.s.a. today"/gallup survey of registered voters in a dozen swing states. that's on our politics page, where you can also sign up for the morning line e-mails. on the rundown, how access to arts education helped a musician thrive in high school, part of our "american graduate" series on preventing dropouts. paul solman talked with him

about baratunde thurston about his new book, "how to be black." here's an excerpt. >> brown: and that's the newshour for tonight. on tuesday, we'll look at the growing weight of the nation, and the mounting costs of the obesity epidemic. i'm jeffrey brown. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. y:fo hhoud wshour has been provided by: >> citi. supporting progress for 200 years. >> at&t. >> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy, productive life. 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. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org ( silver rat

those that welcome to antiques roadshow from minneapolis, minnesota. appraiser: lionel decided, "oh, let's make a train for little girls." it's really great to see the original little girl owner. it was me. i traced it back to 1942, which i believe is the first time that she did the hula. i'm not going to be able to get up out of my chair.